South Africa: 20 Observeations

So after two weeks of a 'tour'.....I'll offer my observations:

1.  While posing as a nation, it's basically twenty-odd groups with various agendas and lacking any real unification.  Toss in tribes, political groups, the Dutch, the Brits, the illegals....there's nothing over the past thousand years that has unified the area. 

2.  The Rand has a value of 15 Rand to the dollar.  So, the exchange rate is pretty crazy.  You could lay out 15,000 Rand on your tables, and it's a thousand dollars.....which is what you'd basically need for pocket money, beer, food, etc.....for two weeks.  Oh, and for tips?  best to get 50 and 100 Rand notes in a pocket and be ready at least three times a day to tip someone. 

3.  Food, beer and drinks.  I actually had some mighty fine beer while there, probably consumed forty cocktail drinks over a two week period (mostly because the cost factor was so low....four dollars per drink).  On food, I ate ribs at least five times over that period (never more than $12 to $14 a plate) and have to admit that they know how to grill.  A guy won't lose weight while there. 

4.  Safari jeeps.  I went on four different trail rides over the period there, and just kept wondering about the safety of the vehicles.  Tires?  Mostly all bald.  At some point, the guides jeep wouldn't start while our open-jeep was sitting in lion-territory.  We sat there for ten minutes, kinda looking for lions to approach (no gun in the jeep, I should note).

5.  Crime?  Just about everywhere you look.....barbed wired fences and high walls.  People have electrified fences around their houses, and have posted signs to noted 'armed response'.  I asked about the rate of crime and folks in the rural area say it's awful rare.   Folks around Cape Town?  They suggest a higher rate of crime.  People talk about murders but there is no indication that it's any worse than Memphis or Atlanta.

6.  Languages.  There's a minimum of a dozen languages typically spoken, and people argue over English being the national language.  My humble guess is that two-thirds of the population can speak some level of English.....meaning marginal English.  But a fair portion of rural folks you bump into....are into tribal dialects.

7.  Bathroom outlets.....non-existent.  You can go into any hotel bathroom, and find no outlets.  I asked about this and the comment is that the national standard outlet plug....is so big and huge, that it attracts moisture in a humid room, and it would b dangerous if you had such a outlet there, so there is a standard among electricians.....no outlets in the bathroom.

8.  Whites live in overly protected compound-suburbs......period. 

9.  Wild dogs are considered a protected breed of 'critter', so you can't go off and shoot them (under any reason).  Now, the other side of this story.....they often carry various diseases (like malaria for example)....so you don't want to get friendly with them at all.

10.  Landscape.  Once you leave urban areas, I would qualify South Africa as one of the most scenic countries in the world.  Forty years ago, it would have made sense to fly in....rent a jeep, and just drive cross-country for six weeks.  Today?  Because of crime and threats, I wouldn't recommend it.  Getting out and walking around?  Well....there's that snake issue.  But I spent two weeks seeing the country, and never saw a single snake.

11.  Drugs.  In the urban areas, folks are hyped up and frustrated with the amount of drug trafficking going on.  Meth, crack, etc. 

12.  Game preserves.  Basically, you have a bunch of western folks (US, Europe) who use charity foundations to support the purchase of protected preserves.  Most are in the 25 to 100 square mile size, with a complete security fence keeping the 'critters' inside of the 'park'.  They hire up a doze-odd locals to scout out and prevent hunters from harming any of the animals. 

13.  I ended up on a township-tour (the German wife wanted to see one up close and personal).  The guide ended up walking us through the concrete block buildings.....mostly all 'crap'.  At some point, we entered and I noted on the wall......heavy amount of black mildew (the kind that you really don't want to inhale or touch).  There is marginally support that the black-controlled and dominate political party wants to do in reshaping this whole 'ghetto' landscape. 

14.  Trust in statistics, data or political positions is virtually a joke.  Doesn't matter who you discuss the matter with.....folks don't believe much of anything they are told.....doesn't matter if you are black or white.

15.  The drought.  On the far west end of South Africa is the drought affected area.  Every shower and sink in a hotel-room are fitted with water-flow devices.  What you'd typically expect in the US.....is coming out at 30-percent the rate you'd have in Cape Town.  A 90-second shower is the norm, and there's a sign in each bathroom to note that suggestion.  The hotel pool?  Shutdown. 

16.  South Africans have a population of 55-odd-million.....which most disbelieve.  Most will throw another four million illegals in the country.  A lot of the criminal element is now thrown on the illegals in the country.....at least people believe that.

17.  Friendly nature.  After two weeks of driving around and interacting with probably 200-odd folks, I would suggest that most every person I met.....was friendly.  The accents of English might have made it a bit difficult, but you just didn't meet anyone of a unfriendly nature.

18.  Nightly TV options?  Crap.  In the rural areas, you are mostly dependent on Netflix, reading, or DVDs. 

19.  Virtually every town of any size that you drove through....had a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

20.  It was awful hot for five of the days there.....94 degrees.  But the wind was there virtually every single day....five to ten mph. 

South Africa Farm Chat

If you live in South Africa, there is a political episode going on....where farm redistribution is being discussed.

The emphasis here centers on four facts (truth value is relative).

1.  Whites have held a high ownership level, from day one.

2. 13 percent of the nation is farmable, which is debatable. Irrigation figures into this.

3. The ANC Party says no compensation is required, which worries banks and export folks.

4.  The opposition folks say compensation would make this legit but would mean tens of billions of dollars of value.

I watched 15 minutes of regional news cover this last night.  The ANC folks felt compensation was a no-go.....it would not open for discussion.

The odd pieces?

1. Vineyards, worth ten of millions are part of the episode. Some have irrigation systems and private dams.

2. Orchards play into this.

3. The ANC has has two decades to figure out the profitable operations, and one might suspect they have a list ready to go.

