Small Snippets of South Africa

Greetings from the Happy Hippo backpackers in Durban, South Africa! There's so much I want to tell you all... so I thought I'd throw out a few amusing anecdotes and snippets to hopefully give you a sense of what I'm doing and seeing and learning about while I'm here!

Let's start with the convo I had this evening with an Afrikaner in the hostel bar. He was an attorney in SA during apartheid, and having received gov't funding for his studies, actually prosecuted for the state until he had a crisis of conscience and left his job and paid back the penalites on his student debt. He had some crazy stories, including one of a magistrate who he thought was going to stop some police officers from beating a defendant who had fled during trial. No, the magistrate was going to beat the defendant too. Of course, the police officers and the magistrate got off with just a warning. After that, he became a banker and now likes to dive and fish a lot...actually, it sounds like he avoids civilization most of the time!

Polygamy seems to be quite the status symbol. If you have the 11 or 12 cattle necessary to purchase the additional wives, of course. Actually, for the young barman at the last backpacker I stayed at in the middle of Zulu area, it is stressful enough trying to earn the money to buy the 11 cattle for the first wife. It is hard to be "culturally sensitive" when people are talking about paying for their wives.

I went on another game drive in Hluhluwe Game Reserve (this is of course pronounced the only way possible - "schluh-schloo-weh"), and saw some more amazing elephants ("stormed by elephants" as one co-safari-er described it, though that might be an exaggeration), lazy rhinos, funny baboons, and stunning scenery. At the backpacker bushcamp itself there were funny colored lizards and lots of bushbabys and monkeys. It was great being out in the middle of nowhere.

Lane markers here are really more of a guideline or a suggestion. The shoulder is apparently where you move to when someone wants to pass you. It is also where pedestrians frequently hail rides, sell fruits and veg, or just hang out. According to Sascha the German backpacker, however, he heard rumors that jumping out in front of cars from these shoulders is a common method of suicide. I'm glad I'm not driving is all I can say about that.

There may actually be an opportunity for me to post photos tomorrow. I'll give notice on the blog if this is so. Next, I'm heading to the Drakensberg Mountains and hopefully into Lesotho. Til then... email me updates from home. I'd love to read them!