Blake Sobczak • Morocco
When I left Tangier, it felt like leaving home. When I made it to Florida a month ago, it felt like arriving home. And when I flew up to Evanston five days ago, it felt like, well, returning home. At least Paris still felt foreign to me.
Where is home for me? Is it where most of my friends are concentrated, or where I spent the most time in my life? Is it the place I think of most often, or the person I miss the most? Is home just an image I cultivate in my mind, the place where my consciousness dwells on the verge of sleep?
I’m young enough to entertain the possibility of returning to each of these places, from the dreamscape waterfalls of Chefchaouen to the Siwa Oasis to the primordial landscape in Kruger National Park. As I grow older and continue to travel, I’ll realize the impossibility of reliving it all again, of revisiting every favorite haunt and reconnecting with each old friend. But at the very least, I can pull open my old blog like a dusty photo album and look over the entries.
Chefchaouen drew me back to its sundrenched peaks this weekend. I shared a “grand” taxi from Tangier with five friends and spent Friday night on the roof of a hostel peppered with Spanish tourists.
On Saturday Nathaniel and I hiked up a neighboring mountain to camp on a ridge above town. We played chess on the summit as the sun set in gentle purples.
The iftaar announcement echoed up to us at about 7:30 p.m., seeming more like a drawling fire alarm than a prayer call. That shrill trumpet sound is a holy dinner bell for fasting Muslims. Nathaniel and I had already eaten our supply of fruit and bread by the time the city below us tucked into haraira soup, milk and dates. We also drank lots of water during our scramble up the final slope in the late afternoon. I haven’t been fasting for Ramadan, but then again, I’m not Muslim. I can eat and drink during the day this month without facing heavenly disdain.
Soon the full moon rose above a nearby peak, shedding light on our makeshift campsite. We set up a small fire and told scary stories. We had a bit of bro-bonding. No, not the Brokeback kind of bro-bonding. That’s still illegal in Morocco anyway.
At dawn we climbed down the rocky northern face of the mountain. At one point we had to make a daring, precipitous leap across some boulders to continue our descent. But to be honest, I slid on my ass for most of the time.
We had hiked for three and a half hours to reach our campsite, but the return trip on Sunday took less than one. Still, I was exhausted when we reached the ra’s al-ma’ (“head of the water”) in Chaouen. My knees wobbled from the stress of the steep descent. Sweat matted my back and twigs decorated my hair. My legs looked like a flunked research paper, all marked up in red. I soaked my scrapes and cuts in the icy water at the ra’s al-ma’ before submerging the rest of my body. I emerged feeling cleaner than a Christmas album by Hillary Duff. I’ll admit I could have used some shampoo, though.
The weekend in Chefchaouen was a great last huzzah. I’ll be flying back to the States on Friday, saying goodbye to Morocco for the second time in two years.
Marrakesh has a big reputation in the world of tourism, putting it on par with Timbuktu or Zanzibar for sightseeing and sheer distance. The spectacle of the place hangs heavy in almost every corner of the old city, from the Moroccan stalls and handicrafts in the souq to the snake charmers and storytellers in the central square. I didn’t have to look hard to find magic last weekend. In fact, it was practically forced on me around every corner, by Moroccans looking for a quick tip.
So yes, it was unabashedly touristy to have a snake draped around my shoulders in “the Mosque at the End of the World,” but how could I have resisted? It was all part of the game, all part of the romance. I spent two days in the city, and got exactly what I expected: palaces and courtyards, calls to prayer, exotic cuisine and shopping. Yet Marrakesh still awed me. It reminded me of the great pyramids in Egypt, when my mind’s eye image of a place collided with reality.
I didn’t spend the whole time lollygagging around like a trapped tourist. I took a break and returned to America last Sunday afternoon when I visited a McDonald’s for a McFlurry. The six of us CLSers met an Irishman there who was traveling solo around southern Morocco. He remarked that we were among the first English-speakers he had met in the country who weren’t trying to wring money out of him. Naturally we adopted him and wandered the markets with an accented tagalong.
On the way back to the old medina we were caught in a sandstorm that blew in like a train. The hot, gritty wind tried to pull out all the green-and-red Moroccan flags in the city while coating us in a layer of dust. The sand shrouded the sun brown, but did little to cool the stifling air.
The constant warmth is one of the less romantic aspects of Marrakesh. On Saturday the temperature reached 111 degrees Fahrenheit while we wandered the Bahia palace in the early afternoon. The oppressive heat imposed a silence on the palace grounds, and the air seemed thick enough to swim in.
