Wandering thru Southern Africa, 1986-87

11 April 1986, 8:45 AM, Home of Bill & Mavis Urmson, Lombardy East, Johannesburg I learned from my pre-trip research that South Africa is very puritanical.   So I was amazed to see a sex shop (with an “adults only” sign on the door) while walking through the cosmopolitan Hillbrow section of Johannesburg yesterday.   Naturally, I went in to see what goodies they had for sale.   The selection was very limited – only condoms, vibrators (very expensive – about 60 Rand each – US$28), silly sex toys and novelties, crotchless panties and garter belts, and posters of women with naked breasts (but clothed “down there”).   There was a sign behind the counter saying “ Playboy on sale here.”   I asked the clerk where they kept the Playboys but he said no, they actually didn’t sell it.   I suspect they may have had a few copies under the counter for trusted customers willing to part with their hard-earned Rands to see photos of totally-naked women.   There w...

10 April 1986, 12:30 PM, Home of Mavis & Bill Urmson, Lombardy East, Johannesburg Background:  When my friend, Jim Bachman, and I were strategizing about my proposed “fact-finding mission” to South Africa in the fall of 1985, Jim came up with a great idea.  He thought I should join his Rotary Club in Summit County, Colorado.  As Jim explained, there are lots of Rotary Clubs in South Africa and neighboring countries, and I would be welcome to attend their meetings.  Since Rotarians in general are generous and hospitable people (the clubs focus on public-service projects for the disadvantaged), I probably would get some invitations to stay with them.  And, most importantly, Rotary had a racial non-discrimination policy.  So attending Rotary meetings in South Africa would give me an opportunity to become acquainted with black business and professional men (At that time, clubs were just starting to admit women in the U.S. but were still mostly all-male in t...

8 April 1986, 7:30PM, Urmson Family Home, Lombardy East – Johannesburg, South Africa Having grown up around golf courses as the son of a country club golf pro, I found it interesting to learn that Bill Urmson and his two sons, Neil and Tony, are avid golfers.   Yesterday afternoon, Mavis and I picked up Tony and two of his chums after they had finished a round at Modderfontein, a course owned by a huge dynamite factory on the northeast side of the city.   The fairways appeared a bit dried out after the summer although the greens looked verdant from irrigation.   Tony reported that the greens had been cut against the grain that morning which made them tough to putt.   School kids are having a two-week Easter holiday right now, so the boys are on the course nearly every day.   Tony shoots in the high 80s (very good for age 14!) while Neil seems more interested in rugby (the white South African national “insanity”) and cricket.   He has won several cricket bat...

Monday, April 7, 1986, 1:00 PM Home of the Urmson family, Lombardy East, Johannesburg       So much has happened in my first day and a half here that it would take me all afternoon to describe it.   I have to leave soon to go shopping with Mavis and her mother (aka, “Granny”), but I’ll at least get started.        After my evening arrival here on Saturday at this comfortable home, one of the first things I did was fill my sink with water and watch it drain.   And yes, the water did spin in a clockwise direction here in the Southern Hemisphere as explained, I thought, by the Coriolis Effect.   However, I later learned that the effect needs a much larger area than a sink or toilet to really produce curvature in moving fluids.   Thus, it most definitely affects large-scale wind motion but apparently what I observed was just a function of the geometry of that particular sink and drain pipe.     After freshening ...

Sunday afternoon, April 6, 1986 Home of the Urmson family, Lombardy East, Johannesburg      It was evening when our 747 descended into the large metropolis of Johannesburg (generally referred to as “Jo-burg”, for short).  My seat mate, Mike, and I were continuing a very intense but friendly discussion of South African politics.  Mike admitted that much needed to be done with education of blacks (per capita expenditures for blacks are perhaps only ¼ that for whites).   “Let me tell you about education of blacks in my country,” I broke in.  “Ever since the days of slavery, it has been inferior.  Only now that we are doing away with segregation is it improving.  And who has suffered as a result?  Not just the blacks themselves, but all of us.  There may have been, for example, a very gifted black child living in Selma, Alabama in the 1930s who could have grown up to be a great brain surgeon had he or she been given the opp...

Saturday afternoon, April 5, 1986 Flying over Namibia and Botswana    About 15 minutes ago, I noticed that we had just crossed a coastline and were now flying over a vast desert.   Since then we have been passing over a landscape reminiscent of southern Utah and the Mojave Desert.   Initially, it was rugged canyon and mesa country, dominated by an isolated mountain range covering an area of perhaps 100 square miles.   Now, the topography is relatively flat, quite arid, with scattered, jagged hills and a road here and there.   It can only be the Namib Desert of Namibia.   It is 5:30 PM local time and at last I am over Africa.   Earlier this morning, after we had made our refueling and crew change stop in the Cape Verde Islands (some 250 west of the coast of Senegal), I realized that I was now, for the first time in my life, south of the equator.   I’m not 100% sure this is all real, but my suspicions are that something exciting is going on...

Saturday morning, April 5, 1986, 8:00AM Cape Verde Time, 4:00AM (Eastern Daylight time) Following take off from Sal International Airport, Cape Verde Islands   We arrived in the Cape Verde Islands around dawn.  Ilha do Sal (Portuguese for Salt Island) is a virtually treeless desert island, mostly flat with a scattering of 1000-foot volcanoes here and there.  We had a one-hour layover for crew change and refueling.  Passengers could disembark for a stroll around the terminal which was as barren as the island but clean and modern by Third-World standards which is assuredly where the Cape Verdes fit.  Pretty but serious-looking young creole women (descended from early Portuguese settlers and African slaves) handed us transit passes as we exited our big bird.  We were required to remain inside the terminal which included a duty-free shop (320 escudos or US$4.00 for a carton of ciggies, 600 escudos or $7.60 for a liter of Cutty Sark).  One could purchase co...

Friday evening, April 4, 1986, 10:30PM (New York time) Somewhere over the North Atlantic [3/3/2022 comment from Will:   Some readers will, no doubt, find it offensive that I would accept a free business class ticket from South Africa’s national tourist agency in 1986.   Nelson Mandela and his close associates had been in prison for more than 20 years while I was sampling free South African wines and enjoying a nice dinner in a wide, cushy seat.   At this time, there were numerous international boycotts of South African products and sports teams.   Non-white South African citizens continued to live under an oppressive system.   I had sold out and, therefore, had no right to consider myself a legitimate, ethical journalist, right?   I can’t disagree with such an accusation but would ask the reader to take a look at my  at my discussion of this dilemma in my  January 29, 2022 post:   “Prelude to ‘In Search of the White South African’". ...