Map of South Africa highlighting Cape Town in the southwest and Pietersburg/Polokwane in the north. We drove with Paternoster in the west, Knysna in the east, and Montagu in the north. New Berlin, Wisconsin, USA, alongside Lake Michigan. The Great Lakes in the US and Canada.

Click on the first image to see it in full, then click center-right to advance to the next shot, finally clicking “X” top right at the final image to exit.

I was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and Linda, my wife, is from Pietersburg/Polokwane, 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers) north of the Mother City.  We left South Africa for Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States with our daughter and son, departing from our residence in Johannesburg in January 1987.  In the 32 years, we have been away from South Africa, we have visited family and friends nearly every year for two to three weeks at a time.  2019 was a different year.  Linda retired in May 2018.  I shut my business in 2018, so we planned our 75-day trip. 

I was debating, calling this a vacation.  It was not an event where we suntanned ourselves on the beach most days.  The trip was more of an obligation to visit nonagenarian mothers and visit friends and family.  We had disappointments.  There were friends we did not have time to visit and places we did not see.  We restricted the trip to a portion of the Western Cape, the area around Cape Town. In the northeast, we journeyed briefly between Paternoster on the west coast to Knysna on the east coast, to Montagu, Bonnievale, and Barrydale, driving about 6,000 kilometers (3,800 miles) during that time.  Herewith are some of my impressions.

When I write about South Africa, the country of my birth, it is not a myopic view of the country where we lived in Cape Town, Pietersburg/Polokwane, and Edenglen, Edenvale near Johannesburg, where we had our home built.  We were fortunate to travel.  We have crisscrossed the United States, our adopted country, and our new residence.  I have visited Canada on numerous occasions, Mexico, the Caribbean, England, Spain, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, India, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Namibia.

The scenery in South Africa is magnificently dramatic.  The beauty of the countryside, with its vast, majestic mountains, great oceans, gorgeous weather, and many faunas and flora, is breathtaking.  We experienced pleasant and friendly service in retail stores and restaurants, some unbelievably compassionate people in nursing home care facilities, especially the home where my mother is taken care of at one extreme, and the third world reality of total government incompetence, corruption, ineffectiveness, and lawlessness at the other.

Our two-and-a-half-month visit cost R61,000 (Rand) (US$4,362), excluding airfare and four nights in hotels that we paid from home.  We stayed with friends and family without charge and used a motorcar costing nothing, except petrol/gas.

Naturally, I will not repeat detail here shared in recent blogs previously written to highlight the beauty of South Africa within the province of the Western Cape. (Click each heading below to load on a separate page).

• Franschhoek
• Paternoster
• Norval
• Chapman’s Peak Drive
• Boyes Drive

We were in for several pleasant surprises during our visit.  The use of paper straws was evident in all the restaurants we frequented.  Being so environmentally conscious was an enjoyable experience.  More so than Wisconsin, the State where we live.  Other parts of the US, especially Hawaii and California, are environmentally progressive.  In South African grocery stores, customers pay for plastic bags.  Consumers are encouraged to invest in reusable cloth bags, available for purchase at the checkout for a nominal fee.  At the store near our home in the US, we get a 5-cent refund for each recyclable bag used to pack our groceries.

One of my favorite restaurants, Rambling Rose in Montagu, is run by Sergio and Cay Fernandes with our server Elton, who took care of our every need.

The facility where my mother is cared for in Bonnievale by a compassionate team of caregivers under the owner and leadership of Nurse Jane Phillips.

Restaurant meals, haircuts, manicures and pedicures, massages are unbelievably cheap in South Africa, usually about 10% to 15% of US charges.  Tipping is only 10%.  I recommend the husband-and-wife team of Michael and Carla of Carma Hair and Wellness Centre in Montagu. Servers in restaurants are abnormally pleasant and friendly, especially if they are Zimbabwean nationals who are well-spoken and articulate, which seemed to be the rule and not the exception.  The quality of restaurant food is unparalleled.

When you drive from Cape Town’s airport into the city of Cape Town along the N2 (national road/interstate), you will see Khayelitsha spread out on the left-hand side of the road. Khayelitsha is the Xhosa word meaning “our new home.” The unofficial count is that it houses one million people. Notice the satellite dishes and how the electrical power is linked to the homes, sometimes illegally.

Every public parking area in South Africa operates with official or unofficial car guards.  In some situations, they work within above or below-ground parking garages where you pay for parking, such as at a shopping mall.  They serve to protect your vehicle from break-ins and other vandalism.  The parking attendant earns their money from motorists who tip them R5 (US$ 0.35). 

I elected to park in the street level parking at the Blue Route Shopping Center in Tokai for a quick visit to the bank.  That visit took an hour.  On exiting the mall, I now had the challenge of finding where I parked.  Searching diligently, I was delighted to have a car park attendant show me to my car.  I am amazed that he could recall and connect both my car and me.  I rewarded him significantly more than R5.  What service?  The high unemployment rate in South Africa is one way to earn money, especially for foreign nationals.  A Google search reveals many car park attendant stories and videos.  Parking attendants usually gross R36,000 (US$ 2,500) per year, tax-free.

The US has 8 Holidays. We were in South Africa for one public holiday, Human Rights Day, on March 21.  We did not miss any in the US during our time away from home.  South Africa has fourteen public holidays, including an extra day in 2019 for voting on May 8. The government workers and banks celebrate two additional days, Martin Luther King Day, and George Washington’s birthday, while the rest of us working stiffs toil away.

One highlight was attending David Kramer’s “Langarm” (long arm) production at the Fugard Theater in Cape Town on February 24, 2019.  Growing up in Cape Town during the 1960s apartheid era, this musical appealed to my senses.  I loved the bilingual nature of the presentation which made me feel at home.  The storyline with twists and turns matching Chapman’s Peak drive, the talented band, the professional actors and singers and dancers, the humor, the theater in a former church, everything was beyond first-class entertainment. 

