New in this country

South Africa is a country of contrasts. When I stepped off the plane in Johannesburg I didn’t really know what to expect of this new country. After nearly thirty hours of uninterrupted travel, I didn’t much care about anything, to be honest, although I vaguely remember that the thought of bed was incredibly appealing.

The jet ride from Amsterdam was terribly unpleasant: long, uncomfortable, and extremely lacking in entertainment unless you count the seventeen-month-old girl to my left. I don’t sleep well on planes, anyway, and even the slight use of rye whiskey and wine (on the advice of the South African to my right) afforded me less than a couple hours of sleep and only resulted in the customary stiff neck.

Since it was dark when I landed I got no real sense of what Jo’burg was like that night. Fortunately the guesthouse was close and I arrived in short time at a very colonial-looking structure about twenty minutes from OR Tambo International Airport. It all seemed very prim, and indeed my large bed and bathtub were complimented by a fancy-looking bottle that turned out to contain a somewhat pleasant orange brandy. I gathered by the shot glasses that nightcaps are customary here.

The wake-up call seemed to come inappropriately early. I was served a rather proper breakfast that morning, almost uncomfortably proper. I felt a bit out of place, really, in an environment that felt eerily reminiscent of a strong colonial past, replete with at least six to eight black housemaids, cooks, and groundskeepers. As I found out later, almost all of the service industry is vastly and disproportionately staffed with black South Africans.

I suppose in a country with double-digit unemployment this shouldn’t be entirely surprising. The wealth divide in this country is astonishing, although you don’t always see it. Indeed, it didn't really fully sink in until I arrived at my new home in Mpumalanga province, northeast of Johannesburg.