A Different Kind Of Sharking

Dah-dum, dah-dum...yes there is a huge Great White Shark powering its way towards me, dorsal fin poking through the surface of the water like a great triangular warning sign. But it's ok, because by all intents and purposes I should be in a large boat which is resistant to all of these kinds of things, too solid to be worried by anything as small as a fifteen foot long, two tonne shark. Oh no what's that? I'm actually in the water less than a foot away from this beast as it crashes into the cage in front of me. Slightly nervy at first, I'll tell you that much.

To be honest, it wasn't really that bad. More fascinating than frightening. Just to see these epic fish up so close and to experience their awesome power is something else. Their teeth are like shards of ivory just rammed into their gums and their mouths are so massive I'm pretty sure they could swallow me whole (I've lost a bit of weight recently, you see), and if not me they could definitely swallow your children.

Despite being told about how agile they were - apparently that is the only advantage they have over Orcas (killer whales), who are their only predators; that and the fact that Great White Sharks just leave their children to die if under attack - they all seem quite cumbersome to me. Charging in to grab some cheeky tuna heads left on the surface of the water by the crew, the sharks seem to just charge straight through (at 20 knots, apparently) and then smash straight into us. Which rattled me a bit, I don't mind telling you. It rattled the cage slightly more though.

Shark cage diving is just as contrived as every kind of wildlife viewing. It involves getting in a big boat with lots of other tourists, motoring out across a bay, lobbing a big metal cage in the water and a couple of bleeding fish heads into the water and then waiting for some sharks to come. When the shark comes up you jump over the side into the cage, the man with the fish heads puts them right in front of the cage and you try to avoid filling your wetsuit with all kinds of horrible things as the shark comes within a hair's breadth of your position. It is good fun, and the only way to see these beasts up so close is by being in the water with them. It was cold though.

The place I did it was called Gansbaai, funny because it is pronounced 'Hanssbye', being Arikaans and all. I was staying in Hermanus, which has the most whales chilling out under its cliffs out of anywhere in Africa. So I was just walking home from Pick'n'Pay (the Tescos of SA) when I spotted about six whales just languishing in the bay. I stopped and ate my pre-pack cheese, ham and tomato sandwich there, just watching mum and baby whales having a nice time in the choppy water. I had a nice time, too. Though my photos were dire, the whales being mostly underwater and all.

And now its Cape Town until the end of my trip. The Lonely Planet says it is easy to fall in love with this place. I will fall in love with it as soon as I stop getting people coming up to me threatening to knife me, which happened twice today. And I am yet to walk home tonight yet. But I suppose that is my own choice in doing things on my own and refusing to get taxis anywhere.

On a lighter note, I went to Mandela's old prison cell today. It was smaller than I imagined; 18 years is a long time to spend in a room the size of a kitchen cupboard.

Full Circle

Back on the mean streets of CPT. Well, it certainly feels like Compton in places anyway (in case you were wondering, Compton is the birthplace of more platinum-selling artists than anywhere else in the world) but really Cape Town is nowhere near as bad as that dark corner of South Central Los Angeles. Although I did do my now habitual thing of arriving in the most dangerous part of the city - Cape Flats Metrorail Station - alone at 9.30pm with no real idea of how I was going to reach my hostel. 

But it was no big deal really - I survived doing it in Jo'burg which has a bit of a reputation, whereas Cape Town is known by all to be one of the safest places on earth to be at night - the Zurich of the Southern Hemisphere. That's as long as your locked up in your City Bowl Penthouse.

Which I was by 10.00, which allowed me to get a massive case of deja vu. Not only was I in the same place I had started my trip back in June, I was also being confronted by some religious nutter once again. Something I neglected to mention when writing about Cape Town a few months back, but the first person I met whilst starting my travels of this mega continent was a God-fearing mentalist who was hiding in backpacker's hostels to escape the realities of life.

So it was to my surprise and (feigned) delight that within five minutes of re-entering a dorm in Cape Town I found myself in an argument with some bloke who accused the City of London of hatching a conspiracy to subjugate the entire world's populace by collapsing the financial system again, having just caused an earthquake/tsunami in Japan, the tropical storms on the Eastern Seaboard of the USA and are now somehow leading a comet to crash into Russia/China. But it's ok, everyone, don't worry - because out of the ashes of this crisis God/Jesus will come again, cast out the devil and we will be saved.

