Back to the World Tour main page • Back to the whole site's main page

My days are easy and slow. I get up whenever I want. Lately, that's been early in the morning, when the sun puts a leg over the distant mountains and fills the apartment with yellow light. Even at 8:00 a.m., the African sunlight can give you a tan, so I sit on the balcony, sip Koffiehuis, and become Cadbury brown. Later, I go into town for errands, or to the internet café to do e-mail, or to a coffee shop to write and read.

At 6:00, "Oprah" is on. It's my only real lapse. For that 45 minutes (the commercials are cut out), I'm a participant in my culture. She's gotten particularly self-helpy lately. In light of my car accident, I'm finding it kinda cool. I'm ashamed to admit that.

If Deon is home, we eat. He cooks weird things, but they still come out. Like potatoes and pasta and onions with hot peri-peri sauce. Toast is a food group in our house. Like toast soaked in minute noodles. (I'm not taxing my budget--or my buds--by eating this way, so when I actually splurge and go out, everything I taste is ambrosial.) At 7, "Friends" is on. (Okay, it's my other lapse.)

Nights are spent with friends. We drink, we play pool, we go eat food at ridiculously low prices. Deon comes if he's not working at Joe's Café. It's a varied cast characters: middle-aged academics, party boys, aging potheads, married fathers avoiding their families. The novelty of Me fits in.

I have found familiarity in an unfamiliar land, and safety in a nation of violence. It's an illusion, I know, but a pretty one. In my mind dance promises from my future--India, Asia, onward--but for now they're deferred.

Living in Cape Town has been pleasant--yes, at times dull--and leaving will be hard. In many ways, I have allowed time to be wasted, which is something I have never done. I always feel like I should be working at something, learning new facts, progressing. At the face of it, I've only been passing time here. But the more I think about it, I realize how much I've learned about myself. For me, living life too quickly--like I do in New York--is like living underwater; I dive and try to swim as far as possible without cracking. Now that things are slower, I'm learning to breathe. Car crashes notwithstanding (or perhaps car crashes enriching), I've learned how I'm affected by hidden levels. How instincts guide me, what people sense when they meet me, my trust in others, my connection to what I experience, why I write--and why I don't.

Traveling around the planet is a marvelous thing to do with a life, but some important things can only be discovered if you stand still.

People keep e-mailing me questions about South Africa. I haven't answered anything in these Dispatches, partly because (particularly for a white outsider) the country is such a strange place to understand. It doesn't even understand itself. There are too many people, too many factions, and history never fails to remind them that none of them truly own this land. You don't discuss identity; you discuss statistics. Its strife has become is personality.

The new census just came out. Here are some statistics for you:

From a population of 40.5 million (about half of Germany's):

77 percent are African (black); 11 percent are White; 9 percent are Coloured (mixed-race or Muslim); 3 percent are Indian.

1 in 5 South Africans have no formal education. That includes kindergarten.

62 percent of South Africans makes less than 1500 rands (about $275) a month.

1 in 4 earns less than R500 a month ($90).

34 percent are unemployed.

16 percent live in shacks made from plywood, old signs, cardboard...

Half have no toilets.

3 out of 4 have no phones.

55 percent have no running water.

South Africa has the highest rape rate in the world, and rising.

The murder rate is 7 to 8 times higher than the world average.

Lots of the things I've learned about South Africa have been gleaned from observation. I've seen the patronization with which Whites treat Blacks here, and the disheartening humility with which Blacks accept it. I've seed how pretty much everyone avoids contact with the poor Coloured population. I've noticed how aside from jealousy of the privileged Whites, there's very little to unite the Blacks, since there are within their numbers so many tribes, descents, economic situations, and ideologies. If a bloody revolution ever comes to this country--and my belief is that it will, and maybe soon--it won't so much be a matter of Black versus White, but of rich versus poor. Then again, isn't that the root cause of "racial problems" in America, too?

Your typical white South African has a lot in common with your average American. They hate it when I say that. Many of them like to identify with the original Motherland, England. But South Africans and Americans share some crucial traits. They're both friendly and outgoing even as they're inwardly judgmental and secretive. They're both shaped by Christian fundamentalism. They are both easily lulled by material comforts and greed. (Young South Africans are ranked by the type of car they drive, the sorts of clothes they wear, the kinds of clubs they frequent--even as just outside of town millions of people live in shacks.) Both South Africans and Americans like proclaiming everyone has the right to be free in their country, without making it truly possible. But principally, the young people in both nations are shockingly ignorant about how the world really works, since most of them (and us) have had such little contact with people beyond our own borders. Lots of arrogant opinions, few experiences. Just like home.

