This is a gorgeous picture.  I climbed table mountain in December.  It was beautiful, but my boyfriend lied to me and said it would only take us an hour or two to get to the top …FIVE hours later we finally made it.  The view was spectacular, but next time I’m taking the cable car both ways. 

thebronzemedal:

robot-heart:

I’m reading this fictional book that is based partially in South Africa. The book is terrible, but the description of Table Mountain was pretty incredible. Good to see the words were deserved.

Anti-Immigrant Violence in Johannesburg

12 dead, over 50 injured, 200 arrested, 3,000 left destitute

“International medical and relief group Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said the thousands of foreigners left destitute now amounted to a humanitarian crisis.  ’I have been to many refugee camps and situations, and this definitely is along those lines,’ the group’s spokesman, Dr Eric Goemaere, said… . ‘I have treated bullet wounds, beaten people, rape victims and the people are terrified.’”

I love South Africa and this is just so sad.  I really hope they are able to pull it together, but the situation doesn’t look hopeful.  

The photo is from the NY Times

The news article quoted is from All Africa 

Queen playing for Mandela: is this not weird?

I saw this article in the guardian today about the possible hypocrisy of Queen playing for Nelson Mandela’s birthday, since they played at Sun City in South Africa in the ‘80’s.  The article also linked to the video “for the Artists United Against Apartheid protest song Sun City. Released in 1985, the clip features candyfloss hair and plenty of it, but it also features people such as Keith Richards, Run DMC, Lou Reed and Bruce Springsteen telling you that they (they) they (they) they (they) they ain’t gonna play Sun City. So it’s not as if what was once fine has since become a cultural faux pas. It was wrong then, and Queen surely knew it.” 

I don’t think their mistake in judgement twenty years ago should prevent them from playing tribute to Mandela today, but I do think they should acknowledge their past decisions.  

I was in Sun City in December and it is gorgeous and fun and completely integrated, as far as I could tell (which isn’t to say that post-apartheid SA doesn’t still have a lot of problems, only that Sun City no longer stands as a symbol of them).  This is a picture of the Palace of the Lost City, and is the best picture I have that doesn’t feature me or someone I know in the foreground.  If I ever go back, I’m going to have to make sure to take better pictures. 

Elephants coming towards our very little car at Addo National Park, South Africa.  Trust me, it was more frightening than it looks in this photo.  Elephants are responsible for more deaths in African game reserves than any other animal, or so I’m told.  Oh, and never eat an orange in a game reserve.  Elephants are crazy for citrus.  

I just remembered it’s me and my boyfriend’s eight-month anniversary.  I’ve forgotten the last three months, which I suppose is why he hasn’t called.  I’m the worst girlfriend ever, or well, at least in long distance relationships (in this case super-long-distance, since he’s in South Africa).  It’s 2:30am there now, so I’ll wait to call until tomorrow.  But this post is proof that I didn’t entirely forget.

More photos of South African Townships.  This one is by Samantha Reinders.   

“This photograph is from a larger essay on Township Tourism in South Africa – a phenomenon with increasing popularity since the countries first democratic elections in 1994. What is today a million-dollar industry has been the center of much controversy over the years. Is it a voyeuristic, making poverty into a theme park – or does it do much to bring money, jobs and opportunities to areas that need them most?”

(via The New Breed of Documentary Photographers) 

I saw this photograph by Ilan Godfrey on the site The New Breed of Documentary Photographers, which I heard about through tumblr, but I forgot from whom, so I’m sorry for not giving that person credit.

It is a photograph of a resident of Hillbrow, Johannesburg, South Africa.

The caption:

“Josef Jones, 20 shares this bed with his two friends, Simpiwe Guru, 16 and Themba Ndlovu, 14. They don’t work and don’t go to school. Banket Street and Kapteijn Street, 2005” 

I meant to blog about this earlier, but I’ve been so wrapped up in my work, all I’ve really done on tumblr is reblog other people’s posts.  Tonight, I took a break from studying to look at pictures from my trip to South Africa in December, and I was reminded of this photograph.

I was in South Africa for five weeks with my boyfriend, who is from a suburb of Jo’burg.  We spent almost two weeks in and around Gauteng, although we only went into Jo’burg proper once.  The entire time we were there, Michael and his family were overly concerned about my safety, and it was an entirely new experience for me.  I lived on my own in NYC when I was 18, so I’m not unaccustomed to urban environments, but this was different.  I’ve never seen so much electric fencing in my life.  Michael’s mother said at one point that there’s no point putting up Christmas lights in Jo’burg—no one can see them, because of the fencing.  And there are parking lot guards at every store, restaurant, and street.  

We spent a day in Soweto, the largest township in Jo’burg.  We went to see Winnie Mandela’s house, the interior of Nelson Mandela’s old home, the only street in the world to have housed two Nobel Peace Prize winners, and we visited a Shebeen, where a stranger asked if he could take a picture of me because he had never seen a white girl drink “like a tsotsi” (I had a 40 of Hansa my boyfriend had handed me).

And we witnessed a lot of poverty, from every direction.  On our way to Soweto, there was a store set up adjacent to a shanty-town that advertised “all the materials you need to set up your own shack.”  And there were people living in deplorable conditions set up right next to affluent suburbs.  

Granted, this in no way represents most of South Africa, which is beautiful, relatively safe, and financially secure when compared to the rest of Africa; but the time we spent in Jo’burg was eye-opening for me in a lot of ways.

I think it is also significant that Jo’burg hasn’t always been this way and that crime has increased dramatically over the past two decades or so, which the photographer says:  ”I recall my visits to Hillbrow as a young boy as an exciting day out. But as the years past it became a no go area. Today Hillbrow has become one of the most dangerous parts of the city of Johannesburg where crimes are on the rise.”

The rest of the photographs from the series can be found here.