Saturday, April 17, 2004  

Our final day in Jo'burg was spent having a leisurely morning before heading out to another artisan market---except that this one also had dollar-store-type stalls and guys selling gym shoes.

I picked up several more "pieces"---art guy, me---that I liked but that aren't necessarily South African. In fact, that was the case with both flea markets we went to: Most of the crafts are done outside of South Africa and they don't necessarily represent the cultures of the Zulus and the Xhosas (the two major groups of black South Africans) but rather the Congo (the tapped-copper reliefs I bought), Zimbabwe (the mother-child sculptures), and I imagine Nigerian (most of the sellers were, in fact, Nigerian, not South African). I guess some of the jewelry I bought MR were from Zulu culture, as they create a lot with beads, but the things I bought generally strayed from the their typical style: thicker necklaces made of hundreds of smaller beads. Momma V gave me a thin necklace of small, white beads for MR, and I'm pretty sure that's Zulu---as she probably wouldn't let anything else in the house! The other items I got MR were made up of a few beads and some rivulets made of stone.

Is anyone still awake?

The main point I'm trying to make is that even though apartheid has ended in South Africa and democracy has been in effect for the past 10 years---and will be so for at least five more years as the African National Congress (Mandela's party) won the election on Wednesday in a landslide---the truth is that the people in the townships---Zulus and Xhosas---are still being usurped in certain areas of the economy by African immigrants from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Mozambique, etc. Some of these vendors were basically selling generic Africa to tourists. I tried to ask where certain things came from, from what culture they were inspired from, but I was never sure if I was being fed a line or not. For instance, one guy claimed to have painted everything in his stall. When I asked him why there were about 20 different names over the course of the hundred paintings, he said, "I like to change it up." Flip that script, my man.

Anyway, once we got to the airport I had to put in for a ticket replacement as I lost mine (natch; me = ass basket). Thuli came with me to the counter and we got some chubby, blond-haired, thin-lipped, bad-haircutted Afrikaner teller. (Actually, except for the Afrikaner teller bit, I pretty much just described myself---except that I am not a complete ragin' a-hole like this dude.)

His expressionless voice kept insisting I had to buy a complete new ticket, that he couldn't replace my old one because if it's found anyone could use it. For all you budding terrorists out there, I.D. doesn't matter so much in the South African airlines biz: The same thing happened to me when trying to replace my ticket from Cape Town to Jo'burg, where we just showed our boarding pass, no I.D.

Thuli popped in and asked this guy to at least look me up in the system, so he sat there typing at his computer and scribbling notes on paper. I thought he was looking up my info, and as I Thuli and I stood there watching him for close to five minutes, in silence.

When he finally looked up at us, with an almost surprised expression that we were still there, he said, "So, do you want to buy the ticket?"

He wasn't doing anything, just stoning us.

Thuli and I looked at each other, baffled. I decided to call over Paula, out rep from South African Airlines. When she arrived, showed her I.D., explained that the home office already knew about this and it's all good and we need to just pay the taxes and then I & I would be reimbursed, he belched, "That's what I've been saying. It's still a new ticket, though."

At this point I thought Thuli was going to reach over the counter and sock this dead weight right in his puffy pale face, but Paula was gently patting her arm under the counter to calm her down. But Thuli did blurt, "You never said that! You never even told us a price!"

Once the ticket crisis was taken care of, the racial theories started flying with the gist being this: He must have thought we were a couple, and he was probably being a numbnutz just to irritate the multiracial lovebirds. Truth is that I dunno what his deal was, and I'm leary about painting the Afrikaners with one ugly brush, but the issue of race is ALWAYS in the forefront in South Africa, as it was even before apartheid, which simply legislated the racism that already existed.

The plane ride was fine, especially since I was able to sleep some this time and because I was seated next to the lovely Tonya Hopkins, a food & wine writer who was in South Africa covering the country's many, many wines as a freelancer for Ladies Home Journal and Black Enterprise Magazine.

When we landed I said goodbye to my little community of travelers, and I have to admit that it was a bit bittersweet---as when we said goodbye to Thuli and Zinhle Nzama (our dear, sweet companion from South African Tourism). My fellow travelers and I, our guides, and the other fine folks we met along the way---well, we got along really well, and even though we all came from different backgrounds---age, race, country, whatever---we all related to each other, and sometimes deeply so. Who knows how often we'll all keep in touch, but I'm sure we all came away from our time together with the same feeling: This trip was fun and interesting not because we were far away in a unique foreign land, but rather because of the people we met and connected with along the way. Props to you all.

After a day spent cleaning up and catching up at Samps' NYC apartment, plus a short walk around the East Village, I caught the 5 p.m. train to D.C., home sweet home. Motley Crue is so right.

Music blogging begins again on Monday, and I may move the windy SA journal to a separate page in order to keep the homepage looking tite.

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