The Real Africa

Hello all,

Leaving Durban, I was a bag of nerves because finally I planned on using the local minibus service. S. Africans are full of stories saying that you should never use them, they're dangerous, have lots of accidents etc. On face value, I saw no differene between them and the local transport in much of Asia but when people are fearful of something they tend to pass that fear on.

Pierre, a lovely guy from the hostel drove me to the correct minibus rank and helped me find the right bus. He kept on telling the ticket tout to drive carefully and look after me, which was very sweet. The ticket tout, a massive man, was so excited that I was travelling on his minibus that when we met, he engulfed me in a bearhug after shaking my hand. Turned out the driver was actually someone else, but it was all safe and good. Travellling anywhere by minibus is a pain because they only go relatively short distances, so you have to change several times - each time waiting for the bus to fill up before carrying on.

This was real, local travel though. About halfway throught the trip, the driver (who I was sitting next to) knudged me not so subtly in the ribs (I was snoozing) cause he wanted to talk. Many people here think of England as a promised land, and when average healthcare, education and living standards are so poor you can understand why, but here people do things slowly - 4 people do 2 persons job. They would hate England, the weather, the lifestyle, the work expectations. The dilemma is, do I try and explain why England would not be so great for them? Or let them live on with a dream? It's a tough one and I've moreorless decied on the latter.

Aids is a massive problem with 1/3 of the population infected. Goodness knows what will happen when it gets to half, only a short jump away then from everyone. Can you imagine if nearly everyone was infected? Be basically the end of a race! Horrifying really. Big problems educating the locals because they see condoms as white mans oppression and believe that they can cure aids by natural means. Apparently for a lot of jobs, you have the person doing it and one in training, wiating for the first person to die of Aids, so they are ready to step in without a break. Also huge burden on families as they spend the little money they have tryng to help the people with aids.

I visited St. Lucia wetlands for a couple of days. Wnet for walks in games parks - no leopards - probably not a bad thing as I was on foot! Scared myself bad enough being faced with a load of cattle type animals with big horns... Thought they were going to chase me!! Saw lots of hippos which was wicked. I was on land, a tour boat in the river, they came closer to tell me to back away from the hippos so I wouldn't be eaten! Think they were being slighly unfair, I was a good distance away, downwind and no threat to the the hippos at all. Still I took their advice ; )

Also saw a traditional Zulu dance which seems to involve men jumping up and down and raising their legs above their heads. Hmmm. Exactly what is this supposed to signify??!

Then i went to Sodwana Bay via 3 minibuses - a 1 hour journey took 5 hours! Stayed in a lovely bush lodge, very natural with open fires every night. Sometimes I was the only person there but there was different people coming and going so I wasn't particularly lonely. Dived everyday although the conditions for the most part were terrible. 2m swells in an inflatable boat. We flew through the air on occasion with bone-jarring landings on the waves! Good diving - the reefs are in great condidtion. Had basically decided that I didn't want to work there (hard to get accomodation, difficult to get aroudn without a car and no work going at the moment anyway), but the company I really wanted to work for have just emailed me to say sorry they didn't contact me before but were away, pls phone them.... Ahhhhh! Of course, I have just left Sodwana Bay..... Ahhhh! Had decided to go to Mozambique, but now it's all up in the air again!

Hope you are all well and happy,
Love
Kx

P.S. Some short stories from other travel in SA

1) On the bus from Port Elizabeth to Coffee Bay, the driver told us in no uncertain terms to “prepare to get off the bus”. One feisty lady insisted on knowing the reason why but the driver just said “prepare to get off the bus”. We got off to find a guy in khaki gear with a gun motioning at us to walk behind the bus, when we got there another guy with a guy told us to go to the front of the bus. There was a sponge mattress on the ground, soaked in something, which we had to walk over. I was given a leaflet in English explaining that this was to contain an outbreak of swine fever. Very effective, I thought!

2) Walking down the beach in Jeffrey’s Bay I encountered two young men, who seemed very happy and were collecting rocks. They shook my hand and welcomed me to Jeffrey’s Bay with great excitement. Apparently, this was the best place on earth. I was slightly perturbed and I asked why they were collecting rocks. They were making a cairn which they insisted that I saw. Later when I passed by them again, they were dancing around the cairn and flinging sand above their heads. Must be something in the air! The invited me to a beach party which I decided not to attend ; )

3) Driving with the 2 Belgiums up from Coffee Bay to Umkomass. We were pulled over for speeding. The policeman was very polite, let us play with the speed camera, pretended to write up a ticket which we would have to pay in Belgium, then when the other policeman walked another speeding offender back to her car, told us we were free to go. He said he had waited as it would have been rude to the lady for him to be seen to treat us differently (as tourists). Happily we left. It was only much later that we realised he was clearly expecting some kind of bribe from us! Not that we would have paid it anyway. We must have looked far too aimless for him to pursue the bribe in more specific terms! Better luck next time..