Except for me. We got into this conversation after the usual questions of, 'So what will you do when you go home?' To which I normally answer, 'Well, get a job probably. Seems to be the done thing.' At which point they ask me what I want to do, and I'll say something like, 'Most jobs are in London, so probably a generic city job or something.' At which point I was branded a Luciferian, and our quarrels began. Yes, Barclays/HSBC/RBS/HBOS/Lloyds/Citi/Every other bank you can think of are run by the devil, in case you were wondering. And they are going to destroy the world unless we do something about it.

Oh dear, I'm boring myself talking about this. I was so bored at the time that I ventured out on to the Cape Town streets under the pretext of getting something to eat, only to find I didn't really want to be out on the Cape Town streets that late at night to I went home again. Still, it was better than listening to the ramblings of a madman.

In other news, my spending has reached start of the trip levels owing to an addiction to Dairy Milk Biscuit (never seen it in the UK - it is diamond, I tell you) which my mugging experience did nothing to put me off of.

Slightly more interesting is the fact that I did the highest bungee jump in the world the other day. 216m off the Bloukrans Bridge, at Storms River on the Garden Route in South Africa. I'd love to say it was amazing, but it was all a bit dull really. The best part was the music they played before we jumped - throwing some shapes to a funky house remix of Dennis Ferrer's 'Hey Hey' whilst two metres away from plunging to my death/an adrenaline explosion is something I won't forget for a while. But all in all, I need to get away from these high octane activities for a while. I think I'll leave them until I've worked a dull job in an office (where my boss will be the devil) for a year or so, then I will appreciate these things a bit more. Got great white shark diving coming up - we'll see how that goes.

Only a week left here now. A lot to cram in, but then even more to do when home.

'HIV - To Make You Feel My Love'

This desecration of the title of one of my favourite Adele songs annoyed me just a little. As much as I like to see that a British artist is doing so well in a different continent (her most recent album, 21, is just as big here as it is in every other part of the world), I don't like to see it graffitied onto the side of a school in such a way that pretty much somes up the nonchalant attitude people have to HIV. But then I suppose if half the people in your village have it, it must be quite easy to not give it a second thought. Or not. Different world this, really.

And it is different. Travelling along the south coast of SA is like walking through a tunnel that has been hotboxed by a rasta who is trying to burn his ganger supplies before the police come. You can't move without weed being in the air somewhere. I went on a cheeky hike in the jungle (yeah I didn't know there was a jungle here either, but there is) and our guide had to have a joint at 9.00 in the morning to give him the energy to climb up a big hill. It reminded me of being in the Himalayas where our sherpas used to chainsmoke cigarettes they had named 'stamina sticks'.

I have declined to add marijuana abuse to my increasing list of vices, but the extent of passive dagga inhalation might be the reason for these epic headaches I keep getting. Or maybe that's the combination of too much beer and a diet of bread, jam and 'polony' - some cheap but nasty processed meat they all eat here.

Anyway being down here is like being at home. On my way from East London I travelled through Colchester, which was odd. It is Britain's oldest recorded town, but the only sign of any Romans I could spot in this Colchester was a nice straight road. Except this road had roadworks and loads of potholes, obviously. And then in Port Elizabeth I stayed in Southend. It was even on the seafront. Didn't have a pier though, nor any rude teenage girls walking round in belt-length skirts shouting alcohol fuelled obscenities at all and sundry. In this particular Southend they don't really say anything before they stab you.

So a long time on the road also brings out a few experiences. Like getting a ride in a local minibus where the area's pimp was giving his morning payout to his girls. I wondered what was happening when we stopped every five minutes for this guy to give young semi attractive girls wads of cash at the side of the road, but when I exchanged a puzzled look with the person next to me, she explained that the girls were getting paid for, 'The work they did last night.' So that was a novel experience. Won't see that again in a hurry, I'll warrant.

I don't know whether having a pimp in the car means the driver has to drive like an imbecile, but he did. 160kmh was the fastest we went down a 15% decline, and that was too fast for my liking. Especially as I travelled through an area where twenty people had died on an identical bus the day before. It's a risky business taking local transport, I'll tell you that much. I did have to be held back by three fellow passengers the other day after I got so annoyed with one particular bus conductor trying to charge me white man's rates. Not really the way to win friends in a new town, but it did annoy me. And he was definitely smaller than me.

