Jeffrey's Bay, South Africa 4.22.2006

As a team, we are rapidly coming to a very critical junction. For the past ten months, our overriding goal was to reach Cape Town against all odds. As we slowly made our way south, countless people told us this was impossible. We heard many things. There was no way in hell our car could make it. It was too dangerous. The roads are impassible. Thieves will steal everything we have. Recently, one wise guy told us that he wouldn't trust our car to drive him home. Very few people gave us a chance. It was almost embarrassing for a while when people asked where we were heading. I would say a country not far away. If I didn't, we would get strange looks from almost everyone.

Even I didn't give us great odds on actually making it to Cape Town. Although I knew we would do our best to persevere against anything Africa could throw at us, there were so many things that could go wrong. This has clearly been evident in the last few months as the Stingray has suffered from some major problems that would have meant the end of the journey in many countries. But we made it and now must look to the north.

I want to quickly thank everybody that has supported us along the way. We have met innumerable friends along the way who have been instrumental in making this trip a success. Each and every one of you has made a very positive impact on us as a team and has definitely been a credit to African hospitality. Extra special thanks go to two wonderful friends and crucial supporters that never lost faith: Happi in Cameroon and the Major in Nigeria. If we pushed on when everything seemed lost, it was because of people like you.

We have left Cape Town behind and are now heading up the coast towards Mozambique. After living out of a car for almost a year and being constantly on the move, I think we are all a bit burnt out. I have almost forgotten what it is like to have a place of my own, to wear clothes that haven't been utterly destroyed and to sleep in a bed that offers something more than a thin plastic mat in a tent which, due to a myriad of gaping holes, is affectionately referred to as the "Franken-Tent". Yet my desire to see the trip to its conclusion in Ethiopia still remains strong. Africa is an amazing continent and there is still so much more I want to see and do.

Unplanned expenses have put us into a small monetary crisis. We have enough money to get out of South Africa and into Mozambique; but the African AIDS Awareness Campaign will meet its end there if nothing significant changes. Tuuli is hard at work in Jo'burg looking to the private sector for support; but assistance is far from guaranteed. She has her work cut out for her.

Despite an uncertain future for the campaign, I am very happy with what we have already accomplished. Ten months, seventeen countries and nearly 20,000 miles later, we have made it further than any of us could have imagined. I have seen fantastic projects and met many dedicated people that have given me hope about the fight against AIDS. Despite appalling statistics from a pandemic that is still growing at an astonishing speed, significant progress is being made in many places across the continent at a local level.

The next few weeks will be critical to the future of our campaign. What transpires next, on a personal level, is just as uncertain. I have been disconnected for so long that all previous plans have been called into serious question. Despite much reflection and recent homesickness, I am increasingly becoming weary of throwing myself into a life that I have avoided for so long. I have what might or might not be a very rational fear of becoming trapped. Yet at this point I am very far removed from that life. And I have recently been wondering what I might possibly be missing. I don't know what is next for me. I am not even sure what I want. But as I have learned on countless occasions along the way, only time will tell.
* posted by Sean at 12:07 PM  —  5 comments

Cape Town, South Africa 4.14.2006

Many years ago, before I first visited Africa, I saw a website advertising shark diving. While I had heard of many different "shark diving experiences", varying from swimming alongside giant whale sharks to observing nurse sharks at close range, this website was very different. It offered what I thought was an insane idea: cage diving with the Great White, the most dangerous shark in the world.

Safaris have never really appealed to me. Viewing "big game" just doesn't seem that exciting. Most game farms are nothing but glorified zoos. Rangers often know exactly where the animals are going to be and the animals behave in very predictable ways. Once you've spent a couple hours watching elephants at a watering hole, visiting additional watering holes with additional elephants gets tiresome. This might sound a bit sacrilegious; but, everything you can see on a reserve you can find in a zoo.

The normally elusive Great White shark is different. There are only a few places in the world where you can regularly see them. South Africa, with one of the highest populations of Great Whites, is exceptional. This past week at Plettenberg Bay, 14 different Great Whites were spotted just off the coast. There are numerous organizations dedicated to monitoring the waters for these sharks and warning surfers in the water when they are sighted. Observing a Great White in the water seemed likely to offer everything that normal safaris don't: the chance to see an extraordinary beast at close quarters in its natural environment. When I got to Cape Town, I looked up the company I had read about many years before on the internet and signed up for a morning in the cage.

