7 Days Later - Thoughts Upon Our Return

Post date: Jul 12, 2010 1:28:43 AM

It's been 7 days since we got back from southern Africa. We arrived on July 4, which is not the first time that I have returned back to the United States on Independence Day. I find a level of both irony and patriotic pride when I come back to the U.S. on July 4, and this time was no different. I love going places in the rest of the world, but I am also a patriotic American. However, that level of patriotism didn't extend to either staying on the Washington Mall to watch fireworks or staying awake long enough to catch more than about 5 minutes of fireworks from our balcony in Charlottesville.

Since we've been back, many people have asked us about our trip, the World Cup, and Africa in general. So, in bullet form, here are some of my random thoughts in no particular order:

• Southern Africa is more like Europe or America than the jungles in The Heart of Darkness. It retains a very British feel to it, and while things work differently there, it's not as much of a culture shock as I imagine going somewhere in central or western Africa would be.
• Security wasn't a big issue there. You have to use common sense, and homes are fenced or walled in, but I never felt unsafe there. I have been in places in downtown D.C. or Atlanta where I felt much less safe than I ever did during my trip.
• If someone would open up a restaurant that served springbok, warthog ribs, and Graham Beck's wines, they'd do a killing. Even though I had a pretty serious run of sickness during the first week, I still managed to gain 5 pounds during my trip.
• I hope the World Cup manages to change perceptions about South Africa. Americans were the second largest purchasers of World Cup tickets behind South Africans, so I hope that many of them went there for the first time, found out how great it was, and will go back again. South Africa has earned our repeat business.
• There were many, many, many things that we did not see. From the beaches of Durban to the dunes of Sossusvlei in Namibia, we scratched the surface, and, as our South African friends (both from Johannesburg and Capetonians) reminded us time and again, Cape Town is not like the rest of South Africa.
• It's easy to overpack. If you're staying somewhere for more than a day, you can drop off laundry to be washed, ironed, and folded, and it's cheap. We had what was probably 30 pounds of clothes washed for under $20. Whatever you've packed, divide it in 2 and try again.
• South Africa is still cheap, but not quite as cheap as it was in late 2007. I think this might have something to do with the World Cup than with a significant amount of inflation.
• South Africa still has some serious governmental and economic structural issues. When 7% of the population controls 93% of the wealth and the distribution of income is not Gaussian, something has to change. I hope it can do so peacefully or without serious brain drain. The country threw off Apartheid without violent recriminations, and hopefully it can keep pulling out leaders like Mandela to keep it that way and bring some semblance of economic equality to the population in a fair way. By the way, I don't have the answers.
• There's a whole world waiting to be discovered. Go out and discover it, and don't let fear of the unknown stop you.