I was sitting next to an Afrikaner and his wife.  She loved it; he hated it and sat frozen throughout the entire performance.  Many of the lines in the show were not “politically correct” in today’s world, but that, frankly, added to reliving the tragedy of our past.  It was nervous or embarrassing laughter shared by most.

South Africans know how to laugh at themselves.  The government tests to determine if you are white.  Slide a pencil in your hair. If it falls out, you are white.  The concept of “try for white” because you would live a more privileged existence.  I wrote about my experiences in my 50-year career blog where I attended a party in a Colored area dancing with fellow workers. Totally against the apartheid laws.  It is wretched to look back and see what we lived through, accepted, and experienced.  That is the joy of theater and a reminder of what most of us have learned, matured with understanding over time, attempting to be more accepting of society, less racist, more tolerant, and living without prejudices.

We spent a night staying in a cottage high up the mountainside in Hout Bay (wood bay) with friends to watch the sunset.  It was another opportunity to have a break from our routine and again admire the beauty of this “fairest Cape in all the world.”

Our visit to Cape Point was a highlight.  It is located at the southern tip of the Cape Peninsula between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, sheltering False Bay. It is located sixty kilometers (40 miles) from Cape Town’s city center.  Kelly Izzard invited us on a morning hike.  She is a member of a club enjoying this activity frequently. Cape Point falls within the southern section of Table Mountain National Park. Rugged rocks and sheer cliffs towering more than two hundred meters (650 feet) above the sea and cutting deep into the ocean provide a spectacular background for the park’s rich biodiversity. The natural vegetation of the areas – fynbos (fine bush/shrub) – comprises the smallest but most abundant of the world’s six floral kingdoms. 

We drove into the Cape Point Nature Reserve, heading for Buffels (buffalo) Bay, one of the more beautiful and desolate beaches of Cape Town.  Here we hiked and saw Antoniesgat (Anton’s hole), one of several caves on the Cape peninsula formed by the consistent pounding of waves against the headland.  It is stunning and riddled with mysterious tunnels.  Hiking is tricky in places where it is possible to sprain an ankle if you are not careful.  We were following an unbelievably wretched smell that turned out to be a giant whale that beached, died, and was slowly decomposing.

Kelly provided us with this exciting legend of Antoniesgat.  When the Dutch East India Company took over the islands of Indonesia in 1752, on the island of Sumbawa, some of the islanders resisted.  The rebellion leaders Lalu Abdul Koasa and his son Lalu Ismail were captured, banished for life as political exiles, and taken to South Africa, incarcerated in the slave dungeons in Simon’s Bay (Simon’s Town today).  After three years, Lalu Abdul managed to escape by digging a hole in the wall and taking a boat tied alongside the prison.  He headed out to sea, eventually landing along the shore at Cape Point, near Buffelsbaai (buffalo bay). 

Lalu Abdul lay low for several years, spending time in the partly submerged cave, known as Antoniesgat, below the steep rocky cliffs of Rooikrans (red crown).  He befriended local sheepherders.  He became a pretty spiritual and political inspiration to the slave community of Cape Town’s “Deep South” and wrote books. 

Here is a beautiful passage from one. “When I stood on Cape Point Mountain and watched the mesmerizing views of the Atlantic Ocean on the left and the Indian Ocean on the right, I would think that this was a perfect place for my safety.  Isolated and far away in the distance and in time from memory and the danger of imprisonment in the dreaded underground prison room for slaves in Simon’s Bay.  At Cape Point, I could feel peace through walking every day through the environment, studying mountains, flora, fauna, wildlife, and capturing my observations with notes and drawings in my diary.”

We saw this Southern Elephant Seal on the coast at Fish Hoek.  This seal is about twelve feet (3.5 meters) long, is onshore to shed its fur and skin or molting. It stays on the beach for 3 to 4 weeks and during this time does not eat.  These seals have no fear of humans or dogs.  They can dive to 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) and stay underwater for 2 hours.  Part of our afternoon entertainment on a windy day and walk on the beach.

We drove six hours to Knysna, part of the Garden Route stretching three hundred kilometers (170 miles) from Mossel Bay to the Storms River.  We stayed in a delightful cottage with a nearby walk to a restaurant and a pleasant drive to the East Café Head restaurant with a view through the Knysna Heads.  We enjoyed it so much that we returned the following day for a second meal.  It offered a fantastic view of the bay.  Here we saw the minimal remains of the wreck of the 460-ton sailing boat Paquita.  Built-in 1862 in Newcastle, England, it ran aground on Beacon Rocks at Fountain Point on October 18, 1903.

We visited Groot (large) Constantia (“consistency” from Latin) twice, each time taking different friends to restaurants there.  In 1685, during an annual visit to the Cape, Hendrik Adriaan van Rheede tot Drakenstein granted the grounds of Groot Constantia to Simon van der Stel the VOC (Dutch East India Company) Governor of the Cape of Good Hope.  Van der Stel built the house and used the land to produce wine and other fruit and vegetables and for cattle farming. 

Groot Constantia Wine Estate produces award-winning wines to please every palate.  Jonkershuis (Jonker’s home) Constantia restaurant is nestled in the traditional heart of the Groot Constantia Wine Estate next to the historic homestead and surrounded by ancient oak trees.  Simons Restaurant’s setting is relaxed with an open kitchen atmosphere to keep you entertained.

