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Sorors and SFs:
What can I say? I have been in South Africa for almost one month on Sunday. I will be here for two more months. My baby comes next week. I don't have the heart to tell him it ain't the Lion King up in this piece...
My AIDS research is going well, very well. Most of the people here are in denial regarding AIDS and stigma is horrible. Most people don't want to touch someone with AIDS and will shut them out if they know they have it...kids and all...so people live in denial and "pretend" they don't know they or their family members have it. About 6,000 people die per day. It's crazy an getting worse.
I have to vent though...
The conditions of Black South Africans is completely devastating. I don't think words can express how utterly disgusted I am with White South Africans here. On a good note, it is beautiful here. A disclaimer is needed however, because the beautiful parts are ONLY where the white people live. In the townships, there is abject poverty beyond belief. I have never in my life seen so many children, barely clothed, begging for food. One child was at my door when I returned home one evening asking for money. I had earlier in the day found 20ZAR (20 South African Rand, which is almost $3.00) so I am sure it is obvious what I did. It wasn't my money to start with and in the end it wasn't anyway. 20ZAR gets you pretty much nothing here. The conversion is okay, for those of us with American bank accounts, but I can only imagine why there is so much poverty...a friggin' sandwich costs 30ZAR... There is cheap food Rand pre Can fish, which is basically sardines...last week a newsletter went out stating that cyanide had been found in the fish killing hundreds of people.
Most of these children and AIDS orphans or child sex workers. They are so young...maybe 5 or 6. After I gave a few my food yesterday, they proceeded to get high inhaling glue fumes from a plastic bag or plastic bottle container. I can't tell you how many kids I have seen doing this. They are street kids and as I stated, most are AIDS orphans.
Oh, not the White kids, just the Black ones. The White people are living LARGE..Camps Bay is literally like Malibu, CA. The only Black people there are parking cars maybe pumping gas or some random shyt.
I have pretty much worn out my colleagues in terms of me complaining about the conditions...about how Dutch ad English people could completely rape this land and make Blacks feel subordinate to them. There are places that I can go to but Black South Africans cannot...so I don't go. My colleagues are sick and tired of me so I have nowhere to turn but to GC...
Next year affirmative action ends (10 years after Apartheid). I had an Afikaner male tell me he'll be glad so that he won't lose jobs to less qualified Blacks. SHIT! It took everything I had NOT to go Compton on him. He proceeded to tell e that the language of SA was Afrikaans and not what "they" will tell you..Zulu or Xhosa. He sad that whenever a Black person TRIES to speak English to him, he pretends he doesn't understand, so they HAVE to speak Afrikaans. The students here had a holiday, called Youth Day to commemorate uprisings at the beginning of Apartheid when Malan of the National Party came into office and demanded that all youth learn Afrikaner history and making Afrikaans the "official" language of South Africa. It was beautiful. People will march and protest some shyt in a minute.
I am really angry. Tonight I will go to the ONLY Black owned restaurant in Cape Town. How the hell can that be? I can only imagine.
I will read the "how to post pics" thread and post pictures ASAP.
Have a great summer...it is winter here but no rain, which I guess is abnormal..besides the impact of that on famine and low crops, which is more important than me having sunny days, I wasn't trying to see no rain no way...
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