Joburg/Soweto

My last week in Africa was spent in Johannesburg and Pretoria to visit my client one last time. Below-left a view from the TechnoServe office of the Joburg skyline, and below-right a picture of the outside of my friend's cottage where I stayed. Very typical sight--it's really true what they say about all the streets in Joburg being lined by walls and all the security homes have to have because of the enormous crime problem they have there. The city is quite attractive, lots of hills and trees, nice neighborhoods, etc...which is why it felt so weird that you had to be so cautious all the time. i.e. I'm used to cities where crime is a big concern like say Sao Paulo or Phnom Penh...but there it seems more natural that there would be crime because things just kind of look more destitute. In Joburg you'll have these really nice housing communities close to quaint coffee shops/bars/restaurants/etc. and yet you feel the same tension as if you were in Harlem in the 80's. Crime simply isn't limited to the poor parts of town in South Africa.

My second to last day in Africa, I had a bit of time for one last touristy thing so I decided to do a tour of Soweto, the largest urban black settlement in Africa with over 3 million people. Unlike Joburg, Soweto apparently has much less violent crime because the local community have a kind of vigilante mentality...which can always be a dangerous thing, but then again if you can't rely on the police--which one report said was understaffed by 50%--I guess you gotta what you gotta do. Below-left entering Soweto through one of the nicer areas. Below-right a cluster of the quintessential "matchbox" houses built by the government for Soweto residents:

Below, a couple scenes from one particular township, Embizweni, that we got to see up close:

Below-left, Nelson Mandela's former house, which is now a museum. Below-right a sign for Vilakazi Street, the only street in the world to house two Nobel laureates (Mandela and Desmond Tutu):

Kruger safari

As promised, some highlights from my day trip to Kruger Park just across the border in South Africa. Quite a welcome to the wild continent I must say. I didn't see all of the Big Five (elephant, rhino, lion, leopard, buffalo), only the first two, but saw many others including the giraffe, zebra, hippo, baboon, warthog, impala, gazzelle, wildebeest and crocodile.


















Posted a few pics here, but make sure to also check out the video below of our close encounter with a flustered elephant. It may not do justice to just how nerve-racking it was at one point. In fact if it wasn't for another vehicle suddenly accelerating to the right of us and scaring the big bull back, it really looked like he was about to charge. Then again it could have easily been my hard, De Niro-esque stare down that made him retreat.



For the record,that Shaggy song in the background just happened to be playing on the car radio at the time--I didn't dub it in or anything. That said, my mind is now racing with possibilities for the audio on the next clip. Stay tuned.