I had been in South Africa for a week and, not having had any exercise, decided to go for a 75-minute, 4.3 miles (7 kilometers) walk along Route 62 near Montagu, in the Western Cape.  R62 takes you to Barrydale from Montagu, a dual lane in each direction, carrying a 120 kilometer per hour (75 mph) speed limit.  Most motorists consider this the minimum speed, and a few are content traveling at 160 Km/h (100 mph).  I saw one driver hardly able to maintain half the posted speed limit.  The question is why his car is even roadworthy enough to be on the freeway. 

I always walk facing on-coming traffic.  One motorist was kind to honk his horn or toot his hooter as he barreled past three cars from behind me on my side of the road, and just in time for me to jump off the road’s little sidetrack onto the grass verge.  I did not appreciate with the outbound journey that I had the wind at my back.  That realization became apparent when I turned around.  The road runs along the base of a valley, so the Langeberg (long mountain) mountainous scenery, landscape, and plants are a joy to behold.  To spoil the view, lining the roadside, I saw:

• aluminum/aluminium soda/cool drink cans,
• beer bottles both intact and smashed,
• plastic bottles,
• tin cans,
• cigarette packets,
• Styrofoam boxes discarded from fast-food restaurants,
• plastic bags large and small,
• corrugated boxes,
• Six car tires/tyres,
• a front-end bumper from a car,
• wooden planks,
• several dead rodents,
• and the list goes on. 

We are not a civil society, are we?  The fallout I had with family and friends was fascinating.  They all questioned my sanity to venture onto a road like this with little regard for my safety.

I found speed bumps/humps within the suburbs to be intrusive and dangerous.  I understand the purpose is to slow down motorists.  I was driving a white 2002 VW Golf with under 80,000 kilometers (50,000 miles).  Roadside markers identified some bumps; others appeared out of nowhere, especially while driving in the shadows along tree-lined streets.  If not taken slowly, it felt as if your suspension was going to be ripped off your car or suffer a cracked or broken sump.  Many times, I found these humps to be a solution in search of a problem.  Troubling too was the number of bumps in short distances.  Many parking areas, primarily shopping centers, business parks, select residential areas, or medical facilities, seem to favor this type of obstruction.

In the United States, the Uniform Plumbing Code specifies that faucets “shall be connected to the water distribution system so that hot water corresponds to the left side of the fittings.” In our household kitchen, we have a single-handle hot and cold mixer water dispenser.  It is located on the far side of the sink and operates horizontally along with the countertop.  To dispense hot water, you open the tap away from you for the safety of young children.  We, therefore, have a standard that applies countrywide. 

In South Africa, a country with a severe water shortage problem, often, you have a hot water faucet and separately a cold-water tap.  Frequently these taps do not have an indicator as to whether they will dispense hot or cold water.  Running water to test for temperature seems like an excessive waste.  I used a shower at a holiday cottage in one situation and determined that the hot water came from the right-hand tap.  The hand basin placed immediately outside the shower had hot water on the left.  I could see the logic in that it made life easier for the plumber who routed the hot water closest to the respective taps.

We observed a troubling medical procedure.  It was evident that hygiene was not on top of a nurse’s concerns.  If you administer a drip to a patient at a hospital, why sterilize your hands before inserting the syringe, and why wear gloves?  My sister, a registered nurse, assured me that the gloves protect the nurse as much as the patient does.  This cavalier attitude at a private hospital in affluent Constantia in South Africa was difficult to comprehend.

I found the absence of street names while driving a challenge.  Many roads exist without reflecting their names.  You get to an intersection and have no idea where you should turn due to the street not being named.  I have often thought it must be a challenge for visitors knowing they need to turn left at Church Street, only to find Kerk Straat, the Afrikaans for Church Street.  South Africa has eleven official languages. The street naming possibilities are endless. I did see some street names placed between tree branches, making them impossible to read unless you exited your car to take a closer look.  Even Google Maps is a challenge.  We were trying to find a specific retail store while driving in Worcester.  Being wise, we searched using Google.  Following directions, we ended up in a residential area far from the business district.

There are challenges to driving in South Africa.  I am behind a truck/lorry that needed to make a tight left-hand turn onto a narrow farm road.  All is well.  However, an impatient motorist behind me decides that high speed overtaking across double white lines is in order because he is in a hurry, and his time is critically important. I did take note of his license plate.

I was disappointed that some large corporations are nowhere near as efficient as I would have expected.  I started work in January 1968 for Mobil Oil in Rondebosch, a suburb of Cape Town.  To open the Standard Bank checking account for a direct deposit, I needed to provide an address and telephone number.  I was living at home, so I used my parent’s residential address in nearby Claremont and provided the bank with my parent’s telephone number. 

Each time we travel to South Africa, we need to apply for a new debit (ATM) card to withdraw cash from our savings account.  For security reasons, the bank invalidates the ATM card if not used for six months.  The bank requires a local telephone number to send a security code for verification to obtain the new card.  Before approaching the bank, I bring with me from the US an old iPhone and get a South Africa sim card with a local telephone number.  I can now comply by supplying a local cell phone number for the bank to send a code to verify that the account belongs to me. 

Bank fraud in South Africa is a severe problem, especially with so much theft occurring.  I was pick-pocked in March 2013, losing my US driver’s license, Standard Bank ATM card, US credit cards, and a small amount of South African cash. Soon after arriving in Cape Town, we applied for new cards in January 2019. The day before our departure in late March 2019, I went to the bank to request they delete the temporary South African cell phone number from my account and change it to my US cell phone number. 

After standing in line for 40 minutes, not a record as I waited an hour on a previous visit, I handed the bank clerk a sheet of paper with my South African and US cell phone numbers, requesting that she replace the South African number with the US number.  In looking at my account, she asked about other information such as email addresses.  I had her remove all the old emails and only kept my current email address.  Then she blew my mind by asking about telephone numbers.  She questioned the one that was my parent’s old number that had been in their system for 51 years.  I agreed it would be wise to eliminate that one. 

