I arrived in South Africa in late November, and started recording my thoughts a few weeks later ….
16th December, 2010
Well hello there! How are you in the run up to Christmas? I hope it’s very jolly in your part of the world. People here in Johannesburg are strongly fixed on the point of departure: Christmas holidays are everything and Jo’burg is starting to empty out, which is fabulous, as the horrendous traffic starts to thin.
On one hand, I love being here … I am completely intrigued by what my country has become. My friends say its like being in a time warp talking to me, as I left in 1999 and South Africa has a decade of development under its belt. I’m intrigued to observe how my mind is still working from a really old reference point, and wonder how long it will take to catch up. So many cues dictate the evolution – clothing, hairstyles, expert commentators on television, people’s very presence. The country is populated by African leaders – I glimpsed the impact of these changes in my visits here over the years, but now, African people run every sector of the country. Being a child of the apartheid era, this is a bit of a brain warp for me, and please, no offense meant here, it’s just that I am caught in a delay until I catch up. What I do like to see is people in their dignity, and because I look with fresh eyes, I can see how quickly the psycho-social transformation has taken place. Of course there are areas where things have regressed to an appalling state - poverty, housing, crime, but it is a very different country where there is a sense of belonging and ownership foreign in the early eighties.
Another observation that’s surfaced into some kind of understanding for me is gender relations. On the enneagram personality typing system, South Africa would be an 8, the Bully in an unhealthy state, Brilliant Leader in a healthy state. Corruption is off the Richter scale here, but there is a very strong print tradition – a couple of excellent newspapers that are committed to transparency and the democratic process. One paper has a team called Amabhungane, meaning, the dung beetle, muck-rakers, gathering dirt, that expose many of the astonishing corruption stories, and so tackle the bullies.
Back to gender stuff. I find the men solid, masculine, very different to Aussies. Its great to be around decisiveness, which can easily slip into bullying, if you let it. I hired a car to get me to a five day training program with John Demartini in Sandton – as I’m on a budget I went with (lets call it) Rent a Tin Can on Wheels, whose offices are based under a flyover in downtown Jo’burg, which most honkies I’ve spoken to consider a no-go zone, or at least a cloud passes over their face when I mention it.
The picture is that the southern end of the city is margined by old mine dumps, you won’t see a tree for a while, perhaps some old skinny gum trees which were used in the mines. You take the M1 freeway, which winds south and then east, circling the city and providing a fabulous view of the cityscape and giant Mary Sibanda artworks draped across buildings. You descend into the belly of old Jo’burg on the Joe Slovo offramp, a magnificent piece of engineering design which sees you driving parallel to the elevated windows of apartment blocks right next to the freeway.
There seems always to be a woman next to a smoky fire roasting corn in African space, and here she sits, directly beneath the flyover and her smoke provides another atmospheric element to the concrete jigsaw puzzle.
The buildings in this area are mainly from the 50’s, 60’s 70’s, big old apartment and office blocks, utilised but not cared for. Because people didn’t pay their rent, electricity and water services, owners of some of these buildings abandoned them as they were more hassle than worth any real money, so people remained living in unserviced structures. Unscrupulous cartels hijacked certain buildings, operating like slumlords, determining who does and doesn’t stay. Mostly there are foreigners in these buildings, refugees and asylum seekers. Medicines Sans Frontiers says that this area is in major crisis, that people are living below international refugee guidelines. Isn’t that extraordinary, when you think of refugee camps in Kenya with tens of thousands of people in some remote, deserted spot, tents and dust everywhere? Here its happening in dense inner city – they’ve identified 82 buildings housing approximately 50-60 000 people with no water, no power, living in terrible filth and danger. Imagine that in downtown Melbourne.
Anyway, this is the area I had to get to to pick up my car. On the day I’m nervous, fed on stories of how terrifying downtown Jo’burg is, so I get the company to come and pick me up from Fournos, my temporary head quarters, a pleasant café in an upmarket area I used to frequent when I lived here. As we drove into the city area, my jaw dropped at these hijacked buildings – windows are broken, people use anything to cover the holes, cardboard, fabric, plastic, and they have the appearance of being stuffed with stuff and muffled humanity. Jo’burg that I grew up in has become a full-blown African city. And it moves so fast, at its own anarchic pace, that it is very easy to get left behind.
The guys in the car rental office are big black men, and want me to leave two blank signed credit card slips plus a deposit for the shitbox they are renting me. I cannot believe they are serious – who on earth would do that in Africa? Eventually all three of them are trying to calm me down, “Mama, please, let’s all just cool down, its completely normal, everyone does it, we have been running for 46 years.” This is evident, in the ancient triangular office. There is not a computer in sight. Grubby books detailing accounts, cars, agreements line the walls, thankfully there are no girly calendars. Eventually I figure I’ll give them a debit card which I can ensure will only ever have $200 dollars on it, calm down, and get in the car. My heart is pounding. I have to find my way out of the city, I thought there would be a map in the car but they suggest I go to a newsagent and buy my own map. Fair enough; for R140 a day (AU$20), I can see the need for the customer to supply their own map.