Luckily, clever profiteers in the sprawling Jemaa el-Fnaa square found a solution for hot, thirsty tourists like me. Mobile orange juice stalls crop up early in the day throughout the plaza, offering fresh-squeezed drinks for just 4 dirham a cup (about 50 cents USD). As a Floridian, I have high standards for my orange juice, and these stands did not disappoint. I washed away my thirst from each urban hike with an ice-cold cup of juice, or two or three. There is nothing better. Not even the monkeys in the square.
Although those are pretty cool too.
The waterfall wrapped me in its shadow and sprayed me with icy mist. A hint of sun glared over the upper lip of the 150-foot cascade, but it was not enough to offer any warmth. My back was still slick with sweat from hiking, but I knew if I jumped into the water I would be instantly chilled.
“You know I’m taking video,” my friend Nathaniel said as I hesitated at the edge of a rock above the water.
I took a breath and dove in. The pool was so cold, I nearly gasped underwater. But when I made it to the surface I smiled.
Chefchaouen is Morocco’s natural gem, nestled in the Rif Mountains southeast of Tangier and Tetouan. There’s hiking, swimming, climbing, and lots of hash for those who are into that. I spent last Friday and Saturday (July 22 and 23) navigating the trails and rivers of the scenic landscape. It brought back memories from last year, such as the nighttime view of the town from a mountainside mosque.
I also added a few new experiences, including trip to the Ashqar waterfall. Nathaniel and I tried to climb to the top of the falls with Moroccan speaking partners Shahinez and Anwar. It wasn’t long before wild, long-haired Nathaniel ploughed ahead of us through scraggly brush and sliding rocks. After Shahinez and Anwar turned around, I tried a different route by myself, scrambling around a small cliff on all fours.
A few moments later I realized I made a classic climbing blunder—I hadn’t planned for the trip down.
Gnarled, thin roots and pointy shards of rock littered the steep slope behind me. My tenuous grasp on a half-broken branch was the only thing stopping me from falling. My calves burned as I dug in my feet into the thin soil and tried to turn around on the incline. My old tennis shoes weren’t helping me, so I slowly tried to pull them off.
Damnit—why the hell did I tie a double knot? I never tie double knots.
I reached down with my free left hand to slip one of the shoelaces apart. I kept a wary eye on the chunks of rock crumbling from under my feet.
I swear to God. Double knots. Who does that?
One shoe down. I cast it over the lip of the cliff and watched it tumble down the slope. That could be me, I thought glumly. The fall from my position was far from fatal, but it would still be painful and possibly bone-breaking.
When I finagled my next shoe off I felt much better. I slid down the escarpment on my ass, thankful that no one was there to see my descent. I found enough grip with my toes to keep from accelerating too quickly. I avoided falling off the cliff I had climbed around earlier and recovered my footwear down slope.
Nathaniel came back some twenty minutes later, boasting several new scratches and bruises. He had reached a root-covered overhang near the top of the waterfall, but opted to come back rather than attempt the final, slippery 15 feet.
I couldn’t call him chicken.
“Which do you prefer—security or chaos?” Elyasse said, balancing his hands like weights on a scale. He was debating the new constitution with his friend Al-Araby, but he directed the question at me.
“I prefer security,” I said in Arabic, goading him to elucidate his position. Elyasse smiled while Al-Araby shifted in his seat. We were gathered for a midnight meal at a Moroccan wedding, just days before the July 1 referendum on the new constitution.
“If we don’t approve the constitution, there will be chaos,” Elyasse concluded. “So why not vote yes?”
Al-Araby fired back in rapid Darija, so I unfortunately didn’t understand most of his counter-points. He seemed to be worried that the constitution would change nothing because the king would still control the military. He said the upset youth in Morocco would continue revolting. He went so far as to make a comparison to Libya.
Al-Araby was partly right. Moroccans have kept up the pressure on their government even after approving the new constitution on July 1. Last Sunday, more than a thousand protesters met in Tangier to demand more and faster changes. But oddly enough, most of the marches and street gatherings were before the referendum and in favor of the new constitution and the king, Mohammed VI. (I snuck the photo above at one such demonstration near the Rain Sky café in Tangier.)
This is the major difference between Morocco and so many other North African and Middle Eastern states. The people here love their king. The aptly-named February 20 Movement kick-started the protests here on—you guessed it—February 20, but the demonstrators have never called for tearing down Mohammed VI. They want a transition toward democracy. They want a parliamentary monarchy rather than a constitutional one. Many want a new prime minister to replace Abbas el Fassi, who has come to symbolize the corruption plaguing Moroccan politics. But they don’t want to overthrow the entire system. There is no revolution here.