I was picked up at 5:30 in the morning from my hostel. It was still dark out as I climbed into a small bus with thirteen other aspirant shark divers. Most were men in their mid to late twenties. Many were going solo, unable to convince friends and family of the merits of such an expedition. After a couple hours drive down the coast, I boarded a double-decker boat and we quickly headed out to sea.

Our boat dropped anchor a few kilometers off the coast in an area known for its resident seals. A large tuna head tied to a rope was thrown off the back of the boat and the water was chummed with fish blood. It wasn't long before we got our first hit. The captain, in mid explanation of the upcoming dive, was interrupted when a three meter Great White surfaced and violently snatched at the bait. It circled the boat a few times while the crew lowered the diving cage into the water; then it silently dropped into the depths.

It was overcast and the water looked especially cold and uninviting. The captain asked for volunteers for the first group. The cage was moderately sized and could fit up to four people. I wanted to go; so I quickly suited up with three other shark enthusiasts. We put on full body wetsuits with hoods as well as booties. Instead of scuba gear, the noise of which can scare sharks away, we used snorkels. The captain tied weight belts to us as we adjusted our masks. As I climbed down the ladder into the small opening at the top of the cage, I quickly scanned the water. I didn't see any sharks but I knew they were waiting just out of sight. My visibility was somewhat limited because of the mask and I felt that one missed step would send me tumbling over the cage into the open water.

I dropped into the cage without any trouble and with adrenaline pumping, submerged. The first thing I noticed was the bottom of the cage. There were huge openings in the cage where we were meant to stand. At one point, these openings were covered by netting to keep your legs from slipping through. The netting under me was far from robust. There were huge holes in it and almost immediately, my left foot slipped through into the oblivion below.

I readjusted my stance and we waited. The water was dark and murky, but visibility was adequate. Huge schools of small fish hovered around the bait and swam in and out of the cages. With the heavy duty wetsuit on, the water wasn't as cold as I expected. We waited patiently as an eerie calm permeated the silent sea. Suddenly, a sharp noise broke the stillness.

"Watch the bait! Watch the bait!" screamed the captain. I could see nothing. Then, like a ghost out of the fog the grinning face of a hungry Great White emerged ferociously. As it made a pass for the bait situated a few meters from the cage, its massive body took shape. Its size was insanely impressive in the water. This wasn't even a large shark; but its girth was remarkable. I was thrilled to be in the water with such a creature. It turned toward us and gave us a passing glance, dropping beneath us and disappearing into the depths beneath.

A few minutes later, a second shark came to investigate the bait. This one stuck around for awhile, disappearing for a few minutes at a time and reappearing at various disconcerting locations all around the cage. At one point, as I was intently watching the bait, I glanced behind me only to be startled by a huge shadow passing just feet from the cage behind us. After about 25 minutes in the water, with our shark fix properly satisfied, the four of us got out, took off the wetsuits, and dried off on the deck of the boat.

The viewing from on the boat was just as good as in the water. Over the course of the next three hours, seven different Great Whites paid us a visit, the biggest at just over four meters. It was definitely an impressive display of what the ocean hid in its depths. As we pulled anchor and headed back to shore, I knew it would definitely give me something to think about next time I paddled out into sea in search of good surf.
* posted by Sean at 12:02 PM  —  0 comments

Cape Town, South Africa 4.11.2006

Cape Town is everything Jo'burg isn't. Situated near the Cape of Good Hope where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet, it is the southern most city in Africa. It is magnificently crammed between the ocean and an impressive range of mountains. Small towns, fishing communities and charming vacation homes lay scattered along the coast. Prosperous adrenaline seekers can skydive, kite surf, dune buggy, bungy jump and abseil to their hearts delight. The landscape is tremendous in Cape Town. It is also the classic final "destination" of many African overland trips.

Yet just outside Cape Town, hidden from view on the barren plains, lies the vast Cape Flat townships. During apartheid, the white South African government wanted to ensure that cheap labor was easily accessible. To make this possible, they created black townships close enough to every city to provide bargain man power but far enough away to prevent unnecessary intermingling. The government then moved huge portions of the population to these townships.

While the quality of life varies greatly in the townships, by and large most areas suffer from a lack of electricity, have no running water, are incredibly overcrowded, and have very high unemployment and crime rates. Housing varies greatly, from lifeless tracts of tiny government constructed homes to frail shacks built from aluminum siding. Once out of the cities, some of these townships stretch for miles. On many maps, they are not even indicated. Some have absolutely huge populations, such as Soweto, with over four million people.

