Journal of This Southern Africa Adventure
August, 2000
Back in the U.S.A. for only two weeks out of the month. What a difference 11 months makes. That is the time since we were last in the good ol' U.S. of A.
Some thoughts:
The US is the land of little personal security (few walls, little security monitoring, people driving with their windows rolled down even if their car is unattended). Instead we invest in and rely on our police force. Many in the world call our country a police state. Is it, however, our police force that is the major deterrent to crime, is it our harsh penal system (yeah right!), or is it just because most people have jobs and the economy is doing quite well. It is the latter, I think. South Africa has a small police force, a lenient penal system, lots of personal security systems, and most importantly has a very high unemployment and lots of people who are living below the poverty rate. It has been deemed that those who live in poverty in South Africa are those who earn less than R345 (or about $50) per month. While food and housing is certainly cheaper than anywhere in the US, everything else is the same cost if not more than in the US.
The US is a land were people take pride in the landscape. There is much less littering than in South Africa. However, labor is so cheap in SA that the trash gets picked up rather quickly.
The US is a land of cars and highways although traffic jams in SA during rush hour can be just as bad as anywhere in the US.
The US is a land of lawyers. In SA children are allowed to go to school barefoot up until a certain age and generally anybody can go barefoot anywhere at anytime. Although I should say that I heard of a case in SA where an ex-wife (the plaintiff) was suing another women (the defendant who was now with the ex-husband) for breaking up her marriage. The defendant's ex-husband was hoping that the plaintiff would be successful so that he could turn around and sue his counterpart. It would be a great case for LA Law.
In the US people are expected to work hard, in fact, people are expected to do more than their their responsibilities, just to stay ahead. In the US two weeks of vacation in a row is not common. In South Africa, even with the high unemployment, people do not value their jobs. They try to get away with as much as possible. A contractor can keep their job for a long time just by being friends with the boss. Taking several weeks off in a row is very common.
Sexism reigns in South Africa. While women are found in the workplace, and there, they do enjoy some equality. However, outside the workplace is an entirely different matter. In a restaurant, it the men who always get the bill. In the car shop, it is always the man always gets the attention. In some places a housewife cannot sign the check or pay by credit card without her husband co-signature. On the other side, men are much more polite to women than in the US.
The US is a land of great natural resources and a great variety of terrain of great natural beauty and so is South Africa in a space that is equal to Texas times two. The US has 250M+ people where SA has about 40M.
It is the wild game and beauty of the country in such a small area that sets South Africa apart from the US. One never can get tired of giraffe, elephants, cheetah, lions, leopard, rhino, all of the boks and zebra, etc. that roam in the game parks so close to any of the urban areas. It is for that reason that we continue to show pictures of our visits to the game parks and why we visit new places (such as Krugersdorp Nature Reserve) and revisit old places such as DeWildt Cheetah Research Center. We visited both this month as soon as we got back from the US.
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