Term 2 was a grueling slog of a term, so Evan and I were really grateful for a holiday. A chance to recharge our depleted batteries and see a bit more of the beautiful continent we call home. By sheer luck, Evan discovered that RwandAir was running a brilliant deal to Johannesburg during our holiday window: $500 round-trip direct! We had initially planned an overland bus, train, and boat trip that would take us through Burundi, perhaps Tanzania, Zambia, and then Botswana and Zimbabwe. The price of visas alone made the airfare a much better deal.
We departed Kigali with a friend and fellow volunteer, John, who hails from rural southwest England but now teaches in a small village just outside Butare in southwest Rwanda. Let me say this before I continue on: RwandAir’s Johannesburg route is the nicest, most comfortable, best served air journey I have taken…ever. If you ever want to make a trip between South Africa and Rwanda, maybe to see the gorillas, take RwandAir. You’ll thank me. Flight attendants were wonderful, food was decent, and they give away free booze (as much as you want, in fact, as Evan discovered feeding his red wine urges)!
We arrived at Johannesburg’s recently renovated OR Tambo International Airport, a gleaming, airy, very modern glass and steel structure situated some kilometers outside the city center. Cruising on Johannesburg and Pretoria’s smooth freeways past enormous industrial and commercial parks, there was a creeping feeling of disbelief and awe. South Africa truly is a strange place: one of immense disparities in wealth and opportunity, very much African in some ways and quite European (or American) in others. A country with alarmingly high unemployment, a shocking AIDS epidemic (an HIV infection rate of 33%, or higher, in some provinces), corrupt politicians, and a notorious reputation for violent crime (electrified anti-scaling fences are everywhere), and yet a single district, Gauteng (which comprises Johannesburg and Pretoria), constitutes roughly 10% of Africa’s entire GDP (or so our fellow volunteer Hewsan informed us; I’ve yet to fact-check that one but it seems entirely plausible).
Our hostel was located in the middle-class area of Pretoria called Hatfield just a few minutes walk from the towering campus of the University of Pretoria and a glut of retail and restaurant outlets serving the University’s community. Everywhere you looked, there were young people fashionably dressed cavorting with their friends, drinking beers in a large open courtyard, grabbing a bite to eat at the McDonald’s, running a quick errand to the copy shop, playing video games in the internet café, perusing books in the bookstore. Blacks, whites, Indians, Asians – South Africa is also a relatively multi-cultural African state (very much unlike Rwanda).
After sleeping like the dead in very warm and forgiving beds, John, Evan, Hewsan, and I aimlessly roamed the Hatfield area for a bit the following day before boarding an impressive coach bus for the trip to Gabarone, capital of Botswana. Check back in a day or two for my update about Botswana and Zimbabwe – the stories are too good not to check back. I promise!
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