I asked Deon if he remembered apartheid. He remembered there were never black people on the streets after 6 p.m., but he was just a kid. He simply thought that was the way life was. (And he has a point. How many of us were aware with Voodoo Economics while they were in place?)

South Africa sought its riches exactly how America did: By exploiting the poor. We had slaves, and later immigrants. They had slaves, and later African blacks.

Cape Town rages. The young people here came of age when apartheid was crumbling. They had nothing to do with it, and in fact, were shielded from it by their parents and the press. That makes them the first generation of New South Africans--too liberated to identify with their parents but still too disenfranchised to be able to go anywhere else. As a result, most of the Whites here see dismal prospects. A huge weekend culture has emerged. Drugs (e, acid, pot, coke) are enormously popular, the regular clubs will stand empty on rave nights, and unprotected casual sex is the norm. (1 in 7 civil servants has HIV; the ratio is far greater in poor Black areas--some say as high as 40 percent.)

Every rich South African I know can name at least two people close to them who have been carjacked. It's standard practice to leave the glove compartment open when you part anywhere, just to prove you've nothing to steal. It's not uncommon to hear about people being clubbed with rocks on sunny streets. Whole families of white farmers are being systematically murdered in the rural area, primarily because they occupy land that was once black-owned (in some cases many generations back). Hopelessness is creeping in, both among the poor and among the rich, who stand to lose what they thought it was their right to have.

When some whites complained to Mandela about the crime, he just laughed in their faces. Well now you know what the blacks have been putting up with all these years, he said. He leaves power next year, and Whites are taking a hurricane-shelter attitude over the shift of power. Many are ready to flee to Australia if the policy of the new government is out-and-out redistribution of wealth. While the ANC has taken pains to stress nonracialism, it's also protected whites from most of the realities of this country. Now that the veil has been lifted, many whites are scared. My friend Mark has saved enough to move to New Zealand. He's going on vacation there next week; the rest of us see it as a reconnaissance mission. SA is buzzing about Brain Drain. Last year, the country suffered a net loss of 17,000 people--that's counting the influx of African people--and most of them left for reasons of safety or education. The decline of the rand, which is affiliated with Asian currencies, hasn't helped, since bank loan rates are in the mid-twenties and small businesses can't survive. But the biggest problem is no one knows what South Africa IS--there are too many traditions. A soup of nationalities; even the Whites come from all over Africa and Europe. What common principles are there to be proud of? Why stay?

People have become as stressed and as fear-savvy as your typical New Yorker. One guy on TV said he'd moved to Canada but had to come back because "There was no crime. I got depressed. If there's no siren, I can't sleep."

Those are the negatives. There are lots, and they're always cropping up. It's certainly troubling. But I have to look at it realistically. I am white, I am an outsider. I can only observe and learn.

Beers cost me 45 cents.

I get around primarily by minibus taxi. They're basically vans driven by civilians. You stick your hand out as one approaches, it pulls over (usually almost over YOU), a lackey slides open the side door, and in you go. At peak times, they can be crammed with as many as 16 people. Since most black workers don't have their own cars, this is a preferred mode of transport. Sometimes they're called "black taxis," a name I find abhorrent. When you come near where you want to get out, you yell "Thank you!" and they pull over for you. Sometimes three or four people have to get out so you can squeeze through the door. It's not terribly dignified, but it's cheap at R2 (about 30 cents). Some whites (the ones I don't like) are amazed that I take minibuses. I've definitely never seen any white person over 30 take one.

Minibus drivers are mean muthas. Even in apartheid days, since taxi drivers had passbooks to be outside their locations, they were the go-to guys if you needed something done. They retain some of that civic authority today. A few weeks, ago, when a few girls accused one fellow of raping them, some minibus drivers nabbed him, shot him, castrated him, and burned his genitals before his eyes. Last week, they shot a mugger in the legs to keep him from fleeing before the cops came.

You know how you never watch certain shows on TV, but if you ever do happen to catch it twice, it's usually the SAME EPISODE? That keeps happening to me. What's worse than watching "The Gregory Hines Show"? Doing it over.

TV here is pretty awful. The movies are usually American movies of the week (Tonight! Tori Spelling in "Mother May I Sleep With Danger"). Or cut-rate American sitcoms (Don't miss the next "Smart Guy," right after "Alright Already.") A new channel (the fourth, and the first one that's not state-run) called ETV began on October 1st, and it's a little better. (Its auspicious inaugural broadcast? "Baywatch.") News comes in three flavors: English, Afrikaans, and Zulu (I'm learning to click in speech. I sound like a frightened crab.) There's very little original South African programming, and that stuff looks like the kind of stuff American UHF stations play at 4 in the morning to fulfill their FCC requirements. The sets are flimsy. At least once a night, the tape decks jam and you end up watching dead air. South African TV answers the question: What if we let the interns do everything?