On returning to the US and waiting a few days to get over jet lag, I tried to log in to the Standard Bank website to verify no fraudulent transactions on my account since my departure.  I had to enter a code sent to my now disused South African cell phone to complete the login.  It took a few days and a few telephone calls to Standard Bank’s support center from the US to change everything to my email address rather than a cell phone number.  In the South African press, I saw that at the Standard Bank Boksburg (near Johannesburg) branch, a woman was so frustrated by the lack of attention to her issue that she went outside and drove her car into the bank building.

May 2, 2019, update.  When we moved to the USA 32 years ago, we could not get life insurance from US insurers (but could from Canadian companies).  We elected to keep paying for our insurance with Old Mutual in South Africa.  When we became US citizens 20 years ago, we bought life insurance in the US and had the Old Mutual policies “paid up.” Since that time, Old Mutual has paid us monthly from investments directly into our Standard Bank non-residential account.  This morning I got an email from Sipho Maci, a “Learner” in the Non-Resident Support division of Standard Bank, questioning these Old Mutual deposits with the threat that without documentation “will result in funds being transferred to a non-interest-bearing suspense account held in our books.” I decided to telephone to discuss but 20 minutes after listening to stupid music I elected to hang up.  Answering an international call after pressing the compulsory 1, 2, 3, 4 is not part of customer service when calling the Standard Bank nonresident division.

May 3, 2019, update. Sipho emailed, “Apologies for the message; it was sent in error.” Translation–I screwed up.

If this is appropriate, I want to put in a positive word for T-Mobile.  For decades, we were AT&T customers.  Each time, we had to make a special arrangement to use our cell phones in South Africa and naturally pay a fee each time we used their service.  About a year ago, we changed carriers to T-Mobile.  We spend a flat monthly fee that includes unlimited data usage.  On our 16-day drive to Canada in September 2018, we asked T-Mobile what the conditions were to use the phone in Canada.  None.  Just use it as if you were still in the States.  For the trip to South Africa, they told us the same thing, except the calls would cost US$0.25 a minute.  Use it as if you were in the US.  It was a blessing for the many times we used Google Maps to find out of the way places—and not have any additional data charges.  None.

South African Post Office (SAPO) is the national postal service of South Africa and is a state-run enterprise.  The only shareholder is the South African government.  In terms of South African law, the Post Office is the single entity legally allowed to accept registered mail and operates a monopoly.  In 2018, they employed 18,119 people.  A good friend of mine required documents mailed from his bank a mile away; it took 12 days to arrive at his home. 

Suppose I need to send business documentation to my family in South Africa from the US. In that case, we only use FedEx, UPS, or DHL because that is the only way I guarantee it will arrive at its destination.  Many international family and friends have learned the hard way that if you mail packages to South Africa using SAPO, the likelihood of it arriving at their destination is slim to none.  The contents will be stolen somewhere along the delivery route.  I was reading Facebook comments made by South Africans in the US that chocolates and candy/sweets mailed from South Africa to the US never arrive, as these gifts are eaten somewhere in transit in South Africa.

What do South Africans do within the country?  They use private enterprises.  PostNet was founded in 1994 when there was an urgent need in South Africa for an operation that could deliver a range of efficient business solutions.  Today, PostNet is South Africa’s largest privately-owned counter network in the document and parcel industry, trading across over 370 owner-managed retail stores.  PostNet serves more than 70,000 “walk-in” customers per day countrywide.  PostNet has five product types: Courier, Copy & Print, Digital, Stationery, and Mailboxes.  The incompetence of the ANC government to operate anything professionally opens avenues for entrepreneurs to step in and provide effective solutions.

Driving is another challenge in South Africa, in comparison to driving in the United States on divided highways with multiple lanes in each direction.  Even in residential areas, we have broader roads, often divided with a median in the center. 

The multi-billion Rand minibus taxi industry carries over 60% of South Africa’s commuters.  These passengers are from the lower economic classes.  Wealthy residents drive their cars for safety and convenience. 

• Traffic police are afraid to issue citations to taxi drivers as many operate like criminal syndication.  Turf war killings of rival gangs are not uncommon 
• Taxis use minivans that typically hold 12 to 16 passengers.  But they have been stopped with as many as forty-two children in their vehicle
• It is not unusual to read that thirty people are killed due to high-speed driving when two taxis collide head-on due to overloading and being un-roadworthy
• I exited an interstate (national road) with two lanes feeding a T-junction and traffic light (robot in South Africa) at the bottom of the off-ramp.  The left lane had only one vehicle waiting for the light to turn green, and the right lane had traffic backed up to the exit ramp.  A taxi screams down the left lane and turns right forcing a motorist to stop suddenly to avoid an accident
• The Thruway is backed up due to a severe accident a mile (kilometer) or two ahead.  The shoulder becomes the ideal racetrack for the taxis to get their fares to the destination quickly, while motorists are dumfounded
• There is a turn lane for drivers and a flashing arrow to permit cars to clear the intersection.  A taxi blocks the drivers from proceeding, and a string of fellow taxis follow, all using the turn signal from the wrong lane to clear the intersection while the legitimate traffic is held up
• A friend has a business operating out of a suburban home.  They have a dozen employees.  Each evening the employees are driven to the local taxi rank for their onward journey home.  A taxi operator stops the employee’s driver and threatens his life.  Offering a convenient transport service to the employees takes money out of the hands of the taxis according to the operator.  The employee is told to arrange for the taxi to come to the suburban home to collect the workers.   Due to the risk of having taxis in residential areas, posing the potential for additional crimes, the community will not tolerate this situation.  The police offered to intervene if this threat happened again
• Picture a situation where I am driving in the affluent area of Constantia (a suburb of Cape Town) with narrow, winding, tree-lined, and hilly roads.  I get to a stop street and have difficulty seeing cross-traffic due to the fences blocking my view.  Cross-traffic is not required to stop.  High walls protecting the mansions reduce my visibility.  A taxi comes barreling over the hill from the left traveling at twice the posted speed limit.  Linda could have died with our vehicle getting T-boned.  I was able to stop in time
• Taxis sometimes organize protests by blocking all traffic lanes or driving very slowly across all lanes on the main arterial roads, or interstates/national roads
• The City of Cape Town’s mayoral committee member for safety and security JP Smith has recognized the recent taxi violence as the conflict between two taxi associations, saying the taxi industry has come to “heavily rely” on assassinations.  “There is almost no conviction rate for this, so people kill with impunity in the taxi industry.  Killing is a viable business practice sadly, and there’s never any consequences for it,” he said
• Anything that I could wish for?  In the US, we drive on the right, and we have a right turn at a red traffic light if there is no oncoming cross traffic.  It would be great to have a left turn on red in South Africa.  Then again, you have taxis that never wait for any color traffic light, or stop sign
• Over the past decade, the price of fuel in South Africa has increased by a staggering 118%.  In the US the countrywide average fuel price during the same period: USA 2008 $3.61, 2018 $2.657, a 26% reduction
• Cape Town was rated the most congested traffic city in South Africa in 2018.  It required motorists to sit in traffic for 170 hours that year.  That is the equivalent of almost 20 eight-hour days

