Impressions of South Africa

Thus far, this blog has been mostly a chronicle of the excursions we've made as a family. I know that some folks will be interested to hear about impressions we've had of South African people, culture, politics, etc. We have mainly been in and close to Cape Town, and we've heard that this city is the most "European" and "cosmopolitan" in South Africa. From that perspective, here are some impressions:

People are people, just like anywhere, from the guy who honked and flipped me off on the first day to the trolley girl who turned in my iPad when she found it in the shopping cart (trolley) where I had left it. It's very apparent, however, that Cape Town is a cosmopolitan place, with folks from around the world. I've seen and heard folks from different parts of the country and Africa, with different types of dress (including, the Khoi straw hats - thanks, Jean Archer, for loaning me yours - somebody tell her since she doesn't use the computer much). Many Muslims live here - there are mosques in every town - as well as Jews - I wished "Shalom" to a family on the sea walk while I was jogging - and, of course Christians of many stripes, including Pentecostal, Anglican, mainline, and megachurch Evangelicals. On the whole, we've found people to be friendly, relatively laid back, helpful, and authentic, from the white owner of the restaurant I'm currently blogging from (she calls me "Sting" and I call her Annie Lennox) to the black gas station attendant who exclaimed "People from America are beautiful."

The culture is as diverse as the people. I don't know how to categorize it (and may never need to), but here are some examples of culture we've experienced: professional rugby in Newlands, surf culture in Muizenberg, folk crafts in Khayelitsha, Khoi singing in Green Market Square, Afrikaans drama at a small local theater in Kalk Bay, fishing culture in Hout Bay, Carmel-like ambience in Stellenbosch, Marimba bands in the townships, traditional African drumming and dancing on Africa Day in the South African Museum, capoeira and breakdancing in the same place, a viola player for the Cape Town Philharmonic living in our complex, and more...

Politics are hard to understand. Not too many people I talk to like President Zuma. They joke about his multiple wives (4 currently, 9-11 in total) and 20+ children the same way Americans still joke about Bill Clinton in the "Oral" Office. I recently read (thanks, Joe Bair) a book by Arwin Desai called "We Are the Poors" which describes grass roots efforts on the part of severely poor communities who resist exploitative efforts on the part of local and national politicians. Desai's thesis is that former ANC leaders who were part of the revolution that de-racialized politics in South Africa have now assumed privileged positions of power, bought into neo-liberal economic ideologies of globalization, and now descriminate against the poor in the same way and by the same means that the apartheid politicians discriminated agains Coloureds and Africans. His narrative and argument is persuasive and bears out in the obvious disparity between exorbitant Cape Town wealth concentrated in certain locales and crushing poverty concentrated in the many townships.

To come... reflections upon the spiritual experiences, the living God encounters, while on sabbatical together as a family.