A Nigerian, a
Mozambican and a South African are sitting in a Soweto tavern having a pint of beer.
The Nigerian grabs his
beer, downs it, throws his glass into the air, draws a pistol and shoots the glass in mid-air. He shouts: "In Nigeria we have so many glasses we never drink out of the same glass twice!"
The Mozambican downs
his beer, throws his glass into the air, grabs the gun off the bar, shoots the glass, puts the gun back on the bar and says: "Heela, in Mozambique we have so much sand which makes glass really cheap, so we too never drink out of the same glass twice!"
The South African
finishes his beer, puts the glass down on the bar, picks up the gun, shoots both the Nigerian and the Mozambican and says to the barman: "In South Africa we have so many Nigerians and Mozambicans that we never have to drink with the same guys twice!"
Yep, a little South African zenophobic humour. The people I know and work with are as
appalled as the rest of the world at what happened (continues to happen in
pockets) a couple weeks ago. It was much
more wide-spread than news reports had it.
My friends in villages reported incidents to me and there were several
incidents in and around Mafikeng. The crimes were against other Africans, not
whites…this time…so I was not in any danger.
Sixty-two were killed and hundreds of thousands were chased from their homes. Most went back to their homes of origin; others are in camps hoping to someday be resettled in their old neighborhoods.
Those in poverty are very, very angry.
Many promises were made to them in 1994, at the time of the transition to democracy, and they feel
they have gotten nothing. Below is a political cartoon from after the worst of the violence. It shows a government representative feeding a refugee while saying "you should be ashamed of yourself" to a starving South African.

In actuality, the government has provided electricity and
water to most areas, though many rural areas remain without water, requiring
the women to walk for miles, frequently, and carry the water home in buckets on
their heads or in a wheelbarrow, though you usually see men using the
wheelbarrows. The major zenophobic
attacks, however, took place in townships outside the large cities, where there is
electricity and water. However, when you
have been promised a house and you need a job and food and energy prices keep
climbing, you become a very volatile individual. This is a very precarious time for this young
democracy and it is very easy to pick it apart.
There is so much that screams out for change but you would have to be here for some time to truly understand how complicated the situation is.
Thabo Mbeki (the president) has made lots of mistakes but he has a cool
head, one of his weaknesses in this current mileau. His nemesis, the current head of the ruling
party, Jacob Zuma, is hot headed, uneducated and charismatic and has major
appeal to the youth and poverty-stricken, in particular. They are expecting to be better taken care of. Most
black youth are poorly educated and unemployed; most whites continue to do
pretty well. There is a large black
middle class, I’m told, around Joburg, but I sure don’t see it here. It’s very frustrating to try to think this
through because it is so very complicated and so multi-layered and, sometimes,
so incomprehensible to the Western mind.
I am currently reading Jonny Steinberg’s book “The Three Letter Plague”
and it explains, as well as anything I’ve read, the concept of the stigma which
keeps South African's from testing for HIV. It
explains it, I’ve read it, I understand the words but I still don’t
truly understand why one would choose dying in solitude to living on ARVs. That said, I recommend it to anyone grappling
with AIDS in Africa. It is a South African book but you should be
able to get it in your library.
And me, what am I doing besides being frustrated? I’m still at Age-in-Action, still waiting to
see if the situation changes for the better, still weighing my options. We’ve been very busy with World Elder Abuse
Awareness Day, June 15, but celebrated throughout the month in the various
cities. We were in Potchefstroom for our
event last week and yesterday was Fochville.
I was to go to Fochville with Dineo but Mary Jane called me at the last
minute and asked me to stay in the office.
Today, the march is in Vryburg and I was to go but I cancelled out
because I just can’t get up at 5AM anymore. Earlier in the month, I attended another wedding, not large, but quite lovely in Tsetse, a village north of here. We also presented a creche there with hand-made dolls for each child. What great fun that was. More than half the children are orphans and many have no toys at all. Lots of excitement and tears.
Hopefully, my friend, Dot, will be back from the states,
where she has been with her mother, who is at the end of her life, in time for our trip. We plan to leave Mafikeng on the 27th to Pretoria,
fly to Victoria Falls on the 28th and take our camping trip through Botswana and eastern South Africa from the 29th
to the 10th of July. We are
going to Chobe National
Park and Okavanga Delta in Botswana and then to Kruger Park in South Africa. Since neither of us has been to Kruger we
decided to stay with the tour throughout, even though it takes us clear across
the country from Mafikeng. What the heck, we couldn’t get a refund (we
tried) if we went straight home from Maun (Okavanga Delta), and we haven’t seen
Kruger so we might as well go. If Dot
doesn’t make it back, I will go on my own since it is an organized tour. I would actually meet more people if I were
to travel alone, but it could get rather lonely. Besides, I’m counting on Dot to help me with
the camping as I’ve never really camped before!
So this will be a real adventure.
It will be particularly interesting to see how my back holds up after
sleeping on the ground all those days.
In the Okavanga Delta we will be sleeping outside, no tent, under the
stars. I’m so excited about that I can
hardly bear it! All those stars right
over my head!!!
By the way, I gave up on Windows Vista, took it off my computer and loaded XP; my computer is behaving much more normally now. It is just not powerful enough for Vista!