I have not yet been able to completely reconcile myself with the fact that, twelve years after the collapse of apartheid, the townships are essentially providing the same function as before. It is not the poverty itself in the townships that shocks me. People throughout Africa live in conditions strikingly similar to this. Their level of destitution is in no way unique or noteworthy. Rather, it is the absolute disconnect between two alien ways of life, created according to skin color, that I find disturbing. I want to say this is slowly changing, that South African's attitudes towards race relations are improving, but the economic reality is impossible to ignore.

The residents of the townships are mostly landless wage slaves. In most other African countries, the majority of the rural populations still farm. While material wealth is often elusive, these Africans at least own land and, hypothetically, they have some measure of control over their food security. In South Africa, every last hectare of land has been bought up and fenced off by commercial farmers, ranchers, investors and wealthy foreigners. Proportionally, very little arable land remains in the hands of the black population. It would be difficult to find space for a single garden bed in scores of the townships. With the possibility of sustenance farming nonexistent, the masses are stuck in blue collar jobs with few opportunities for upward mobility.

In many townships people are struggling to create vibrant and economically healthy communities. Some are succeeding. Conditions are changing. Yet, it seems like things are not moving fast enough. The inequalities still remain huge. Admittedly, this assessment is only based on a few experiences in the townships. As a white outsider, it has been difficult to accurately gauge the true conditions of life within a township. Numbers and statistics mean very little. Voyeuristic "township tours" can be very incomplete and misleading. Without a respected "guide" from within the community, townships can be dangerous to visit alone.

I would have liked the opportunity to have spent more time in the townships. I still have many unanswered questions, observations that need to be clarified, and possibly premature opinions to put to the test. Thankfully, there is still time as we head up the coast towards Mozambique. Nevertheless, I am alarmed to think that if I don't have an opportunity to spend more time in the townships during this trip, I could always come back in five or ten years and find black South Africans living in identical conditions.
* posted by Sean at 11:59 AM  —  0 comments

Johannesburg, South Africa 4.07.2006

The moment we arrived in Jo'burg, I was immediately struck by a strange and unexpected wave of nostalgia. The vast, sprawling city emits an unmistakable air that immediately brought to mind Los Angeles. With its convoluted and congested system of freeways, the thick smog resting over downtown, the trendy shopping quarters only blocks from rundown slums, after ten long months on the road it felt like I was finally home.

Over 10 million people live in the bustling metropolitan sprawl that includes Pretoria and the township of Soweto. Jo'Burg is its heart, serving as a vital hub for virtually all major business operating in Southern Africa. It is also often called the "Car Jacking Capital of the World" and the crime rates are astounding. Tuuli had arrived in Jo"burg a couple of days before us, knew a bit about the lay of the land, and was excited to show us around the city where she will eventually be working. During our brief but all inclusive tour, we received the full "Jo'burg experience".

Tuuli put Mike and me onto a local minibus heading for the city center. After about 20 minutes of driving, I realized we were close when I saw a sign for Hillbrow. This made me more than a bit apprehensive. However, Tuuli reassured us that she had been through here the day before and that we were not in any danger. I knew almost nothing about Jo'burg except that the suburb of Hillbrow is notoriously dangerous. From the view out of my window, its nasty reputation seemed quite reasonable. Architecturally, many of the buildings seemed transplanted straight out of a Dickens novel with "grimy industrial slum" as its overriding theme. Malicious looking men sat with vacant eyes on curbsides, glaring viciously at passing cars while rolling cheap cigarettes by hand. In short, it was not a place I wanted to see more of.

We were dropped not far away, in a fairly run down area bustling with commerce. The buildings had the classy city mix of shoddy shops on the bottom and tiny gloomy apartments reaching for the heavens above. On the sidewalks outside these shops ran an endless line of stalls selling everything from shiny watches to colorful produce. I didn't know it at the time, but we were in the vicinity of Park Station, an area notorious for its crime. Tuuli showed us around this area as we gradually moved uptown towards classier areas.

Business was booming. The streets were crowded with somber shoppers. The predominantly black areas around Park Station gradually merged into the cosmopolitan "rainbow nation" that the South Africa government is trying so hard to publicly advocate. We passed countless shops selling every kind of commercial product existing. I couldn't afford any of it. I wasn't sure if I wanted to. Yet even this disgust with flaunted material wealth was almost immediately called into question when I caught myself jealously watching a bratty young child with a huge ice cream Sunday. I desperately wanted one too. Clearly, this vast discrepancy of wealth from block to block explained something about the appalling crime rates.

