South Africa: Driving While Black

One of the more uncomfortable aspects of traveling along our route was our clear status as honorary whites. South Africa has a great infrastructure by which European tourists can access and enjoy its natural beauties. There are lots of "backpackers" -- hostels and B&B's of various grades-- places to stay and sights to see. The roads are mostly AMAZING with lots of gas stations at regular intervals with perfectly clean bathrooms. The Shell Petrol station bathrooms had MARBLE sinks, no less. Of course, in every bathroom was a Xhosa or Zulu woman constantly cleaning it, handing you toilet paper, etc, for tips.

Most of the places we stayed, while extremely reasonable for us, were out of the price range for most South Africans. While at most places, our hosts treated us with kindness and respect, we suspected it was because we were Americans, with an assumed ability to pay and not totally being thought of as "like our Blacks" (a direct quote from Naomi's fellow airplace passenger).

I know that our comfort level diminished with each stop in an all-white backpacker after having passed black people walking en masse from work back to the small townships outside of the tiny towns. Every evening as we went to our sleeping place, we saw these large groups of walking commuters.

Pre-Durban, we were the only black people in those places, with an occasional colored family. As we got closer to Durban and Jo'burg, our relief was palpable as were became just another car of black girls driving along.

Most disturbing to me was the children on the side of the road on the way to this "highly recommended" place called Hole in the Wall, on the coast. When we first turned down the road, the kids stopped and watched the car, waved at us, and so did some adults. But as we got closer down the nineteen mile aisle of dusty bumpiness, the kids realized where we were going, since at this point, if you lived there, you'd be home by now, nahmean? and for the last three miles, all the little kids who spotted us ran alongside the car crying "Spare change! Spare change!"-- left hands under the elbow of the outstretched right arm, the position in which you accept things from other people.

Naomi and I looked at each other and repeated our mantra for fucked up situations: "We can do anything for just one night." Right?