Apart from that I am mastering the Xhosa language now. By mastering I mean I can say 'hello' - which is 'molo', and I can only say that because it is the only word without any kind of clicking sound in. It's a ridiculous language and I'm glad everyone speaks English. Mind you I'm in a town where they only speak Arikaans now and that isn't much easier. The people who speak it are all white and as a result have significantly less patience. And don't like it when I refer to them as either 'saffers' or 'boers', pronouncing the latter 'bore', as in 'Anglo-Boer War'. Which we won after putting all the women and children in concentration camps. They weren't too happy when I brought that up last night. But as I lied to them earlier and said I partly agreed with aparthied they didn't mind me too much.

Anyway I'm doing the highest bungy jump in the world tomorrow. After all, it's not as if I have anything better to do.

The Most Developed Country In Africa...supposedly

The problem is, I can't really see South Africa moving forward in any way. It's just a ridiculous place through and through. Yes it's beautiful, and things do seem to work here - in general, but nothing is improving with the big issues that actually matter.

Like HIV. The government seems to be racking up the education and the access to contraceptives and healthcare, but the populace seems determined to resist it. Young people still don't go for tests - even though they are free, they still don't use condoms - despite the fact that they are everywhere, and they still don't tell anyone even if they do have the disease. They just go on being promiscuous, spreading this plague which is wiping out an entire generation here.

I'd like to say that my views on this are only a microcosm of society, and that broadly things are moving forward. But the truth is, I have been to quite a few places now and everywhere is the same. South Africa is no better than other countries in this regard, as with the likes of tribalism and a conservatism which makes the right wing of the Tories look like proponents for a socialist revolutionaries.

People are too focused on the cure rather than on prevention. And we all know which is better than which.

It does not help that everyone in the country is racist. Or 'racialistic' as some boer tried to call it, whilst he explained how all black people are stupid. They don't trust the black population (you do kind of understand why when since Mandela things have kind of gone downhill somewhat, especially for the whites), and as a result there are two sectors of the population, who don't mix. Therefore there is no free transfer or exchange of wealth or property, and thus very little social mobility. It is messed up.

You know that things are wrong when Oxfam don't want to know anymore. They moved out last year, so did VSO - the main organisation for western volunteers. But then, white people can't own land in certain parts of the country, and they can't be employed in others. And if the only people with the required skills are white, what are you supposed to do?

It is just such a shame. At some point this bubble is going to burst - which seems soon, based on the current political strife (the ANC, the only real political party here, is about to implode), and when it does, I fear for South Africa.

Not that I'll be here then. I'll be working some boring nine to five in an office five minutes from the Isle of Dogs. But I would like to come back here some day, and see some of these things sorted out.

Fat Africans

There are a lot more than Comic Relief would have you think. In fact, every white South African over the age of fifty is nearing obesity, and among the black population most women who have given birth are packing a few extra pounds here and there.

I feel the need to talk about this because firstly I find it quite interesting, and secondly it is much more light hearted and less worrying than talk of AIDS, muggings and apartheid. So fat Africans. How do they get that way?

Essentially, because food costs so much. Fruit and veg costs more than in Western Europe, and this is in a country where people earn about ten per cent of what they do back home. So they can't afford healthy food. What do they eat instead? Just carbs, carbs, fat and more carbs.

The main staple of sub-saharan Africa is mealie pap, maize meal which is boiled in water to create something a bit like polenta but drier and more solid. Apart from this though, they just have fast food. African style.

The 'Kota' is something I would like to introduce to the UK. It is a quarter of a loaf of bread ('Kota' being pronounced 'quarter') with the inside taken out and it being filled with chips, cheese, egg, burger, a variety of sausages and anything else that fits in - often a cheeky bit of mince and mash too. Enough to fill you up for two meals - and they cost a maximum of 15 Rand - 14p.

Not the healthiest things in the world, and between that, popcorn (called 'kip-kip') and various kinds of crisps Africans are getting fat. Especially as they detest walking. The TV would have you believe that children walk miles and miles to school and for water in the morning. Not so. They get the bus outside their house or at the end of the road and then get stressed at the driver when he pulls up five metres from the school gate.

