First days in South Africa

It’s been one week since we arrived in South Africa. We arrived in Johannesburg, rented a car (or hired a car as they say here) and made our way in about four hours to Nelspruit, a city near the Mozambiquean border, where we spent the night in a very small animal reserve that doubles as a lodge. We just had a 14 hour layover in Madrid and about 18 hours of flying time, so we were pretty tired. It was getting dark and the remaining two hour stretch to our house was the most dangerous to drive at night, not because of crime, but because of all the people, animals, and bad drivers on the road.

Nelspruit is an odd place. It was a small town that has grown into a medium sized city and it is one of the host cities for the World Cup. The town has a main road or small highway that runs through it with plenty of car dealers and strip malls, and a few decent size buildings downtown. It reminds me of the seventies, the buildings seem to all be made of a kind of dull concrete and it just has that feel to it. Even though it lacks in architectural charisma, Nelspruit is very important for us because it has a mall, a movie theatre, plenty of household supply stores, and it has an Indian spice store, and all within 2 hours drive from our house! A small price to pay for such luxuries.

The best thing about driving here is that you can listen to the radio, which is really enjoyable here. It is a blend of news, commentary, and music. Of course, the talk of the nation is the World Cup, the first to be hosted by an African nation. Half of the soccer talk revolves around what chances the South African team, Bafana Bafana, has and the remainder is a mix of discussing how important this World Cup is for Africa, explaining how the tournament works, and random programs, like the politics of FIFA and how Africa finally got a chance to host as a continent. The oddest thing about the radio is that it seems to report any road accident throughout the entire country. So at first we were getting worried because it seemed that there were frequent accidents, but then we realized they were reporting accidents in Cape Town.

The next morning we headed to our house. Ramin had driven this same route almost six years ago, so he was a bit anxious to see what he remembered and how much it had changed. Nothing seemed too different except it seemed slightly more developed. Like before, there were tons of people, animals and bad drivers on the road. Except for being pulled over and questioned by a pesky police officer for no given reason, we made it to our house.

Our house is not in a town but close to a town called Acornhoek in a wildlife sanctuary owned by the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) based out of Johannesburg. The town of Acornhoek is a funny little place. It is a traditional Shangan village (one of the African tribes in South Africa) that has grown and now supports two supermarkets and lots of little businesses. It also has the best hospital around and an unbelievably amazing chicken joint called Anjos with the best soggy fries around, just ask my friend Neil back in New York. It is rare to see a white person in Acornhoek or any of the villages around where we live, as this area is a traditional African homeland area, and that is just the way things seems to be here in South Africa.

The sanctuary where we live is called Wits Rural, and it encompasses a really large area. It takes about 3 km just to get to the reception from the entrance, through a winding dirt road. Wits Rural is used as a research facility, but it really is just a place for people to live, and the university appears to run it as a private lodge. There are a few houses sprinkled throughout the area, and some dorms and camps. There is also a main reception where there are about 15-20 small offices, including Ramin’s organization, AWARD. There are also plenty of animals around. This week we were kept up by a pack of hyenas that make a characteristic “woooooooooooooooooop” sound. We saw two kinds of antelope (Impala and Daiker), baboons, monkeys, plenty of birds, a bush hare and signs of many more animals. All the properties surrounding Wits Rural are animal reserves and the land is connected to Kruger National Park, one of the biggest national wildlife areas in Africa. Although no big animals are supposed to get in the sanctuary because of the perimeter fencing, the big ones do get in from time to time. A few months ago an elephant got in, and there always seems to be a leopard spotted roaming around. This does not deter us though, as we have been going on long walks and runs when we get a chance.

Our house is on top of a small hill (picture above), and it is essentially a medium-sized loft. It has cement floors and a reed (dry grass) thatched ceiling. Although we do not have a walled-off bedroom, it is upstairs (wood floors) in a loft area overlooking the living and dining room. We have a nice but old kitchen and fairly large pantry. The house needs some work (screens have holes, toilet leaks, etc…) but it has a lot of potential. We plan to build a small vegetable and spice garden (with monkey protection wiring) and a barbecue pit with some nice benches around. Overall, it’s a pretty comfortable house, even with all the little creatures crawling and flying around. A lot of daddy long leg spiders which we are living with only because we know they will eat the other bugs. We also have a small beautiful frog living in the water tank of our toilet. We do not know how he/she got there and when it will leave, but it seems to be happy although we are not sure what its food source is. There is also a squirrel living on the roof and it has already invaded the house once to eat our bananas. We have found its droppings, albeit small, in various corners of the house. But this is the small price you pay for living in the middle of a wildlife sanctuary with the gentle purr of hyenas to lull you to sleep.

On Friday night we went to watch the opening game of the World Cup, South Africa against Mexico, at a local Shabeen or traditional African drinking spot. You could feel the euphoria in the air all day, and when we walked down to Ramin’s office today it seemed no one could really concentrate on work. Lili decided to go with some of the other people around our offices to the local stadium in Acornhoek first, where the president of South Africa is by the way speaking on Wednesday, to watch the opening ceremonies on a giant screen. On the way there Lili was stacked on the back of a pickup truck with a few other woman all armed with the famous vavazula, the loud horn everyone seems to have lately, and which truly is annoying when it blows next to your ear. The drive there was amazing, tons of people on the road dressed in yellow and green and blowing the vavazulas. Lili and company would blow theirs and the people on the road would reciprocate. The atmosphere outside the stadium was full of energy, but unfortunately, the screen inside was too small for anyone to really watch anything, so it was a buzz kill! After ten minutes, Lili headed back to the Shabeen to rejoin Ramin. On the way back they picked two people on the road anxious to watch the game.

The Shabeen was a mad scene. A big projector was set up in a pretty small room, and the room was packed for the first half with tons of vavazulas. There was such an excitement in the air, it was buzzing. The funniest were these 5 woman decked out in yellow in the front. Every time they would see this one Bafana Bafana player, they would start fanning themselves with their hands, as if they where sweltering with heat. At half time, the decision was made to take the projector outside, because hundreds of people had turned up and the little room was too small. A huge bon fire was lit, chicken was on the grill, and people where dancing and celebrating endlessly. When South Africa scored the first goal, every one jumped around and starting cheering and dancing, it was such an amazing sight. Ramin got so into the game, he would jump out of his chair almost every minute. In the end, the game was a tie, but people where delighted. Bafana Bafana showed they could compete with the world elite and who knows how far they could go. We are just so happy to be here to witness the first African-hosted World Cup. It is about time!