Let me oversimplify South Africa

I am spending the next six weeks at my company's office in Pretoria. I suppose this blog name/logo is no longer fitting. I had originally planned to upload a nice photo of me with the South African flag. But unfortunately, Internet connections are not the same below the equator, so for the time being, my dear blog readers, you will be afforded additional time to bask in the garish colors of the German flag.

I arrived in Pretoria Wednesday. On my first drive through the city, I was greeted by poshy, gated communities lined with fragrant Jacaranda Trees:


I went with my boss to an American-style mall. We ate at a place that resembled TGI Fridays.

South Africa wasn't quite what I expected.

It was not until I looked a little closer at the parks that intersperse Southern California-style office buildings that I realized all the public spaces were downing in emaciated, black African vagrants. On my radio, there was story after story about crime after crime, and discussions of how you could phone in to report what you see.

"You're not really South African until you've been held up at gunpoint," one of my co-workers told me in her thick Afrikaans accent, which sounds vaguely Austrailian.

I am staying in one of those poshy, gated houses. Inside, it is filled with beautiful gardens, Victorian style decor and lazy kitties. I am not allowed to leave on foot outside the hours of 11am and 4pm. I could rent a car, but I would have to learn stickshift and to navigate the Brit's backwards traffic system. I am caged in and pampered. I am allowed to go on pricey, organized tour groups and on a shuttle that goes to and fro that overpriced, Western mall. For all I know, I could be in suburban Ohio on a pleasant summer day.

The landscape is beautiful, and the sun is always shining. But it strikes me that no one can really enjoy it. The rich (white Afrikaans) spend their lives inside their cars and fancy buildings. They poor (blacks) spend theirs looking enviously from the street. They do not engage one another, unless it is violently.