I’m glad for that. I’m here to learn Arabic, not to report on democratic transitions. I don’t want to get caught up in violent protests. I don’t want to taste tear gas or get my camera and my skull smashed by police. I wasn’t lying to Elyasse when I said I prefer security.
If Moroccans want chaos and freedom, it’s up to them to choose that path.
Saturday morning arrived too quickly. My throat felt like a dry gravel road and my skull throbbed. My legs were sore from dancing the night before. The tiny beeps from my alarm clock drilled into my earlobes over and over again.
Finally I disentangled my aching body from the fetal position and rolled off my too-small bed. Breakfast called.
In less than an hour I found myself clinging to a handlebar on a Tangerine public bus wondering how night had segued into day so quickly. The morning felt like a continuation rather than a fresh start. I just needed a break. There was so much noise, so many Moroccan speaking partners and CLS students, so much Arabic.
My condition improved on the way to Asilah, a tiny seaside tourist town on the Atlantic coast. I was feeling better until I faced the walls of the ancient city. My sore eyes wandered the glaring white paint before settling on some soothing blue. Asilah, like its mountainous cousin Chefchaouen, is alive with blues and whites. Its walls are covered in art, including Arabic calligraphy and a painted tribute to those who died trying to cross the Strait of Gibraltar. Every year the drawings change as Asilans whitewash the walls and redecorate them. At night live music drifts through the narrow alleyways, a sign of summer festivals.
It didn’t take long for Asilah to lift my spirits. I had a huge seafood lunch at Calairis, tearing into a heap of whole fish, shrimp, calamari and sardines. I washed it all down with a good dose of nervousness as I watched my friends Nick and Nathaniel dive off a 30-foot cliff on the rocky coast. They had to time their jumps with the oncoming waves, or the water would not be deep enough to cushion the fall. Nathaniel emerged a bit bloodied after a wave smashed him into some rocks on the way out. Unsurprisingly, Moroccan children were making a game of the jumps, leaping from all kinds of crazy places.
Before long it was beach time. Nine of us CLSers hopped on the back of two horse-drawn carts and crossed through Asilah in style. When we reached the Armilande beach some 30 minutes north of the city, a picturesque expanse of shoreline greeted us. Groups of Moroccans played soccer near the sea as a white horse frolicked in the water near its handler. Cafes and umbrellas dotted the sand. Camels milled about, seemingly for no other reason than to give the scene an exotic flair. I felt like I was looking at the cover of some cheesy Orientalist romance novel.
On the way back from the beach, our driver pushed his carthorse to a gallop on the main road. I laughed as we passed two other groups. I felt the horse’s tail whishing my face and thought: “This horse must have an awfully long tail.” I realized it wasn’t a tail at all.
Then the shitstorm hit me.
The horse decided to relieve itself as it was running full speed, sending shards of horseshit in every direction, covering my backpack, my shirt and my face. Fortunately, it was dry enough to brush off. Unfortunately, some also got in my mouth.
But hey—shit happens, even on otherwise awesome days. I like to think I made a graceful recovery, although I was glad to take a shower when I got back to Tangier at about midnight.
The trip began early on Thursday, June 16. I woke up at 5:30 a.m. and stumbled out of the hut I had shared with my parents in the Shingwedzi Rest Camp near the northern border of Kruger National Park. The air was cool and dark. The moon had recovered from the full eclipse shrouding it earlier in the night. I took a quick shower and took to the road before the rising sun could burn away all the stars.
In three hours I arrived at the Phalaborwa Gate and said goodbye to the park. In another three hours I reached the Kruger/Mpumalanga International Airport near Nelspruit and said goodbye to my parents. I took a 1:35 p.m. flight to Johannesburg, going from a tiny airport with a thatched roof and wild animals to the hulking O.R. Tambo International Airport. My flight didn’t leave until 11:20 p.m. I reached Amsterdam Friday morning at about 10:30 a.m. and transferred to another KLM plane going to Chicago at 12:40 p.m. I reached Chicago at 2:40 p.m. Friday afternoon. The passport control guy stamps my passport. Welcome home. I took the El back to Evanston, where I spent the next 30-something hours in the company of friends. At some point in my jetlagged-induced haze I got the chance to say goodbye to several graduating seniors. Then, on Sunday, June 19, I flew to Washington, D.C. at 1:45 p.m. on American Airlines. I took the metro to the Renaissance Hotel after I arrived late at about 5 p.m. I checked in and caught up with some of this year’s Critical Language Scholarship recipients at a Mexican restaurant downtown. I didn’t know where the hell I was, but I think I introduced myself properly and managed to carry on a semi-intelligent conversation about travel in the Middle East with some new friends. We were all en route to the CLS program in Tangier, Morocco.