On the way back to the taxi park in Park Station we stopped for a quick drink. As we sat down, a man immediately approached us. "You are not safe here," he whispered into Mike's ear. "You need to leave." Not willing to wait around and find out what he meant, we finished our drinks promptly, got up and left. We were only a couple of blocks away. The streets were crowded with people. It was still early. We walked at a brisk pace, weaving in and out of the pedestrians.

Suddenly a man in a black jacket stepped in front of me, grabbed Tuuli from behind and threw her violently to the ground. As this was happening, a second man took a hold of me. He wasn't very big. I reached back, seized him, and started to push him off of me. A third man stepped out of the crowd and put a knife to my side. "Give me your money or I will shoot you in the face," he said simply. The game was up. Checkmate. My battleship had unmistakably been sunk.

I let go and the smaller lout slipped behind me and put another knife against my throat. "No problem," I told them. "You can have everything." As I scanned the crowd, I saw at least five more thugs standing at ready. Mike was against the wall, emptying out his pockets, with a knife inches from his face. Tuuli was still on the ground, being relieved of her bag.

It was a professional job. There was no sense of urgency or nervous tension. I felt oddly safe throughout the whole experience, knowing that we were all past the point of ill-advised heroics and other correspondingly imprudent reactions. They took their time, checking me for a money belt and thoroughly patting me down. All my pockets were emptied and every last thing was appropriated. There was a large crowd of bystanders watching, but they knew well enough not to interfere. And then, as abruptly as they appeared, the thieves melted back into the crowd and were gone.

Without saying a word, the three of us started walking once again towards the taxi stand. Mike had some good news. A 20 rand bill, or $3, had been overlooked in the bottom of one of his pockets. We weren't completely stranded. This would be just enough money to get us back to Tuuli's boss's house in Sandton. Although we lost relatively little money and didn't have anything essential like our passports on us, we no longer have our vital credit cards. Getting access to our dwindling money will be a bit of a problem. Yet all things considered, we were very lucky. We took a risk walking around a particularly dangerous area and it cost us. But nobody got hurt and we will be all the more cautious in the future.
* posted by Sean at 12:07 PM  —  1 comments

Gaborone, Botswana 3.22.2006

Botswana is often acclaimed as "Africa's success story." Since independence in 1966, the country has been led by moderate leaders who, uniquely in Africa, have consistently allowed multi-party elections. With the discovery of diamonds in the late 60's that currently account for 30% of the world's supply, the previously weak economy was significantly bolstered. Good governance and a remarkable lack of corruption became normal routine in Botswana. Between 1970 and 1990, Botswana had the fastest growing economy in the world at an astonishing 13% rate and it now enjoys one of the highest GDPs per capita in Africa.

Gabs, the capital of Botswana, tends to gets unpleasant reviews. It's been called "a sprawling village", "drab", and "lacking in definition". I wasn't expecting much when we pulled into the city. We planned on liaising with Kevin, a Peace Corps volunteer working in the AIDS sector, researching a few organizations, and getting out of town as swiftly as possible. While navigating the city was initially challenging, as we once again had to rely on incomplete and outdated maps, Gabs looked okay. While there were no impressively expensive public monuments, strikingly tall buildings, or chic central hang outs, the sprawling village looked decently well off. There didn't seem to be slums on the outskirts and nearly everybody appeared to be living moderately well. There was definitely money there, but many of the excesses of other capitals were not as evident.

The contrasts with Namibia were strong. In many ways, the countries are similar. They both have small populations; culturally noteworthy groups such as the Herero and San (bushmen) make up an important subsection of both. Large portions of land in Namibia and Botswana are consumed by dramatic deserts, such as the Kalahari and the Namib. They both have significant mineral resources. However, where Namibia struggled under apartheid for many years and has a very recent history of hostility between blacks and whites, Botswana has grown vigorously as a nation since independence in 1966. Under black leadership, Botswana took significant steps to avoid the same racial problems that Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe are even now experiencing.

Just coming from Namibia, it was fascinating to see an African country that had been run efficiently for 40 years. In West Africa, major cities are often "blessed" with impressive monuments and vast "revolutionary" squares constructed at an incredibly high cost to the average person; Gabs in contrast seems content to under whelm. While this hasn't contributed to making the city especially dynamic or vibrant, it has given it a very healthy feel where people of all classes, colors and sexes can mingle relatively smoothly. This alone makes Gabs an attractive place for me and I look forward to enjoying what are likely to be a few uneventful but enjoyable days in the capital.
* posted by Sean at 3:24 AM  —  1 comments