Racism

I was spending the day with my Aunty Anne, when I accidentally fell into conversation with a racist. She was the owner of a biltong shop in a mall north of Johannesburg, and seemed very kind and considerate when I first entered the store. But once she found out my family had immigrated to Canada, her attitude changed. She weighed my 100 grams of biltong and told me how right it was for my parents to move us away from this nation. She believed the entire country was going to the dogs in government, and that most of them had nothing between their ears. With a rather alarming vehemence, she spoke of black people being barbaric, of not knowing how to do anything, and how she was convinced Apartheid was the best thing that happened to this country.
The money was on the counter, the bag of biltong held limply in my hand. My stomach was churning; I was ready to rush outside and be sick. It was one thing to hear of people who think like this--it's a completely different situation to encounter them one on one. She rambled on about Eugene Terrablanche having the right idea about how to deal with "those people", as I edged my way to the door. Thankfully, another customer walked in, and I was able to excuse myself from the hate speech being thrown at me.
Who did this woman think she was, that she could stand there in her upmarket neighbourhood and criticize fellow citizens of a different race? I feared not only her hatred, but also the continued existence of her life. Surely, her poisonous words would come back to violently haunt her.
16 years have passed since Nelson Mandela became president, and yet racism continues to wreak havoc within this country. I wonder if we stopped believing that "those people" were barbaric or stupid and started treating them just the same as anyone else, would the problems still be there? If the government cracked down on corruption, and began to tackle the overwhelming poverty in rural and urban areas, would there still be violent attacks on innocent people? If South Africa stopped focusing on impressing the rest of the world, and began work on the education of the country's future leaders, could peace be on the horizon?
If only South Africa were able to leave the past behind and work on the present, there might actually be some hope for the future.

Sugar cane and ocean views

It was a holiday within a holiday. Touching down on the newly minted runway of the King Shaka International Airport, we were greeted with warm sun and dear family. Granny and I flew down for 6 days to celebrate her sister's 80th birthday but we didn't really need an excuse to visit the family. As we drove away from the airport, the landscape of sugar cane fields and ocean confirmed that visiting Durban was the best decision I made this year.
Durban, Kwa Zulu Natal, is as far from the prairies as you can possibly get. The city lies on the eastern coast of South Africa and the warm currents from the Indian Ocean provide a sub-tropical setting. Even in winter, a winter that gets down to 13 degrees, the city is hidden under a lush canopy of trees, cycads, and other tropical vegetation. Some of the city's oldest roads almost never see sunlight, as the dense foliage from the trees on the avenue wind themselves into a natural archway.
The city is also set upon the hills that slope towards the coastline. I thought my childhood terror of Durban's steep roadways was foolish, but I was proven wrong. Many a time during our visit, I sat with my hands over my eyes as our vehicle hurtled down the incline. On the afternoon we arrived, my sweet, great Aunty Joan and my dear grandmother nattered away about life in the front seat of the former's vehicle, whilst I hungs on for dear life as we zoomed around Durban. Whoever said elderly people drive slowly have obviously not met my Aunty Joan.
But, regardless of my fear of steep inclines, the trip went exceedingly well. Gran and I spent the afternoon in the aquarium, both of us fascinated by the jellyfish and sharks. My cousin, Annette, took me up to Valley of 1,000 hills, where we visited a traditional Zulu village. I bought curry powder at Victoria Street Market in the city centre, and even spent the morning swimming at Umhlanga Beach. (when I say "swim", I really mean "attempt to not get knocked senseless by incoming tide.") We did many, many other things, but I won't bore you with all the details.

There's a first time for everything

My first glimpse of South Africa was not as I imagined. Flying in from London Heathrow at 6:30 AM, I imagined the sun casting brilliant rays of light over my former home. Instead, most of Gauteng was shrouded in a fog as thick as pea soup and we were swallowed up by the dense cloud cover, as we touched down at the airport. After a sleepless 11 hour flight, my mind was reeling. I was home. Home. I couldn't believe I was finally in South Africa. I dragged my tired body through customs, baggage collection, and out into Arrivals and the waiting arms of my aunt.
It was an overwhelming first couple hours. I was so exhausted I could hardly speak, and I had family members beaming at me like a litter of cheshire cats. At once, everything was so intimately familiar and utterly foreign. Memories came flooding into my head and I began to wonder if I had made the right choice in coming here. In a moment of desperation, I went to the washroom in attempt to find a little peace in which to sort out my muddled thoughts.
The washroom is really a WC, a tiny little room housing nothing more than the toilet and toilet roll dispenser. I went in, shut the door and took a couple minutes to regain my composure. But when I made to open the door, I realized I had accidentally locked it. The key was in the door, so I turned it one way and then the other. Neither worked on the lock. I tried again and again, and then, in defeat, I leaned my head against the door. "I have been in South Africa less than five hours and I go and get myself locked in the WC. Fantastic."
The humiliating part wasn't getting locked in--it was calling for someone to get me out. When my grandparents and Maria, the maid, realized what happened, they all packed up laughing. Grandpa attempted to get the door unlocked, whilst my gran stood behind him sending a text message to my uncle in the UK. After a while, a locksmith was called and my grandpa slid a section of the newspaper under the door for me to read.
The locksmith did show up fairly quickly, and got the door unjammed. It seems the lock had caught in the doorjamb and would've needed a locksmith to fix it sooner or later. The man, a strange mixture of South African and Parisian, was incredibly kind to my grandparents and even gave them a senior's discount.

Five hours in a different country. That has got to be a new record (or low) for me.

Forever Daisied,
Confused and
Wary of going to the WC,
Karen

P.S. It was a high of 21 degrees celsius today and I counted about 30 people wearing knee high boots and sweaters. I wore capris and sandals.

Do you want to sit next to me on this flight to London?

My seat mate on the flight from Toronto to London was quite an interesting woman. When we arrived at our seats (she cut in front of me in the check-in line at the airport), her face contorted itself into a look of supreme disappointment in her seat mate. I couldn't say I was very happy either. She spent the first ten minutes on board counting how many crying children were in the economy class (eight, to be exact). I made a snap judgment about her as we settled down into our seats: she was a rich woman (as I could deduce from the jewelry) and was used to sitting in first class where she wouldn't have to share a seat and would be far away from crying babies. But due to some unfortunate circumstance, she now had to travel in economy with all the yokels.
As we taxied down the runway, I wondered if I should actually give her a reason to be sorry she was sitting next to me....I could drink a large quantity of water during the flight and then continually interrupt her sleep by asking her to move so I coud go to the washroom. But before I put my diabolical plan into action, the woman redeemed herself by:
a.) sharing a chocolate brownie with me
b.) rushing to the aid of another traveller who has cancer and suddenly became rather ill halfway through the trip. My seat mate turned out to be a nurse, and she stayed awake for most of the flight, just so she could walk to the back every 10 minutes and check on the other passenger.
We chatted for a bit, as we got closer to Heathrow and I found out she was from Thunder Bay and would be catching a connecting flight to Aberdeen to visit family. The last I saw of her, she was dashing down the plane, worried that she wouldn't make it to the other side of the airport in time.

Lesson of the day: don't judge a book by its cover.