The taxi industry is entirely made up of 16-seater minibusses, sometimes unsafe or not roadworthy.  Minibus taxi drivers are well known for disregarding the road rules and their propensity for dangerously overloading their vehicles with passengers due to an effectively unregulated market and the fierceness of competition for passengers and lucrative routes.  These associations exhibit mafia-like tactics, including the hiring of assassins and all-out gang warfare.  These associations also engaged in anticompetitive price-fixing.

It was 9:00 am, and I initially headed in the direction of the city of Cape Town together with office workers driving to work. I had to go from Tokai, a suburb of Cape Town, to the airport along the Simon van der Stel freeway, the M3 merging onto the N2. This 30-kilometer (19 miles) trip should not take more than 30 minutes according to Google maps in “normal driving conditions.” (That averages 60 kilometers per hour, or forty miles an hour for freeway driving).  Most of the M3 and some N2 carry a 100 Kph (60 mph) speed limit.  It took me an hour (30 kph, 19 mph average).  I drove most of the M3 in first gear in the VW Golf.  I noticed that several motorists were so frustrated that they crossed the center median to U-turn, attempting to avoid high-speed oncoming traffic to find another way to their ultimate destination.

Motorcycles make up another class of traffic that is a law unto themselves.  It makes sense that motorbikes are a popular method of transport on these congested roads.  When clogged or slow-moving, you find motorcycles weaving between the two rows of vehicles at high speed on any main arterial road.  If, as a motorist, you wish to change lanes, checking your rearview, driver-side, or passenger-side mirror is essential, indicating your plan to change.  I find it amazing that many motorcyclists wear shorts or T-shirts while riding.  Many do not wear helmets. 

They have no protection should they have an accident while riding their bikes.  It is common to see motorcycles traveling at speeds significantly above the maximum-posted speed limits on the interstates or national roads.  I even saw a motorbike pop a wheelie!  A friend in Cape Town told me this week that he was driving in heavy traffic when he saw an obstruction ahead.  It was a young kid lying on the road next to his red motorcycle.  He read the following day that it was a 19-year-old who a hit-and-run taxi driver killed.

Many motorists have a death wish.  A solid no-overtaking line, or worse yet a double no-overtaking line, represents a challenge to see how many vehicles you can overtake before the blind rise or bend disappears to the left or right from the motorist’s view.  These maneuvers are often executed at 160 km/h (100 mph).  I find this degree of lawlessness or recklessness in South Africa quite troubling. 

Many country roads are a single lane in each direction with a “yellow path” on the side.  Legally this is not to be used for driving, but most motorists will pull over into the yellow lane to let a speeding motorist pass.  Trucks do this frequently, especially if they are navigating an incline.  Then too, if you have an oncoming motorist barreling towards you because they are busy overtaking across solid white lines, the yellow lane becomes a welcome safety lane.  Talk about Kamikaze drivers.  Some trucks have stickers at the rear stating, “Yellow Lane driving is not permitted.” The yellow lane has a practical purpose for emergency vehicles, especially when traffic backs up.

Seen on Facebook: RULES FOR DRIVING IN SOUTH AFRICA

1. Never indicate – it gives away your next move. A real South African driver never uses indicators
2. Under no circumstance should you leave a safe distance between you and the car in front of you, this space will be filled by at least two taxis and a BMW, putting you in an even more dangerous situation
3. The faster you drive through a red light, the less chance you have of getting hit
4. Never, ever come to a complete stop at a stop sign.  No one expects it, and it will only result in you being rear-ended
5. Braking should be as hard and late as possible to ensure your ABS kicks in, giving you a gentle, relaxing foot massage as the brake pedal pulsates.  For those of you without ABS, it is a chance to stretch your legs.
6. Never pass on the right (the fast lane) when you can overtake on the left (the slow lane).  It is an excellent way to check if the people entering the highway (from the left) are awake.
7. Speed limits are arbitrary, given only as a guideline.  They are especially NOT applicable in South Africa during rush hour.  That is why it is called “rush hour.”
8. Just because you are in the right (fast) lane and have no room to speed up or move over does not mean that the South African driver flashing his high beams behind you does not think he can go faster in your spot
9. Always slow down and rubberneck when you see an accident or even someone changing a tire.  Never stop to help – you will be mugged
10. Learn to swerve abruptly.  South Africa is the home of the high-speed slalom driver thanks to the government, placing potholes in key locations to test drivers’ reflexes and keep them on their toes
11. It is traditional to honk your horn at cars that do not move the instant the light turns green.  It prevents storks from building nests on top of the traffic light and birds from making deposits on your car
12. Remember that the goal of every South African driver is to get there first, by whatever means necessary