The one thing I LOVE about TV here is called The Learning Channel. It's not a cable channel. (They don't have cable yet.) It's where a sassy teacher goes on TV and takes calls from students who need help. Right now it's exam (matric) time, so there's hours of this daily. If you're having trouble with anything in school, you can call and they'll walk you through it on TV, where it will help everyone else. I adore this stuff, and sometimes I leave it on while I'm doing something else. It's the best use of television I've seen since "ALF."

This country is also big on loiterers. Driving a car is like an extreme re-enactment of a video game. People leap from thin air to cross and minibuses swerve in front of you.. (Sometimes your brakes go, too.) Every street corner has an African in a knit cap standing on it. Since I'm white (and therefore perceived as rich), it makes me a little nervous. Mostly that's my New York fear creeping in.

Know who black South Africans really hate? Black Americans. And it's not just sour grapes. Seems that many black Americans have been moving here to reconnect with their ancestry, and some of them have been making idiots of themselves. The term "African-American" will be greeted with a lemon-sucking face. The c.w. on black Americans is that "You're not African, and haven't been for centuries, so go away. You don't know what we are, or what we go through. You live in the richest country of the world--in fact, YOU are rich--so take your upper-class guilt back to the country club." I'm paraphrasing, of course. But it's very heartfelt anger. Even the whites hate black Americans who do that. "I'm African," says Deon, whose family has been here for at least 200 years. "They're not. The fact I'm white doesn't make me European." Gotta say, he's got a point. I'm not European, either, and damned if they won't give me an Irish passport.

Today, by the way, is the first anniversary of my initial trip to Cape Town. I arrived in Africa one year ago today. Now I live here. See how life can change if you just want it to?

Yesterday I decided to be ruthless to my body. So I went to the base of Table Mountain, walked its length, climbed it, walked across the top and back again, and then descended. The height alone is 1km, so it took me about six hours. My body aches today, but it loves me. (You know, I don't think I'd ever climbed a mountain before this year, either.)

There's a whole area near the middle of town (stad) that's empty grassland. Seems that in the '60s, the government declared the whole area to be unsightly, and ordered everyone out. Naturally, everyone was black or coloured. Some 70,000 people had to abandon the neighborhood, known as District Six. It was like a little New Orleans--old-style flats, theatres, jazz clubs--all were bulldozed. Only the churches and mosques were left. The inhabitants reshuffled in grim outlying concrete-and-barbed wire suburbs like Mitchell's Plain. Then the government tried to resell the land (renamed Zonnebloem) for development. It's still empty. It's just another example of the outrageous lunacy of the old ways here. Now there's a museum, run by District Six's former citizens, full of stories and exhibits. People mark where they lived on a giant map. It's a fantastic museum.

Another museum: The South African Museum. Included: stuffed creatures of all varieties, including stoats, quaggas, impalas, bushbabies, springboks, and the like. Skeletons of whales, dead birds by the boxload. Continue past the glass cases of fauna and you encounter the diorama full of black people. I am serious! Dummies of native folk in their natural habitat. The exhibit has been there since the late '50s and it's quite beloved, which is why it hasn't been removed. Curators have, however, stuck up some photos from the newspaper of black folks doing civilized things like getting married and selling newspapers. I guess it's all right, then. (No word on when the white folks in their own habitat will be installed. Guess they're still searching for the most authentic-looking television.)

Sorry there's so much about race relations here. It just sticks out. You notice it.

Now, a few notices:

--I'm a Sosa guy.

--This is for all the fat girls out there!

--Did you know the concentration camp was invented in South Africa? By the British. They ruined everything they touched.

--My travel agent Tinka is setting me up with a future visit to someplace secret. Announcement soon!

--After this week, don't send anything to my Cape Town address. Some things aren't making it here. (Crime again.)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The Opera of the Blue Beetle is in its fourth act. You're not gonna believe this one.

I'd finally come to terms with the notion that the whole crash happened for a reason. It was simply too perfect; no one hurt, nothing touched. And I'd also ruled out trying to squeeze Annabel for a refund. Not only did she give me such great vibes (including mentioning some magic names), but she also drove the car herself to show it to me. She simply didn't know about the brakes. I bought it, took it for a spin before showing it to a mechanic, and it happened. One of life's bad breaks, to speak homonyminally. (She's also gorgeous, and don't rule out female charm.)

