Different Hemispheres and Parallel Universes

In Grade 4, I first found Cape Town in my atlas. I was attracted to any extremity of the world and here was a pretty good one. The Atlantic Ocean on one side meets the Indian Ocean on the other with surely deadly shoals and currents confronting sailors trying to traverse the two. A night sky that lights up differently. Sinks drain in a different direction. Not to mention the lions and all.

And a few decades later (ouch!), here I am. What I find is a different, hemisphere indeed. One is conditioned to listening to birds and seeing animals in a North American mindset. Is that a mallard? – No, it’s an African plover. Was that a dog lurking at the side of the road? No, it is, in fact a baboon. I haven’t even looked at the stars yet – as we will have 3 months a mile high in Lesotho to explore these differences.

Cape Town is a city of stunning contrast. The city is protected within a cradle of mountains. Table Mountain soars dramatically like a monolith - a kilometre above the flatlands of the wild oceans that mark the city shoreline. From the top, where Patty and I enjoyed an apparently rare, windless and clear day yesterday, it is hard to compare with anything I have ever seen. And just in case we were lulling ourselves into too much comfort picnicking on the top, we were confronted with a full range of strange risks – cobras, puff adders, poisonous blister bushed to remind us that this is not Beacon Hill Park in Victoria.

The physical contrasts, however, seem to pale in comparison with the other contrast that is so evident in this city – the parallel universes in which its wealthy white and majority black populations live. Almost 15 years since the end of apartheid with the election to power of Nelson Mandela and the African national Congress, one gets the sense that the racial divide once legislated in apartheid has now been replaced by walled communities, barbed wire and 10 foot high property walls. Security companies appear to be big business in Cape Town with “Armed response” seems to be a popular logo). The tables have reversed and a self-selected segregation behind security walls and grim warning posters is evident. As a Canadian who takes much for granted in this world, the tension and fear in the transition zones between these universes is unsettling to say the least. When was the last time I really had to worry about walking out at night? Yet, here, a few blocks from the South Africa parliament in the heart of the city, we’re cautioned to take cabs backs to our hotel any time after sunset.

I will confess I have not seen it all. I would like to see more of the multi-cultural melting pot of blacks, whites and Asians which is rendering Nelson Mandela’s “rainbow nation” into life in the new South Africa. But I have seen enough to know that the next 15 years in South Africa will be decisive for this country and this continent. Will the parallel universes diverge further a part or a new unity be forged? Will the cultural mountains divide or shelter?

p.s. – on the lighter side, how nice is to be in a country where one benefits from a 20% crash in value of the local currency against the Canadian dollar. Not much reporting about the global financial crisis here. It is a crisis that I suspect is brutally irrelevant to most.