Mature African women hate walking even more. Not surprised though, they have such bad backs from carrying heavy stuff on their heads all the time that they kind of waddle, sticking out their huge backsides for everyone to collide with whilst they move at snail's pace through every environment.

Nutritional education didn't reach here. And seemingly nor did sex education. The President, Jacob Zuma, is famed for thinking it is fine to sleep with HIV positive women as long as you shower straight after sex, and the newly appointed Cheif Justice, Moegoeng Moegoeng (real name, honest - pronounced Mohweng Mohweng) believes that there is no such thing as rape in the home. These are the two individuals with the most influence over the law. No wonder South African politics is imploding.

But on a lighter note, the South African murder rate shrunk by 6% in the last year, latest figures show. Only 19,500 were murdered last year. In a country of less than fifty million. That's quite a few, in case you were wondering.

Dangerous? I smile in the face of danger (that's a direct quote from the Lion King, it's not actually how I feel. I saw the Lion King in 3D the other day, feeling like I was in need of a proper African experience).

So there are loads of Fat Africans, probably proportionate to the number of fat Americans in the US, and the political situation is dire. I will offload some more useful tidbits sometime soon.

When I Got Mugged

And I was mugged. I felt like a proper idiot afterwards. Humiliated, in fact. But then looking back on it, I’m not sure there is much I could have done differently. It went something like this.

Being this long in Africa and not having any trouble I had begun to get complacent. More importantly, being in Soweto and encountering only nice people who couldn’t wish me any harm at all had meant I lowered my guard. I stopped suspecting people, and didn’t think that anyone would want to harm me or steal from me. Seems I was wrong.

I was on my way home from work (I’ve been volunteering at a community project for families affected by HIV/AIDS for the last two weeks) in a taxi (they call local minibuses taxis here for some reason) when it pulled over to pick someone up. I was sitting in the front, next to the driver, eating my bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk Whole Nut that I had bought as a treat – having surrendered my no snack policy for the time being. I was so absorbed in my world of milk chocolate delight that I failed to notice the group of five black twenty-somethings dashing towards the taxi.

I thought nothing of it, I regularly have people come up to me and wanting to shake my hand. These guys seemingly wanted some of my chocolate bar. And were so determined to get it that they opened the door of the taxi and literally started grabbing it. I went on the defensive, guarding the last few chunks of this former bastion of English (now American, unfortunately) confectionary against everything they could throw at it.

However, it seems that the Dairy Milk was not their main goal. Whilst four of them went for the chocolate bar, mugger #5 darted his hand into my pocket and grabbed my wallet. He then dashed of at the speed of light with a big smirk on his face (a smile I will remember for a long time) whilst the four others crowded the door so I could make no move to follow him.

Not that I would have, of course. Firstly, I was wearing flip flops, which are impossible to run in. Secondly despite how angry I was, I could not hope to overpower five guys with my bare hands, against whatever they had on them – knives at the minimum. Thirdly I was paralysed by shock. I couldn’t have done anything even if I had wanted to. Very much like when some drunk guy punches you out of the blue – it takes a few seconds to comprehend what exactly has gone on.

So I sat there whilst he ran away with my wallet. The other guys stayed until he was an uncatchable distance away before they too made their exit, and I was left sitting there like a lemon. ‘Not ideal,’ I said aloud, finally. The other people in the taxi, it must be said, were expecting a more invigorated response.

The taxi driver told me that if I went to the police they would shoot the guys for me. I didn’t really want that, nor the hassle that it would entail. One of my favourite sayings in the world is, ‘You can’t polish a turd,’ and that is what I applied to this situation.

So what did I lose? Not much, really – apart from my dignity. My wallet contained about R300, which is around ₤25, and one debit card, which was cancelled within an hour. So financially, it was no great loss.

Sentimentally, slightly more so. I had in my wallet a collection of notes I had obtained from all of the countries in there – there was everything from Namibian dollars to Mozambican meticais, which I had been saving to keep at home for a souvenir. One consolation is that the thieves would have glanced in my wallet and seen this huge wad of notes there and thought that they had hit the jackpot. And then they would have delved slightly further to find that 5,000 Zambian Quacha is worth less than $1, and 3000 Tanzanian shillings is worth little more. And no bank would exchange them, anyway.

