Wandering thru Southern Africa, 1986-87

Thursday, April 17, 1986, 12:00 noon Kloofwaters Farm in the Magliesberg Range west of Pretoria with geography students from the University of the Witwatersrand Time for a few lines before lunch.   About a dozen students are lying in the grass close by listening to a Bill Cosby tape.   I continue to be amazed by Cosby’s popularity in South Africa.   I listened in on an interesting conversation among these students last night.   One male student asked if the women thought affairs were ever justifiable and what they would think if they were seeing a guy regularly and found out he was married.   I know that most young women are conservative about these things but their responses were straight out of the 1950s.   Statements like, “I hope that if a guy made a commitment to me, he wouldn’t look at the first floozy that came along” and other comments about the moral fiber of society.   I sat there innocently smiling and biting my lip as they continued on ...

17 April 1986, 10:30 AM, Kloofwaters Farm in the Magaliesburg Range This Monday, I rode with Bill Urmson to downtown Johannesburg again.   In addition to doing personal errands, I visited the offices of Black Sash.   This organization was founded in 1955 by white English-speaking women to protest apartheid.   These gutsy ladies would stand in small groups in South African cities wearing black sashes over one shoulder and sober expressions.   The black sashes were expressions of their mourning the erosion of non-white constitutional rights.   Their silent, non-violent protests were frequently photographed by the foreign press which was exactly the sort of attention they sought in their attempt to show the world that there was significant descent among South African whites over the unjust treatment of the non-white population.   They also hoped to shame other South African whites into opposing apartheid.   The women often carried placards calling for t...

16 April 1986, 10:30 AM, Kloofwaters Farm in the Magaliesburg Range I’m having trouble keeping my writing up-to-date given all my recent activities and travels.  After returning from my hiking trip with the Mountain Club of South Africa to the Kranskop last weekend, I’m now on a field trip with geography students from the University of the Witwatersrand (“Wits”).  Before writing about this trip, I need to catch up on last week’s activities including two visits to downtown Johannesburg.    Bill Urmson, whose family I’ve been staying with since my arrival in South Africa, works for a multi-national accounting firm downtown and gave me a lift last Wednesday.  First, we stopped at the Royal Johannesburg Golf Club to drop off Bill’s son, Neil, and a couple of his chums who were competing in a junior tournament.  Next, we headed down Louis Botha Way in Bill’s bright red Mercedes sedan.  The ambiance reminded me somewhat of Ventura Boulevard in Los Angele...

Saturday, April 12, 1986, 10:30 PM, Campground southeast of Memel, Orange Free State Many of the participants on this Mountain Club of South Africa trip are here to rock climb on the steep cliffs of the Transkop.   However, I joined a group of eleven people today for a hike over the top of the Transkop mesa, across a valley, and up to a waterfall.   It was rather desolate country, much like you might see in the mesas south of Castle Rock, Colorado with few trees, mostly grasses, and protea bushes.   This morning started out foggy, and it eventually started to rain.   Once we reached the top of the mesa, I was ready to skip the rest of the hike to a waterfall, but the others wanted to press on.   Summit of the Transkop during a break in the rain.  Photo by Will Mahoney As we crossed the valley it began to pour with thunder rumbling in the distance.   Still, the group pressed on.   Five and a half-year-old Elizabeth started to cry but gamely sol...

April 11, 1986, 9:30 PM, Campground southeast of Memel Now that I’ve proved I can write in the back seat of a bouncing Land Rover, let’s see how I do in a one-person tent.   Problem is, I’m lying on my stomach and can’t sit up in this little tent I brought from Colorado.   I’m not sure my neck can take this for very long.   At least I can be more candid now without Roland looking over my shoulder.   This group of hikers and climbers are all white, and white South Africans are very sensitive about criticism from foreigners, so you get the picture.   But they also like to talk politics without my even steering the conversation in that direction. During dinner, Ingrid started complaining about how the Black Student Society (BSS) at Wits (University of the Witwatersrand, one of South Africa’s most liberal universities and now integrated) gets away with all sorts of civil disobedience that would get white students immediately expelled.   She described an inc...

Friday, April 11, 1986, Along the Roads between Johannesburg and Memel This is a new experiment –typing in a Land Rover traveling at 100 km/hour.  It’s 4:00 PM and I’m heading southeast from Johannesburg with six members of the Mountain Club of South Africa for a weekend of climbing/hiking at the edge of the Drakensburg, the escarpment that stretches east from the western Cape Provence north of Cape Town, parallels the Indian Ocean coast to Natal Provence, then swings north into eastern Transvaal Provence. These chaps from the mountain club picked me up around 2:00 PM in Lombardy East where I’ve been staying since my arrival here six days ago.  We then headed over to Germiston to pick up Benno (the owner of this Land Rover) where he works at a factory.  From there, Benno’s son, Thomas, drove us south on Route 23 for about 25 km until we hit National Route 3 just northwest of Heidelberg.  The highway was initially a four-lane motorway but narrowed to two lanes w...

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...