Life in Johannesburg... so far

It's difficult to express my first thoughts on Johannesburg. I have been here for two months now and can't quite wrap my head around it all. That's why I haven't been posting. One one hand, I am happy to get to a completely different place where I can keep learning. On the other hand, there is a constant feeling of being uncomfortable, nervous, naive. Either way, I'm not in Kansas anymore. 

I live at the office, which has it's perks and drawbacks. I live in a part of town that gives me street cred with most people, which helps me maintain this gritty, well-travelled NGO image. But that comes with living on a street with no lights, behind an 8-foot heigh brick wall, metal, jagged fencing above that, and an electric fence above that. Behind that wall I live behind two more metal gates and about five bolt locks. This doesn't make any of us feel more safe; it's just a constant reminder that we aren't. 

No walking at night. Car doors always locked. Space between cars at red lights (or "robots," as they are called here) for quick getaways. Never look a car jacker or home invader in the eye. Never cary expensive things on you. Always have enough for someone to be satisfied if you get mugged.

We are so concerned daily with security, it comes as a surprise to sit in the sun and drink a beer on some patio lounge, or to walk out of a jazz club and get a cab home with no hassle, or drive to and from Soweto at night and live to tell the tale. We are all so certain that something terrible is going to happen that every day something doesn't happen is a big win.

There is always something to experience in Johannesburg as long as we're willing to leave our apocalypse-secure compound and go find it. Jazz. Poetry. Theater. Dance. There are parts of town that look straight out of Madison, Wisconsin with urban art installations and brew pubs and street stalls and bike rentals and thrift stores upon thrift stores. There's cool urban renewal. There is music. Great music. Then there are the parts of town that look like World War Z.

I am having fun here, I am. It just takes a little getting used to – going from behind one gate to behind another, holding your breath on the way home. But hey, from what I can gather, Johannesburg –along with all of South Africa– is in the midst of making history. The decades after Apartheid will go down in the history books as the growing pains of an ever-changing nation. And that comes with a price. 

If nothing else, I plan on using this street cred at all the bars back in Omaha. Look out Brother's Lounge, because you've got a young white girl who will be ordering beers in Xhosa only to regail attractive strangers with her tales of the "hard life in South Africa" she once lived. I'll just leave out the parts about cocktails with umbrellas in them, and business lunches by the lake. Like I said, street cred.