4. The odds that an orchard owner would cut down his operation if state papers arrived?  I would suggest a 90 percent chance....same for vineyard owners.

5.  Trump?  He could stop import of regional fruit and wine...suggesting the EU do the same.

6. Banks stand to lose billions in farm debt.

7.  Ownership by companies?  Some exist, but no one suggests how this would be handled.

8. Breaking farms apart?  No, that isn't being discussed.

9. Ownership by ANC political folks, their relatives, proxy players, etc? It is suggested but nothing on paper exists and you have no idea who the new farm owners would be.

10. The round number of 50 percent black ownership?  Does it mean total farm land in the country or just farms?  Again, this is not clear. Could you end up with 80 percent of their goal in just one state or province? Well, in theory,  yes....but again, there no law to say how this works. Could every single vineyard end up with state papers? In theory, yes.

I will guarantee that this law will pass, and a list of a dozen farms and vineyards will be seized to make headlines in the first month.   But I suspect after the owners have burned down the operation, blown up dams, and cut the orchards and vineyards down....things will get awful quiet.  Cleaning up the mess will be impossible.

South Africa and Numbers Distrust

I've had five or discussions with locals over the past ten days.   What comes up often is the chatter about facts, numbers, statistics, and reliability.  It doesn't matter if you talk to a black, colored, or white...they all laugh over data given out by the government,  in essence....fake data.

The true population numbers?  Some folks in Cape Town suggest there's one to two million uncounted residents...mostly from Zimbabwe. 

Murders?  No one believes the monthly police reports.

Robberies?  Same story.

One older guy said that when you see some 45 minute interview with a ANC Party official on TV, you can figure that he will 'dump' sixty facts or numbers....of which one or two might be true and the other 98 percent are fake.

So I asked, how can this continue?  No one can really answer that.  Their perception was that when the TV and news era came....you had to fill empty data columns and false good numbers were better than true bad numbers.

The truth is....there just isn't much to say for news.  A lion attack would make for front page news....but that rarely ever happens.  I noticed today some hype over a lady locally suing a bed company, when the bed collapsed during a moment of passion and she injured her back falling on the floor.  The lawsuit and discussion got front page discussion.  In this case, folks don't get fed fake data, and they believe the whole story.

I have three days left on this trip....with potentially  200 fake facts to receive.

High Pressure Toilet

I had to use a public toilet yesterday, here in Cape Town, South Africa....local mall situation.

While you may not be aware of it, the Cape has had three years of drought, and recent rains have marginally refilled the water supply.  So everywhere you go, there are signs about not wasting water....your daily limit is 70 liters.

So I walk into the toilet and here is a 'cap' on the lid and some note about 3,000 pounds of air pressure. I do my business, lower the cap, and hit the button.  A cup of water drops down, and BOOM, some massive air pressure event occurs, and whatever was there is gone.

If you'd been sitting there?  I think some bodily damage would have been done.  It's something that would never be allowed in the US, I think.

The engineer who designed this? Just makes you wonder about the testing phase.

Evil Russians

I sat while on vacation, and observed some hyped up journalist chat over the idea of the Russians likely behind the hoax bomb mailings.

The possibility? One in a million.

I admit, one single marginal one-star KGB guy could have done this. But to do hoax mailings? 

I tried last night to observe CNN, but their entire hyped up behavior makes it like fifth grade kids running a network.  This Ivan, the secret agent idea?  Maybe Ivan missed six hours of the bomb class?  Maybe Ivan read the wrong manual?  Maybe Ivan smoked marijuana prior to assembly?  Maybe Ivan attended the wrong KGB school?

So I'm going to suggest a new 'evil Russian' idea......maybe he's a journalist working for MSNBC or CNN.

UK: No Fake News

I noted in the news this morning that the Brit government adapted a new policy....no more use of the term 'fake news'.

You can utter misinformation or disinformation....course, this is directed for government employees.

So if the BBC folks or Sky News charm you with fake news....will you utter disinformation?  I doubt it.

Fake news is going to be around permanently now.

The thing you have to wonder about.....why make some rule?

Hoedspruit

The second of a couple of essays on my South Africa trip.  I spent five days in Hoedspruit....a town way up on th NE end of the country, just short of the Small Dragon Mountains.

It's a town of 3,500.....50 percent white....while the entire state around it is 95 percent black.  It's worth nothing that the entire state is around 50 percent poverty class.

What Hoedsprit is known for is.....safari stuff. Just about everybody around has some connection to tourism.  The airport?  Eight flights a day with loads of tourists getting off.  Probably a hundred folks rent cars and drive up.  Then you got a dozen tour buses arriving daily.

Folks get all hyped up over lion, monkey, and Elephant trips.....out into private reserves...some measuring 5 by 10 miles.  If you've never ridden in the back of rover jeep on a marginal road with 60 potholes per half-mile.....you don't know butt pain.  I asked the guy about shocks, and he said it was rare that you did not replace the shocks every 8 weeks.

Cops? You just rarely saw them. Folks indicated that when you called them up, especially after dark....they were not likely to show up until sun-up.

The only dam locally?  It's an odd thing....a private dam....designed to hold a huge amount of water for irrigation purposes.  You sign up for service, and pay a fee.  Tons of fruit and nuts....mostly all shipped out of South Africa.

After five days, I sat and previewed the threats.  Lions, rhinos, snakes, elephants, hyenias, wild dogs, gangsters, rabies, TB, malaria and crocodiles? How did humans walk out of Africa 200,000 years ago?  It's simply not possible.

My advice...if you really need this of adventure?  Think long and hard about it.  Maybe an overnight in Memphis will suffice.