My Air France flight out of D.C. was delayed, meaning I would have to spend a night in Paris with the rest of the scholarship winners. Poor me. We left from Dulles International Airport on Tuesday night, arriving in Paris on Wednesday afternoon. I hopped on a train downtown and met up with an old friend from high school who was studying abroad in the French capital. We ate crepes, passed by the Moulin Rouge, saw the Arc d’Triumph and did some catching up. I still didn’t know where the hell I was.
Thursday morning arrived all too soon. It was time for another flight. I rolled out of the lumpy Comfort Inn bed that Air France had thrown me in and took the shuttle to the airport. I flew into Casablanca, picked up my bags, and hopped on a bus to Tangier with the rest of the new CLSers and the site director. It was about 10 p.m. on Thursday night by the time we reached the American School in Tangier. More than a week had passed since I started my zigzag adventure on the other corner of the continent.
Friday was a trial by fire. I took Arabic lessons in the morning before wandering around Tangier with some new friends. At night, I jumped right into a Moroccan wedding. The new Darija (Moroccan dialect) instructor’s sister was getting married. I went with my roommate Spencer and the other Darija teacher Yassim.
We arrived at about 11 p.m. And no, I still didn’t quite know where the hell I was. This particular part of the days-long wedding celebration was for men only, meaning some 40 Moroccans of various ages were seated in the living area of one Tangerine apartment. The air was thick and hot. Several party-goers recited verses from the Quran, their voices magnified by huge speakers. Mohammad, whose soon-to-be-married sister was upstairs, brought around sweet tea and sugary treats for all the guests. I struggled to pay attention as rapid-fire Darija words flew all around me. Spencer looked a bit lost, too.
This was substantially different from an American wedding party. There was tea instead of alcohol, and Quranic recitations and traditional songs for entertainment instead of strippers. I can’t say I’ve ever seen anyone pray at a U.S. bachelor party. I was taking in the event slowly, my mind trying to wrap itself around the Arabic language again.
Suddenly I had a microphone thrust in my face. Saeed the jokester wanted me to say something. The group of men fell silent. I cleared my throat and thought of something in Fosha. I thanked everyone for being so welcoming and called Saeed a “respectable” person. I told them it was a fantastic experience for me and that I had always wanted to go to a Moroccan wedding.
There was a pause before everyone applauded. I breathed a sigh of relief.
But Saeed wasn’t done with me and Spencer yet. The jokester just couldn’t pass up the golden opportunity. “So, these two Americans walk into a Moroccan wedding…” already sounds like the start to a great joke. He began grilling me in Darija, putting my Arabic memory to the test. Gradually the questions got harder and the laughs grew louder. He noticed I had eaten all the sweets, so when he pointed this out, I blamed Spencer. He said that a box of sweets is a Moroccan passport. When he comes home late, he has to present his wife with some sweets or else she won’t believe he actually went to a wedding. I told him I wasn’t married so I didn’t have to face the same problem—I could eat all the sweets myself. It’s better that way.
We joked for a while until he finally turned the mic over to Spencer for a few words. I’d like to think I held my own in the conversation, but it wasn’t easy and I glanced back at Yassim a few times for encouragement. Still, I drew plenty of laughs and I’d like to think I gave the party-goers some decent entertainment.
Next came dinnertime. Mohammad brought out huge plates of cow and chicken cooked with prunes and olives. About ten of us sat around a circular table and ate with our hands, all from the same dish. The other party-goers ate from their own tables. Mohammad presented us with a watermelon bursting with yoghurt and diced fruits for dessert. We discussed everything from work to the weather to the upcoming July 1 vote on the new Moroccan constitution. I was very careful not to bring anyone’s mother into the conversation.
It was almost 4 a.m. by the time I crawled into bed back at the American School in Tangier. I still may not have known where the hell I was in the world, but at least I could get some sleep.
The Olifants River comes alive as the African sun sits low on the horizon. A young Nile crocodile basks peacefully on the bank, its mouth hanging wide open to keep itself cool. A grey heron eyes the stream for minnows. Elephants forage on the nutritious reeds, cracking branches in the middle of the wide river with their dexterous trunks. Once mealtime is over, the elephant families move on, but some of the youngest ones must struggle to climb the steep embankment on the southern side.