If Henry Ford looks down on South Africa, he must be turning in his grave. “Any color car as long as it is black.” By my unscientific estimates, more than 90% of South African vehicles are white and smaller vehicles than we drive in the US.  In the US, white is most popular (23%), followed by black (19%), gray (17%), and silver (15%).  The 18-wheelers, many towing trailers, are no smaller than their matching brands in the US.

We drove from Montagu to Barrydale, a 60-kilometer (40 miles) drive for lunch.  The busiest restaurant, by far, was Diesel Creme.  They have a selection of memorabilia that was more than entertaining.  It certainly takes one back in time.  Barrydale is named after Joseph Barry, a well-known merchant of the 19th century.  In fact, every town and village in the southwest Western Cape has a Barry Street.  A few years ago, I obsessively took my son-in-law to see Barry Streets in numerous places.

South Africa’s Minister of Transport, Blade Nzimande, says his department’s production team was “working overtime” to clear a backlog of close to 200,000 driver’s license cards.  After a 5-month long strike due to a labor dispute and an upgrade to a new system in 2018.  My cousin explained that when you apply for a driver’s permit if they could not issue the license immediately, you get a card confirming your application stating that you will receive it in due course. 

When traveling on the road and many miles from home, the police may stop you to check for valid driver’s licenses.  You show the police the card, but the officer issues you a citation to appear before the magistrate several weeks from that day.  It necessitates another long-distance trip to this town.  The magistrate will throw the case out of court, but you have the inconvenience of taking time off work, traveling some distance to this town again, for what?  Only because the police will not accept as legitimate a card issued by another South African administrative department. 

I was stopped four times in South Africa to have my driver’s license checked.  On three occasions, they waved me on after a cursory look.  The fourth time the police officer diligently entered all the details into a handheld device.  I use an international driver’s license, but none of the police was knowledgeable enough to know that it had no validity without simultaneously examining my US driver’s license.  I had no plans of handing that one over.  It is far too valuable as an identity document. Should they choose to confiscate it, I would have to go to extraordinary lengths to issue a replacement driver’s license.

When roads are under repair, to facilitate workers, a single lane is blocked off with cones and barrels while being worked on, and traffic is restricted to travel in one direction on the remaining path.  Control takes place at “stop and go” points.  Typically, motorists can expect a 10 to 20-minute delay for maintenance depending on the length of road repair.  I encountered road works on the drive from Robertson to Ashton and Montagu.  Between twenty to one hundred cars and trucks wait during this hold-up.  When released, you have vehicles bunched like sausage links as they proceed to their destination.  It must be a traffic engineer’s worst nightmare as the natural flow of traffic is disrupted.  You see this caravan of vehicles upsetting the normal flow of traffic as it moves through towns blocking intersections.

I was driving from Montagu to Cape Town.  With road works along the way, my sister recommended that I avoid the “stop and go” into Robertson with a 20-minute wait and a 50/50 chance that I may be held up.  There are five of these obstructions on the drive.  Some have a hold-up that is under 10 minutes, with no detours available.  To avoid the Robertson stop, I needed to detour via Bonnievale.  On the Bonnievale road, turn back toward Robertson.  It might add 5 minutes of driving time but may save 20 minutes. 

I thought the turnoff was near the Arabella Wine Farm.  Arabella had a sign in their vineyard not far from the road to turn to the left to get to their farm.  It was at that turnoff that I saw this massive 18-wheeler blocking the sign to Bonnievale, and I saw the sign after I had already gone too far.  Who places a turnoff sign after the intersection?  Only in South Africa.

One way local unemployed people earn an income is to beg at the traffic lights (in South Africa, robots) or the “stop and go” roadblocks.  They use this restriction of traffic to sell their wares or plead for charity.  Traffic lights in town provide an additional opportunity.  Hawkers or beggars in the city take their lives in their own hands as the lights turn green and the vehicles reach maximum speed, with these poor souls often caught in the middle of traffic. 

I stopped in a pharmacy/chemist in South Africa and was fascinated to see brand-name products sold in the US but in smaller pack sizes.  In the US, I might buy an over-the-counter multivitamin in a pack size of 250, but it is only available in 25s in South Africa.  I found this situation across the board, including toothpaste, cosmetics, over-the-counter medication, toiletries, skincare, etc.  My breakfast cereal is sold in smaller portion sizes than I get in the US.  In discussing this with friends and family, many would not agree that with a high cost of living, and high inflation, smaller quantities at lower prices created a more affordable choice—especially among the poorer classes.  I beg to differ.

Besides, we know that packaging makes up a high percentage of a product’s cost and may not be that beneficial in the end.  According to Business Insider, gasoline/petrol prices in South Africa increased 200% over the past ten years, including a tax increase over that period of 165%.  Business Day reports that Eskom, South Africa’s electric utility company, increased rates 350% over the past ten years, with additional increases planned over the next quarter.  According to the OECD, South Africa’s average household net adjusted disposable income per capita is US$ 10,872 a year, compared to the United States US$44,049, and a global average of $30,563.

Constantia Uitsig (view) is a wine farm boasting a heritage dating from 1685.  They opened Heritage Market in December 2017 with five quaint cottages, including Nest Deli, where we dined twice.  In fairness, we spent money at neighbors Alexander Fine Chocolates and Kristen’s Ice Crème. 

