BE AFRAID OF SOUTH AFRICA

In my first blog entry, I wrote about all of the stories I had been seeing about how scary, unsafe, unprepared South Africa was/is for tourists coming to see the World Cup. Concluding my trip here in SA, I find myself overlooking an amazing beach in Durban after a month of friendly faces, amazing experiences, and breathtaking scenery.

I know i have a day left here so I don’t want to jinx myself, but I have had no bad experiences with Great Whites(although I had some good ones), no issues of theft, and even an eye-opening visit to a township outside of Knysna.

All this time, I would have been completely limited if I would have allowed myself to be controlled by what I read. Number One, if we had no car--and every article I read touched on the threat of carjacking--we would have NEVER seen the garden route and all its beautiful coastline.

It’s fine if you don’t want to believe what your reading right now, I’m ok with that, as long as you aren’t believing half of the other stuff you read that may prevent you from an experience of a lifetime. South Africa was GREAT and I will miss the people, the hikes, the elephants, the stadiums, the coastlines, the baboons, the hostels, the b&bs, the lakes, and the great roads. Thanks for doing a great job with the World Cup SA, hope to see you soon.

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Follow-up, I made it back home safe and sound with no issues in the last few days. I do miss the country, the cup, and the adventure of travel--Until next time!

Data Plans and Internet Cafes -- South Africa Edition

In South Africa, the name of the game is per mb downloaded/uploaded. Whether its cell phone data plans or bandwidth for the internet, you play more you pay more.

Talking to Scott Franzen, a mobile data consumer in Chintsa, South Africa, he was excited to tell me that they are starting to adopt the American way of flat fee pricing in the coming months for specific mobile data plans. It was interesting because they always see themselves as playing catchup to the American Tech game, but interestingly, many phones in the US may be adopting this per mb plan to keep usage down. When I told him we may be taking this approach as well, he laughed and said “I knew we were ahead of you guys this whole time!”

Even at the local internet cafe in Muizenberg, I was humbled to find out that spending an hour on the internet uploading a few albums to Flickr was going to cost me nearly $12! Unlike most internet cafes that I’ve visited around the world, these guys really wanted to get me for my bandwidth usage--no flat fee here.

I fear for my friends that may think that they are ok with a per mb plan if they so choose to use a provider with that system. It seems like the people of South Africa are much more aware of their data use and hardly ever opt to using this network for obvious reasons.

This concept made me think twice about my data consumption and made me at least feel good about my unlimited broadband and data plans back home. PLEASE DON'T GO TO A PER MB SYSTEM USA!!

Human Labor

Here in South Africa I’ve noticed that there are very frequently multiple people doing jobs that in the states would only take one. Instead of five tellers at the bank there are ten. Instead of ten police there are twenty. Instead of no housekeepers, there are two. There are just a lot more people available for cheap labor.

My guess is that the social classes here in SA are so vast that the “haves” can hire many more “have-nots” to make sure that a job gets done properly due to the social stratification. It has allowed for an overwhelming police presence at many of the soccer matches in and around the stadiums--which I will admit made me feel a bit safer wandering around a foreign city at 3AM a few Hansas deep.

It is staggering that the unemployment in this country is often estimated between 30 and 40%. This means that there are MANY people vying for any job or opportunity to earn any amount of money. That being said, I came across many people living in townships that weren't necessarily "employed" but loved their life just as it was...hanging out with friends and family and living off of the little land they had procured.

FIFA coming in with thick wallets were able to secure the stadiums, cities, and locker rooms ten times over. If you looked around the stadium, you would see that every square inch bordering the field was manned by police. There were cops everywhere and it definitely made us think twice about streaking the field.

With all of this instant employment, there were big disputes. At Moses Mabhida Stadium in durban, the police and security guards were promised a specific wage to be temporarily employed for the cup, but reports estimated that they received FAR less. In some cases, they were promised around $65 for a 12 hour shift and their post-shift pay check came out to only $25. While in South Africa, its not uncommon for people to live on roughly $2 a day, fair is fair and the guards were not happy.

I'm glad that some of the South Africans that wanted to work were able to for the short month of the cup, but I also hope that this influx in money was not just hoarded by the already wealthy corporations of South Africa. It is a shame when people are promised a wage and not given what they are worth. My hope is that the trickle-down theory in affect does work, but in a country still writhing from apartheid, my guess is the top are still on top and the people on the bottom won't really be the main benefactors.