Where Am I?

(Note: this is today's second post. Scroll down to see the first.)

Although it had changed significantly since we were last there and I experienced the inner battle between my childhood memories and my active senses, Dakar was very familiar. The dirt hadn't changed, the vendors hadn't changed, the food hadn't changed. I was unsurprised when I turned a corner and the street was closed because there was a big hole in it, I was undisturbed by the goats wandering on the sidewalk, I was able to wave off vendors, I expected nothing to work or be on time. Basically, I expected Africa. And Africa is what I got.

South Africa is not the Africa I know. It does not feel the same here. Cape Town in particular feels like a European city. For one thing, there are white people everywhere, both tourists and residents. Everyone speaks English. There is reliable hot water. We haven't had a single power outage. The streets are largely devoid of trash. No wandering goats or cows. I haven't smelled any burning trash. No street vendors selling food. Wifi is everywhere. There is a huge waterfront mall and a Ritz and multimillion-dollar beach bungalows and Ferraris.

And it's not hot.

I'm not complaining. It just feels like I've been in Europe, that's all. On the drive between Joburg and Kruger I think I saw some real Africa, but not in the two cities we've been in. Maybe this impression is a reflection of the places we've been within the two cities but I don't think that's the whole story. Obviously the history of this country, particularly the big cities, has a huge impact on the culture and since the influence is European it makes sense that the feel is European. It's not a big mystery, it's just far more noticeable than I was expecting.

I suspect there is some real Africa in the townships. The townships are where the non-whites were displaced to after being ripped from their homes by Apartheid legislation, like the people from District Six.

From what I have seen from driving past, there is a spectrum of townships but they are essentially all the same: settlements created by the government consisting of little shacks with corrugated roofs clustered into depressed neighborhoods separated by tiny alleys passing as streets. Basically, slums for people who were forced from their real houses and real apartments in the city because of their skin color.

As a tourist you have the opportunity to go on a township tour where you are taken into a theoretically typical township house and meet a theoretically typical resident. You can talk to them and hear their story and see the squalor in which they live and tell them how awful and unfair it is (as if they don't know) and if you want to feel a little better about yourself you can give them some money (on top of their cut from your ticket). Some specialized tours focus on the music or food or sport of particular communities so that you can experience those aspects of township life for an evening before you return to the comfort of your hotel.

I was skeptical of the whole idea from the beginning and I am glad we've decided to skip it. You can make the argument that motivation for skipping it is simply a desire to avoid some sort of guilt or the inevitable awkwardness; that, in fact, visiting is a way of helping them, of putting money in their pocket, and by avoiding it entirely I am doing the worst thing possible which is ignoring it wholesale. I understand that argument.

But that is not my motivation. It just doesn't seem right to turn their actual lives into my discrete touristy outing. What can these people possibly be thinking when a tour bus pulls up and bunch of tourists pour out with their jewelry gleaming, sunglasses shining, and cameras clicking away?

I don't know if that image is necessarily the deal-breaker for me (though it does me of my trip to Morocco a couple years back when I was on that bus and cursed myself every day for it). I don't know if I would feel differently if instead of an organized tour I were simply going to meet a friend of a friend. Possibly. Lonely Planet claims some of the tours are tastefully done so I'm probably exaggerating an image I have no basis for painting in the first place.

You could also easily argue that any sort of traveling is experiencing someone else's life for your...something. Enjoyment, enlightenment, palette, photo album. Your new experience is someone else's reality. Nothing wrong with that, generally. That's traveling, without exception. Without exception.

But clearly I struggle with this. I honestly don't know why I have this line drawn in my mind, but it's there.