In winter the muddy water flows slowly. The river still runs its natural course in this segment, untouched by humanity save for the bridge spanning its quarter mile breadth. It hasn’t been artificially deepened to allow channels for trade. It hasn’t been dammed here, nor overdeveloped. Its water still curls into hidden eddies and pools. Its course is fluid and curving. Beyond the bridge, there are no straight lines until the horizon.
I watched the scene from a safe vantage point on the bridge on Monday, June 13. Everything looked so tranquil that I was half-tempted to dive right in and go for a swim. But Kruger National Park is no place to fool around. If I tried going in for a dip, a 14-foot croc in the river would latch on to me before going into a death roll. I would try to struggle, but in the water I would just drown faster the more I tried to resist. If the crocodiles didn’t get to me, a young bull elephant could charge and gore me to death. A hippo could trample me or bite me in half. Hell, a heron could even poke my eye out.
I stayed on the bridge.
Kruger’s primeval nature makes it especially alluring for a student like me, detached from my roots in Africa. Don’t worry—I’m not going to spout some bullshit about reconnecting with nature and realizing that I’m not so different from the Homo sapiens who wandered the Kruger Park to hunt game in ancient times. Unlike them, I wouldn’t last two nights out in the park. I’d be an idiot to imagine otherwise.
But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the primordial. In all, I spent two weeks in Kruger over my three month stay in South Africa. I spent four days with the illustrious Professor David Bunn and veterinarian James Roxburgh, another four days with “Mad” Mark Tennant of Animal Planet fame, and six days with my parents Molly and Charlie, who visited me in South Africa after my internship at The Star ended. I reported on rhino poaching, went on game walks, saw the Big Five (lions, leopards, rhinos, Cape buffalo and elephants), watched a traditional Swazi dance and even ate some kudu meat. I toured the park from top to bottom, from the private Nkambeni tented lodge near the Numbi gate to the research camp at Skukuza to the northern Shingwedzi Rest Camp. I had close encounters with hyenas and elephants and watched a mother rhino show signs of aggression as she guarded her child.
I entered the park as a boy and left as a man. That sounds dramatic, but it’s true—I didn’t know how to drive manual transmission until my parents taught me in Kruger. And you can’t really be a man until you can use a clutch, stick shift and gas pedal to lurch a hulking heap of metal forward. Everyone knows that.
Untitled from Blake Sobczak on Vimeo.
As the crow flies, Melville is only about three miles from The Star’s offices on 47 Sauer Street. But Johannesburg’s primeval public transit system makes every trip to and from work an adventure.
The video above gives a quick, shaky idea of how I begin my days here. I’ve fast-forwarded through most of the walking and driving parts—the original video lasted around 30 minutes. I shot it on a flip camera that I tried to shelter in my right hand. The sped-up parts can be nauseating to watch, but I’m a photographer, not a filmmaker. Also, I’m still working on the sound.
First I walk from the Ginnegaap Guest House on 54 4th Ave. down to the corner of Main Road. I stick my finger up in the air to signal a passing taxi. (South Africans call minibuses “taxis” and call taxis “cabs.”) A finger pointed upward means I want to go far—in this case, likely to the central Bree station where most taxis head in the morning. If I wanted a quick, local ride, I’d point my finger to the ground.
Despite the fact that 95 percent of the taxis head to Bree station in the Central Business District, I still check with the driver to make sure. Sometimes they go to Braamfontein station and tell Bree-bound passengers to transfer at Enoch Sontoga Road. One time, Fenit, Adam and I were ungracefully dumped off in a rough part of town northeast of The Star building after we failed to specify that we wanted Bree station. It was during the worst part of the municipal workers’ strike, so we had to wade our way through more than a mile and a half of trash-strewn, sketchy sidewalks before we reached The Star. Since then we’ve always double-checked with the driver.
The fare is eight rand—slightly more than one U.S. dollar. As soon as I step into the crowded taxi, the crazy ride begins, often before I can close the door completely. Taxi drivers are seemingly above the law in Joburg. They speed through red lights, swerve around slower traffic and change lanes without looking. Their vocal honking language would give Cairenes a run for their money. Metropolitan police officers rarely stop them, although in this video the driver was pulled over for a routine check at one point. (I had to put my camera down for a moment when the JMPD officer passed in front of me.) They form a surprisingly strong lobby group in Joburg politics, which may be part of the reason why the city lacks a strong, safe public transit system.
