We also went to the oldest muslim burial site in South Africa. Muda being muslim, he is full of interesting Islamic tidbits.
MUUUUDDAA!!
The beach was indescribably beautiful. Buddha was eager to get off the leash and I let him loose into the waves. A few stuffy tourists nervously eyeballed us as we splashed in the water and ran from Buddha. The only not-white people there were employees of the neighboring beach club or servants at one of the unnecessarily huge houses dotting the shoreline, who also didn't know what to think of us. But being winter still it was pretty deserted, which was nice.
Muda and Buddha climbing rocks together :)
After our romp around the beach, Muda decided I needed to see a proper ghetto. He talked about how all this beautiful land use to belong to the Africans until the dutch showed up pushed them aside and left them with the land no one wants. Sound familiar? Europeans were basically professionals at stealing land. So we drove through the beautiful seaside town, and the paved streets gave way to uneven gravel and the white washed beach homes turned into tin roofed shanties as we drove into the muslim ghetto of Hout Bay. He told me how not all ghettos are the same. The ghetto he lives in is riddled with gang violence and there's no sense of community or security, while this one here in Hout bay is a good example of how the community works together. A few years back the government tried to clear them off the hills so they could develop expensive resorts for white tourists, but they refused to leave their homes even after they were deprived of running water and electricity for weeks. One of the few examples of the disenfranchised winning their battles in Cape Town. There were a weird amount of American Pit Bulls there. Out on the streets being walked by children. And while Muda said they were used for fighting, these were all healthy looking and seemed very very happy. They were in the parks chasing kids and happy to see other dogs and being walked on good quality harnesses. It was different than seeing pits in the ghettos of Milwaukee where they all look haggard, mangy, and incredibly shifty.
The day was a great success. I loved hearing Muda's view on race and how it plays into the politics of his country. He said often that we (Americans) have our first black president who tries to accomplish things for all his citizens while he has a black government that tries hard to keep the white minority population happy because they hold all the wealth. Whoever has the cash has the voice. Same bullshit worldwide. We talked about the similarities between the US and SA and how far we've come in the years since the Civil Rights Movement and Apartheid and how far we still need to go.
Which brings me to my next story. I went to the bar last night to bother Muda and have a beer, and as with every time I go to have a (singular) beer it turns into way more than that. Someone there (white guy) told me that I have to watch out for colored people, giving me no real reason to do so. When I asked about Joberg (where he was from) he told me that it was only safe in the white gated communities. Hmm. Well then. If I wanted to hangout with a bunch scared white people I would have moved to northern Wisconsin and not South Africa. As Caz mentioned in a previous post, the white people here are scared. More on that to come.
Muda tried to talk me into going back to the bar tonight but HELL NO. Team South Africa is RUINING my liver and I need to recuperate yet again.
Mandy
No comments:
Post a Comment