Because of a bent rear axle and some ugly body damage, repair would cost R3000, which incidentally is what a 3-week trip to Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe would cost. I don't have to explain the outcome of this opportunity cost. (I leave next month.) So I went to Annabel to secure the papers that would allow me to sell the car for scrap.

Annabel had started a new job the Monday after the accident. I went to her work, a small p.r. firm in one of the skyscrapers on the Foreshore. When I showed her the photos of the crash, she grew very still.

"I had no idea it was this bad," she whispered.

"Look, Annabel," I said. "This is going to sound crazy, but I believe this happened for a reason. Maybe God used me to save your life. If you hadn't sold it to me, maybe the brakes would have gone while you were driving it."

"I would have freaked out," she admitted. "I wouldn't have known what to do."

"Well, maybe I didn't, either," I said. "I swear it felt like someone else was driving."

"Do you believe in spirits?" she said.

So the conversation took a metaphysical turn. I had already realized how close it had been for ME--now Annabel saw how close it had been for her, too.

"People have told me I should take action against you," I said. "And that would be a very American thing to do. But I'm not going to. Legally it might be defensible, but not morally."

We talked a little more about how we'd been mysteriously linked by this event, when someone spoke up behind us.

"Hey, I know you," he said. A young white guy with tallish hair, easygoing, who was going through some papers behind the reception desk. "You're Jason." He approached us hesitantly, like he was afraid of disturbing us.

"Yeah," I said. "You're..."

"Simon. You were in that accident a few weeks ago."

"Right," I said.

"I called the tow truck for you."

Annabel turned around, and the photos of the crash were revealed to him. "That was my car." Her voice quavered.

And so there we were, the three of us, standing above the evidence. Annabel, me, and Simon Turkk, the complete stranger who'd called a tow truck for me at the scene of the crash. Annabel and I just stared at each other. If there had been any doubt of divine providence up to now, it was erased. Of all the people in Cape Town, of all the offices in all the city's buildings, of all the times...one of the Good Samaritans happened to work here this tiny office, and had walked in on us at the ideal time.

It's said that if you live spiritually, spiritual things will begin happening to you. Truly, truly, I'm onto something. The more open I become, the more miracles reveal themselves to me.

Annabel won a bottle of moonshine. We've decided the thing to do is to get sloshed.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The more I see of this world, the smaller it gets. Bongo (African) is a waiter at my favorite restaurant here. I keep running into him everywhere. Yesterday he sat in front of me on the bus.

Last weekend, I rented a car. On Saturday, Deon and I went to a lame protest against the encroachment of McDonald's. The organizers were idiot hippies who made it an issue of meat and not of wages and culture. Plus they were smoking. As Deon pointed out, why boycott McDonald's if you're supporting the tobacco conglomerates, who are just as bad? Then we drove down the Cape Peninsula and up Chapman's Peak Drive, one of the most spectacular coast drives in the world.

On Sunday, I went alone (singing from the seat of my lungs) to Hermanus, 122 km east, near the southernmost point of Africa. It's a charming little town, set against mountains and prairies, where fleets of Southern Right whales congregate. I counted at least seven, including a calf, and they were so close to shore you could look them in the eye. Another was breaching spectacularly over and over, like a puppy at play. Something about watching large animals makes me feel like I'm a rightful part of nature.

I was reminded that the world keeps gift-wrapping wonderful things for us. The whales stared up at us and reminded me there is evidence of connection all around us.

On the following afternoon, back in town, I learned that my beloved, pixie-ish travel agent Tinka was also in Hermanus watching the whales. Just feet away from me, if only I would have turned my head to see her.

Looking for the whales,

Jase

GET INTERACTIVE!!!! CLICK ON THESE LINKS TO MY LIFE!

My internet café: http://www.inter-pla.net

The newspaper! http://www.inc.co.za/online/cape_argus/

By far the most popular radio station, the hip 5fm (with streaming audio, so you can hear it as I do--don't attempt it with a dinky computer): http://www.5fm.co.za

The aformentioned "Baywatch"-happy ETV: http://www.etv.co.za

The nearby Labia cinema (tee-hee!!): http://www.labia.co.za

The inexplicably beloved M-Net TV pay channel: http://www.mnet.co.za

South African Broadcasting Corporation, which maintains the three main TV channels: http://www.sabc.co.za

Or explore stuff yourself using this SA-only database: http://www.ananzi.co.za

...and, of course, my own web site (see below)

Right now I'm in: Cape Town, South Africa

Day: 177

Cell: 27 21 746 0603 (voicemail)

Home: 27 21 425 5147 (no answerphone, but cheaper)

http://www.bway.net/~bastable

P.S. Okay, I've been watching "Ally McBeal," too. Is that cheating?