Losing the wallet itself was a bit sad though. Admittedly it only cost me ₤1 (or 80 Rupees, in the currency in which I bought it), but I have had that fake ‘Genuine Leather Lacoste’ wallet which I spent an hour haggling for on the streets of New Delhi for four years now, and had become quite attached to it. I carried it around with me in Africa because I pretended it had no value – financial, anyway – so I would not mind it going missing. But in truth, I am more sad about its loss than I would be a $500 Louis Vuitton.

Still, what is done is done. I have been mugged, so I can tick that box. I still haven’t been violently assaulted or got any kind of disease so I’m not doing so bad for nearly three months travel through the world’s poorest continent. The really ironic thing about the whole situation is that at eight o’clock the next morning I was giving a presentation at the regional police station, shortly after which I was speaking to the Chief of Police, who asked me how safe I was finding Soweto.

‘Oh it’s fine, I feel perfectly safe here,’ I lied. The last thing I wanted was to start a witch hunt in the black capital of South Africa because a white guy had been stupid enough to have been mugged for ₤25.

'Gandalf my friend, this should be a night to remember!'

Sorry for the Lord of the Rings quote, but it was the only method of appeasing my craving to watch my favourite fantasy film triology. But any, it really was a night to remember. I only wish I could have taken my camera out without the fear of getting it stolen, because it would have been mighty cool to have some pictures of the evening. My favourite mental image of the night being the sign outside all the bars saying 'No Guns'. Nothing saying you're not allowed knives, ice picks or crowbars though. Although it seems African people don't even need those to induce the propensity for violence - a broken bottle will suffice.

Anyway I went on a night out in Soweto. Big deal. Apart from the fact that within five minutes of being at the first bar I had seen three fights. Which I don't think is the worst I have experienced - I have been out in Southend a few times, after all.

Despite the fear that I was going to return home a eunuch, it was one of the best nights out I have ever been on. The location was obviously a key reason for this. Kind of what I imagine it to be like when the Rio de Janeiro carnival makes its way through parts of the favellas - this was the start of the party season (the first weekend of September, when it becomes warm enough for the locals to begin to party outside), and now every Friday and Saturday night there will be massive bashes on every street corner.

Essentially a man with a gazebo comes along and puts it over a road. Then a man with some decks comes and puts them under one end of the gazebo. Mr Amplifier then comes along with a couple of giant subs, and finally some chap with a bit of mixing ability comes along with a few records and starts pumping out some rock solid funky house. Which sounds sick, just so you know.

Like any good party, it only got started after midnight, leaving a small amount of time to visit some other establishments prior to getting one's groove on. The only trouble being that they were too far apart to be able to walk between them (Soweto is a city of over five million people), so we had to drive. No problem. Except the guy driving was equally battered as everyone else. And seemed determined to carry on drinking even whilst driving.

'Are you allowed to drink whilst driving in South Africa, then?' I asked rather naievly. 'Hell no man!' replied Lil Wayne's long-lost cousin, 'You aren't allowed to drink in public at all!'

What followed was a comprehensive briefing on what to do if we saw the police. If we were in the car we would all throw our beers out the window, at which point we would race off down the nearest small side street and hope to escape them. If we were walking we would wait for someone to shout, 'drop!', at which point we would drop our beers and run to the nearest fence or wall, jump over it and then sprint til we could sprint no longer, and then get inside the nearest building possible and hide under a bed or in a cupboard. No joke, this is what they told me.

So this brings the total number of life threatening dangers for the day up to 3:

1) Being subject to GBH

2) Dying in an alcohol-related RTA

3) Being beaten to death by the police/some kind of angry fellow prisoner with a hatred of white guys in a local jail.

I would now like to add #4 to that list. HIV/AIDS.

This was the closest I have come to it. In a community like this most people know who else has it and who does not. Obviously I was subject to a fair amount of attention, both male and female, due to being the only white guy at a party of over a thousand. And I have been dragged off by semi-drunk girls who only want one thing (not always unwillingly, it has to be said) before. But they have never been this forceful before, and nor have they been HIV positive.