The old white Jewish man wearing a yarmulke has been sitting quietly at the next desk, arranging his rental, and now asks G, one of the workers, for directions. G tells him but he insists he is going to drive through the centre of town. Even G shakes his head; this is not a good thing to do. Its seriously dangerous, the Commissioner Street of yesteryear is a very different street. But the old man is insistent.
I’m struck when the owner of the business arrives, a pink man in denim shorts inserts himself behind a desk, at home, also Jewish, and it comes back to me how deeply layered is this multicultural society. The Jews pretty much built Jo’burg, and there are a few left here, who didn’t flee for Sydney or Melbourne. It’s a scene from 1979, this funny grubby little office with its Africans and assorted Jewry.
Rattled by my experience, I make my way to 44 Stanley St, an apparently groovy development in the part of town housing film studios, hip. I can’t find it. The roadworks, which were in the same state when I came here in June, are still diverting traffic to a place I don’t want to be in. I ask a seedy Indian man in his seedy café (milk bar), and he sends me somewhere I’m pretty sure is not right. After driving around and thinking about the free 60km I’m using up (I’m a tight arse, I know…) I listen to my instinct, and drive straight to the Stanley Street. There is even a parking place directly outside the door which is a blessing, and a curse (all the other cars are Lexus, BMW, Porsches … I am after all, in Egoli, the City of Gold, and I am driving a bronze 1986 Mazda that screams “skorokoro”, meaning, roughly, shitbox).
I swallow my pride, get out the car, the ancient alarm goes off as soon as I step out and I fumble with an immobiliser I remember from my childhood. Thank God alarms are the birdsong of Jo’burg so no-one pays too much attention. I’m still shaking. Feeling very rattled by the intense energy of the city, the furious driving, the hooting taxis trying to attract passengers, the electric pace of everyone pushing to get somewhere. My little sensitive being is feeling invaded, and I know that this will have to change if I am to spend time here.
Stepping into 44 Stanley Street is like entering an oasis. Its calm, a small complex with terribly stylish shops and cafes, people have coffee under young trees in delicate cafes. And the people are GORGEOUS. A woman resembling Grace Jones walks past, massive Gucci shades and viciously sharp shoulders to her jacket, her stilettos under her strict command. Bright young creative things are in intense conversation, a few faces I remember from my life in the film business tweak my memory. Can’t remember their names. Don’t expect them to remember me.
I’m meeting R, my old mate from years ago; we were headhunted to work for a big media corporation around the time of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. I adore R, he’s funny, clever, with a clear take on things. We’re both going grey, I comment when we see each other, I just have enough hair for a comb-over to hide my silver strands.
Its lovely to see him, we always liked each other, and he tells me about Birth, a book he’s reading about 1994, when Mandela was released and the country was changing. We were all doing interesting film and television stuff, for the BBC, Channel4, Discovery, and he tells me he is shocked to read what was ACTUALLY going on, how close the country was to civil war. “And we were getting drunk,” he reminds me. It’s true. We were very, very drunk and not remotely aware of the danger, or perhaps we needed to be drunk to keep on working and living BECAUSE we sensed the danger.
Anyway, I was trying to tell you about gender stuff here. I have noticed that the women are very sexual in their presentation. Across the races, there’s a lot of money spent on hair, make-up, clothes … it’s a high value here to be sexy. I realised how lax I am about clothing, and how relaxed we are in Australia. And the men. Stubborn. Total blokes. When I returned the car to Rent a Tin Can on Monday, I told the solid black bloke that the petrol gauge wasn’t working. He insisted that it was – an Aussie guy would have listened to what I said and showed a bit of respect. After telling Solid five times that it was definitely not working I realised it was easier just to give up and walk away. Sometime, you just have to say Fuckit, right?
In between getting ready for Christmas, I am following up on work stuff, just taking my projects slowly as there is not a whole lot happening in December. Everything takes three times as long as my internet connection is excruciatingly slow (that’s another deeply boring story of terrible service, they’re a dime a dozen here). So no work with clients is being done, which is actually a very good thing for me; now I shall arrange myself on my mother’s couch and be fed Christmas mince pies.
Whilst dealing with the urban scenarios, I’m reading extraordinary books about shamans and fabulous African stories. It is good for me to be here. To be with my mum and to explore what it is I’ve been missing all the time I’ve been in Australia. To see how I’ve infatuated with South Africa and the illusion I’ve built up around it. To meet the people who have stayed here and to get the sense, the feeling and knowing of where I come from, and what makes these people who they are, what these personalities are all about. To take some time before I have to make it all work here, business, life, love. Wish me luck!
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