I sat in the front seat on this trip, which often entails counting out the money that passengers in the back send forward. If the total amount isn’t right, the driver will get angry Zulu on someone’s ass. No one wants that.
Most of the communication in the taxi takes place in Zulu or some combination of local languages, but sometimes English sneaks in. Saying “after robot” indicates a stop request. (“Robot” is South African English for “traffic light.”) Taxi drivers aren’t afraid to stop anywhere. I’ve seen hair-raising transfers take place right in the middle of traffic on busy roads.
When the taxi finally arrives at Bree station, I step out and finish walking to work. The Central Business District bustles with activity on most days. Street vendors sell everything from dried Mopani worms (a light snack here) to sheep heads to shoe polish.
The commute can be dangerous, beyond just the crazy taxi drivers. While on my way to work last Sunday, a salt-and-pepper-stubbled homeless man held a knife to my stomach and said “gimme the phone!” With my iPod earbuds in, I shouted “What the fuck?!” pushed him away and ran like hell. I didn’t get stabbed and I didn’t get anything stolen, but it still shook me up quite a bit. The CBD is a crowded place normally, as you can see from the video. I wasn’t thinking of danger when he struck. I slowed the video down where the man tried to mug me (the second to last slow-down).
I was listening to “Scar Tissue” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers when he attacked. Sometimes I wonder if I would have reacted differently had I been playing other songs. For instance, if I had been listening to Rage Against the Machine, I think I may have punched him in the face. If I had been listening to Chopin, I probably would have calmly given him everything on me. If I had been listening to the High School Musical 3 soundtrack, I probably would have begged him to stab me.
In any case, so far I’ve made it to work every morning all in one piece. The trip usually takes about 30 minutes.
Dumisani Mpofu, 19, awaits his sentence with wide-eyed, blank-faced complacency. He is shackled at the ankle to his partner in crime, 22-year-old Preacher Ngwenya. During his last court appearance, Mpofu attempted to escape, so the presiding judge called for heightened police security in the Newlands Magistrate Court.
Magistrate Koos Pretorius finally issues his decision. Mpofu bites his lower lip as an interpreter translates the result into Shona. Thirty-five years in prison. Half a lifetime.
I realize that the bald Zimbabwean robber is a year younger than me. He was only 17 at the time of his arrest in 2009.
Mpofu led a series of premeditated armed robberies in the hilly Melville Koppies, just steps away from where I live in Jobrug. He would wait in the bushes for unsuspecting hikers to pass by on the trail, and then jump out wielding a shotgun. Ngwenya preferred using a knife, and he often stabbed his victims after taking their shoes, wallets and cell phones. Ngwenya got 45 years in prison.
“People go to the Koppies to find some solitude away from the hurly-burly of our existence in Johannesburg,” Pretorius lamented before the sentencing. “What is becoming of our city if we can’t visit this famous landmark in peace?”
Mpofu’s case only reinforces engrained fears here. I’ve heard more than one well-off South African refer to the country as “a nation of thieves,” so it comes as no surprise that the wealthy hole themselves up in villas guarded like strongholds. They keep big dogs and bigger walls, and top the perimeter with barbed wire or electric fencing. They hire security guards and post signs reading “TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT– SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN.” And I don’t think they’re kidding.
But it’s not just a matter of the haves versus the have-nots. I couldn’t even escape the barbed wire in an informal settlement in Zandspruit, where raw sewage flows through peoples’ homes. I found plenty of fencing in Freedom Park, a poor neighborhood near crime-ridden Eldos. Barbed wire even encircled the Grace Bible Church in Soweto (a segment of the church’s fence is pictured above). The message behind all this is disturbingly clear: nowhere is safe. No one is safe. It might not be true, but it’s locked in peoples’ psyches and it’s more than enough to unnerve a six-foot-two American like me.
I’ve caught on to the culture of fear and carry a fake wallet that I can give up. I haven’t been mugged, but I’m always on the lookout for would-be attackers. I rarely walk anywhere alone. I try not to make too much noise or appear lost. I throw a glance over my shoulder every now and then, just in case.
The UN ranks Johannesburg as the most unequal city in the world, with a Gini coefficient of .71. The CIA considers South Africa the most unequal country in the world. So here I am, a wealthy American in the most unequal town in the most unequal country. Perhaps I have good reason to be on edge.
Adjusting to the barbed wire culture will take time. I just hope I don’t descend into paranoia.