So when four girls have a hold of me and are dragging me towards one of their houses, with my resistance seeming futile, I was a bit worried what I might be getting myself into. And this was confirmed when five of the guys I had gone to the party with came along, grabbed the girls and literally threw them onto the floor. Apparently, these seemingly lovely young lasses would want nothing better than find a nice white young man and give him the gift they had been carrying around since birth. I decided that on this night, celibacy was the best option.

But aside from these dangers, it was wicked. Obviously black people are better dancers than white people, so there were some awesome moves going down. I obviously introduced them to the concept of throwing a few large shapes, but their foot and hip work was awesome - and the booty shaking from the girls left me gazing in wonderment (until some guy came and started on me for staring at his missus - but you get that anywhere, to be honest).

So combining three of my favourite things - music, excessive alcohol consumption and the possibility of meeting new, exciting people and there is a very good night. One that will be hard to match.

Soweto

I spent a while trying to come up with a crafty title for this entry, musing over the likes of, 'No more dangerous than Romford on a Friday night,' and 'History in motion', but I thought that just the simple title has as resounding an impact as any intelligent literary slur I can come up with.

Because this (Soweto, south west of Johannesburg) is a incredible place. Arguably the place where the downfall of apartheid began, it is definitely the location of its orchestration. Student protests here (all from the black community) in 1976 led to a heavy handed response from the (white) police force, with 23 people being killed. This led to widespread condemnation from the international community towards the government, and brought into the light the situation in South Africa. Though it was not for another twenty-four years that apartheid was ended (or 'independence' as the black community refers to it), the 1976 uprising was the start of concerted action from the black community, most notably the ANC - who were centred in Soweto - and led the rise of the black protest in South Africa.

As a result, I feel quite humbled to be staying here; staying with a local man who lives one street along from where Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu both used to live, and only a hundred metres from the route of the original protests which led to the uprising. The man I am staying with has lived in Soweto throughout his life and thus through these periods of political strife and change. He is as a result one of the most accepting and friendly people I have met, being of the same ilk as Mandela (or Madiba, as he is called here). He believes in extending the hand of friendship to as many strangers as possible, because only through people understanding places for themselves can they recognise the true face of a society and culture.

And it has worked with me. I am the only white person in the village. At the project where I am working everyone else is local, on my hour-long journey to work I see only local people going about their normal lives. Yet the guidebooks tell you to be more careful here than anywhere else. This is labelled as part of the 'dangerous jo'burg' section, where I should not walk around on my own, and should not be out at night at all. Yet all I encounter on my wanderings (which I obviously conduct on my own), aside from the customary stares because of my skin colour are people calling out to me, 'Saobona my friend, welcome to Soweto!'

Something I have encountered throughout Africa is local people being unable to understand white people walking to places. It seems the white residents of these countries drive everywhere, and only the poor people walk. Obviously I have managed to degrade myself to 'poor' status (too many bungee jumps, skydives and scrumptious meals I think), and thus I walk everywhere possible. Normally the locals just look at you and ask if you are lost, but in Soweto they actually ask if you want a lift. It seems people here are determined to overturn the image of this place as somewhere white people cannot go - and they are doing a good job of it.

Staying with locals obviously means living like one. Which means my fruit and vegetable intake has been cut to one-a-day, the main food here being a 'Kota', pronounced 'quarter', because it is a quarter of a loaf of bread filled with unhealthy things. Such as chips, sausage, egg, cheese, ham and whatever else they have on display. But they cost max R20, normally around R10, which is less than GBP1. Local living also means there is only a cold shower, no toilet seat and no working lights in the room I am staying in. But I cannot complain - the generosity of the people to have got me this accomodation when I could have been a chav from Basingstoke rather than a fairly well mannered (at times) person from rural Essex.

And I do not know anyone else who has had such an experience. Spending the mornings visiting and trying to address the needs of the guardians of AIDS orphans, and spending the afternoons trying to improve the quality of life of the orphans themselves is something that is richly rewarding, and is defnitely an experience I will not get at home.

I seem to be lacking the amusing anecdotes with this entry, but that is because the only thing funny about this place is the bumbling Englishman walking through town expecting to feel intimidated, and frightened but instead only feeling welcomed and impressed. Obviously Soweto is not perfect, and there are still huge problems here. But it is the finest example I have seen of an economic, social and industrial powerhouse created by black people entirely by, and for, themselves. This place has promise, which hopefully, in the not too distant future, will spread to the rest of the continent.