Jakes in the Village, located in Tokai, features a local cuisine with vegan options.  It earned a 4 out of 5-star rating on TripAdvisor and provided us with great food and service.

On driving back to Montagu from Knysna, we stopped over in Riversdale to eat at the Paddavlei (frog lake) Kunsgoete (art stuff).  An avant-garde establishment if ever there was one.  The woman who served us had spent several years in the US before moving to this tiny town from San Diego, California.  The food and service were excellent.

We had a family celebration at The Twelve Apostles Hotel and Spa located above the Atlantic Ocean, flanked by the majestic Twelve Apostles and Table Mountain in Camps Bay, Cape Town.  You can eat from the buffet or ala carte menu, all for one price in the Azure Restaurant.

We had a birthday celebration at the very highly rated The Table, De Meye Estate in Stellenbosch.  The sad news is that the chef couple Jessica Shepard and her husband Luke Grant planned to change their careers and seek another interest.  I am unsure of their status.

We all have our tastes; many developed over the years.  While in South Africa, we had our daily fill of Americano or Cappuccino coffee.  I had no plans to order a double-expresso.  Back home, we are blessed with a full-bodied aroma of coffee.  Hello Starbucks.  We use a coffee maker using pods that brew a more robust, tastier cup than I could get in South Africa.

Security in South Africa is like Chinese water torture, a process in which water slowly drips onto one’s scalp, allegedly making the restrained victim insane.  In the South African context, this process evolved over the decades.  Being controlled is the operative word, as in jailed within your own house.  In the 32 years since we left the country, homeowners, and businesses, to an alarming degree, have needed to tighten security on an ongoing basis, further improving their safety annually.  I clearly understand that in a lawless society with minimal police presence, this is a necessity. 

With a residence, the first requirement is to ensure every window and external door has burglar proofing to ensure no one can force entry.  Reinforced glass is helpful.  Divide the home into zones, separately protecting each area.  Say the living area versus the sleeping quarters or garage.  Before setting the alarm, all windows and doors must be closed and locked.  If not securely closed, the homeowner will trigger the alarm.  The idea is that the alarm system will identify which zone is compromised should there be a break-in.  Naturally, the signal is linked to the security company by telephone, who will send security personnel to provide help and assistance as soon as the alarm is triggered; when applicable apprehend the villains, with police help.

All entry doors must have a steel security entry operated with a key or remote lock to unlock from within the home.  The bedroom area will have another security gate in the passage to stop any potential intruders.  Next, secure the outer perimeter.  High precast or brick walls are a prerequisite.  Often residents add palisades, a steel stakes with razor-sharp points that might impale a burglar trying to gain entry to a property.  In turn, protect with razor-sharp coils of steel that are topped with electric fencing.  Do not forget to add a closed-circuit camera recording device as evidence in a court case or to view what is happening outside should you hear something. 

If you have a driveway to your garage from the surrounding property fence, ensure that you have a retractable gate remotely controlled.  Finally, add a few dogs.  It is imperative to have a small dog that is alert and sensitive to noises, and the dog’s bark will alert the big dogs who scare the daylight out of any potential burglar.  The dogs must be trained not to take food from a stranger.  Burglars might feed dogs poison to kill them. 

As we walked in the suburbs to exercise, we could have performed an audit to see which homes had the most alert and vicious animals.  The barking was often incessant as one set of dogs from one home would alert the neighbor’s dogs, and the din continued down the street. 

What has led to a security industry in South Africa?

The South African Police Service (SAPS) is the national police force of the Republic of South Africa.  The provincial borders share 1,138 police stations in South Africa, with a Provincial Commissioner appointed in each of the nine provinces.  SAPS employs 193,692 people.  I attempted to use their services when I was pick-pocked in March 2013.  The security offices in the shopping center had video footage of the theft and, naturally, the criminals.  Reporting the incident to the nearby police station was a waste of time.  For them to follow up would have entailed work.

Close and very long-time friends of ours suffered deep emotional stress after their son’s demise.  The stolen cell phone was in use for several months after the incident.  The detective requested they continue paying the bill allowing for the interrogation of the current user.  That never happened.  The police chief got promoted to a new location.  The inspector in charge of the case was reassigned.  The three witnesses identified had never been interrogated, and the case file is missing.  A year later, there is still no resolution to this tragedy.

Protests are a daily occurrence in South Africa. “Service delivery” is an excuse.  If the locals don’t want to pay for schooling, then burn buildings within the schools or universities.  If the trains do not run-on time, set the coaches alight, or steal the copper wiring providing electricity to the engine.  South Africans observe the role of the police to protect the protesters—certainly not to stop the vandalism.

As I write, here is another incident I saw in the South African press. “The latest burning of another eight train carriages in the Cape Town central train station is an indictment on those responsible for the management of our rail network, and they must account to the city’s public for the ongoing inaction to protect this essential public transport infrastructure,” Plato said in a statement.  He added that while the cause of the fire in the latest incident has not been determined, the reality is that more than 40 carriages have been burnt in arson attacks since 2017.  Plato said not a single person has been charged as being responsible for any of the more than ten incidents over the past two years.”

In the United States, there are over 18,000 Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies around our country, and an estimated 750,000 and 850,000 sworn officers.  With a population of 327.2 million, this equates to 245 police officers per 100,000 people.  According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2008 Census of State and Local Law Enforcement Agencies, Wisconsin state had 529 law enforcement agencies employing 13,730 sworn police officers, with a population of 5.4 million, about 254 for every 100,000 residents.  South Africa’s total population in 2017 was 56.72 million.  With 193,692 police officers, which equates to 341 police for every 100,000 residents.  South Africa has an adequate police force, but not an effective one.

