IMPRESSIONS OF SOUTH AFRICA

To the outside world, South Africa seems to be a happy, world-class power, newly freed from the racist nightmare that was apartheid. With South Africa's upper class enjoying one of the world's highest standards of living, it's easy to travel through this country completely ignorant of the fact that South Africa still faces major problems; crime is rampant, nearly 30% of the population is unemployed, and underneath it all is a deep network of racial tension, which has not yet forgotten the years of apartheid.

In our journies about Cape Town, symbols of crime are everywhere. On a placid beach along the coast, one finds police officers in flak jackets patrolling with their attack dogs. Most property is surrounded by eight-foot walls, and usually the main entrance into a house is not through the front yard, but behind a gigantic, reinforced garage door. Attendants patrol parking lots in an attempt to curb auto theft, and political posters promise to "put 150,000 police on the streets". Ironically, my family has not witnessed a single crime (like the pick-pocketing in Santiago), although, through all these signs, I'm sure it exists in force.

Much of this crime stems from finacial desperation. A significant portion of South Africa's population lives in semi-legal shantytowns, where the average home is not much larger than a bed and a makeshift table. In my stay here I have read an excellent autobiography of a boy who grew up in a Johannesburg townsend under apartheid, which gave me a secondhand view of the horrors many citizens were forced to endure. I feel somwhat sickened as I look at these miserable camps then see near-entirely white upper-class neighborhoods tucked away in the hills. Sadly, the AIDS crisis in South Africa is exacerbating the economic problems; projections show that in the near future as much as 40% of the workforce may be HIV-positive.

Oddly, much of Cape Town still lives along the racial boundaries set under apartheid. One neighborhood I visited was entirely "colored" (I find this archaic term meaning "mixed-race" here slightly offensive), another was 99% white, and because in each place we have visited I have been warmly and courteously recieved, I find it hard to understand how such separation still exists.

From reading this journal entry one might think I have a completely negative opinion of Cape Town, but to the contrary, I have very much enjoyed my stay here. People everywhere have been open and warm, and never have I felt in danger. Because of the immense distances from our rental home to the city, our family cannot walk everywhere, so I don't think I've developed the same kind of intimate relation with the city, but I nevertheless have enjoyed every moment of my stay here.