There are numerous studies in South Africa relating to the corruption within the South African Police Services (SAPS).  Here is an extract from one study. 

“In recent years, approaches to examining the subject of police corruption have shifted from asking whether or not corruption exists in any given police agency to asking questions about the size, nature, and impact of the problem.  Decades of experience suggest that you will find corruption in any police agency if you look for corruption.  Often likened to a disease, corruption can only be effectively addressed once its existence is recognized. 

“However, just as some diseases are considered taboo, so too is the topic of corruption in many police agencies.  Talk of it can make police officials, particularly at senior levels, visibly uncomfortable.  It is because it draws attention to the murkier areas of policing, which are often out of the public’s sight.  It brings to the fore a critical tension between the functional requirements of police members to combat criminals and the organizational needs of the police agency to be accepted in the public’s eyes.  Police corruption lurks in the arena where a police member’s discretion starts and administrative control ends.”

With the SAPS being so inept, what are South Africans to do?  They have supported a booming security industry.

The Security Association of South Africa is a body representing private security companies.  There are, at present, over 9,000 security companies rendering residential, commercial, and industrial security services, which comprise guarding, electronic monitoring, armed response, and asset in transit services.  There are currently more than 500,000 security officers in the employ of these companies.  Security companies exist because of the elevated level of crime and South Africa and the total ineptitude of SAPS. 

The reality is that we saw more security vehicles parked alongside the roads than police vehicles on the streets.  Therefore, we have 193,692 police that is primarily idle, some corrupt, and 500,000 security officers.  A friend told me jokingly that when a police station is attacked, they call the services of Armed Response.  Besides, with all the looting in South Africa, the consensus is that the police are called to protect the looters, and nothing is done to stop the crime.

Where does this leave South Africa today?  State-run enterprises include:

• Transnet (freight logistics)
• SAA (the South Africa Airways)
• South African Express (airline)
• Eskom (world’s eleventh-largest power utility in terms of generating capacity, ranks ninth in terms of sales, and boasts the world’s largest dry-cooling power station)
• Denel (armaments and military equipment manufacturer)
• SAFCOL (forestry)
• Alexcor (diamond mining)

To illustrate one prominent South African government state-run enterprise Eskom.  Eskom operates in dire financial straits through a carefully orchestrated plundering of finances, mismanagement and lack of maintenance, establishing fraudulent supplier contracts, and widespread corruption. Eskom’s current debt is R600 billion (US$43 billion). Eskom’s debt burden is much more significant than South Africa’s entire income from personal income tax (R556 billion).  Although Eskom incurred massive losses in its last financial year, it still managed to pay each employee an average bonus of R88 000 (US$6,000).  The total compensation paid of R4.2bn (US$ 300 million) (2016: R2.1bn), even though Eskom made a loss. Eskom’s external auditors, Sizwe Ntsaluba Gobodo, found that Eskom had incurred R3bn (US$200 million) worth of irregular expenditure.

During our visit to South Africa, we had to adjust to a life with periods of no electricity, a concept that the electrical utility, Eskom, called “load shedding.” Eskom chairperson Jabu Mabuza said the operational side of Eskom required a “crisis reaction” as well as time and speed to fix the current load-shedding situation.  Mabuza said seven generating units were currently out of the system due to boiler tube leaks.  The number of power outage hours at thousands of locations across the country increased by over 100% in power failures in 2018.  Eskom highlighted that power outage is caused by the overloading of transformers – especially during cold spells – often because of theft, vandalism, and illegal connections. 

However, electricity expert Chris Yelland said the causes include planned load shedding, cable theft and vandalism, aging infrastructure, a lack of maintenance, and system overloading.  Networks are the responsibility of municipalities to which Eskom provides electricity, and aging infrastructure is behind many power outages. Eskom’s Chief Operating Officer Jan Oberholzer said the contract for early detection of faults in the extensive network of tubing inside boilers lapsed 18 months ago and had not yet been renewed.  There are currently seven generating units, which have broken down due to boiler tube leaks as Eskom struggles to maintain its aging power fleet.

Eskom CEO Phakamani Hadebe said the power utility had burned between 20- 25 million liters of diesel by running the open cycle gas turbines as a last resort. There are no diesel stocks available in South Africa except for cars and small utilities.  Adding to Eskom’s woes is the loss of 1,150 megawatts of power from the Cahora Bassa hydroelectric generation station amid the devastation caused by Tropical Cyclone Idai.  (In fairness, this only accounts for less than 1% of South Africa’s electrical power needs). 

Yelland said cable theft is an additional problem for municipal networks and Eskom’s grid and causes a high percentage of outages.  In brief, South Africa’s power stations can generate approximately 50,000 megawatts of electricity that feeds into the electrical grid.  Realistically with many of the maintenance issues, there is 40,000 MW available regularly. 

The government introduced a “load shedding” process to reduce the amount of power available due to supply or maintenance issues.  One to eight load shedding stages is applied, with each representing 1,000 MW of unavailable electrical energy.  It is a complicated process as it varies by region and time.  Consumers lose power for two and a half hours from one to three times in a 24-hour day.

“We’re going to have load shedding of this level or worse for the next five years. Energy expert, Ted Bloem, explains the reason behind load shedding is that we don’t have good coal, and we haven’t invested in coal mines; it will take at least five years to sort the coal mess out. Rocks in the coal cause the current load shedding.  The corruption at Eskom continues.  A year later, after the new board had come in, I have warned them for ten years that they were going to run out of coal,” says Bloem.

What is the impact of load shedding?  I was fortunate to have invested in an Apple Watch.  I could use its flashlight to perambulate the dark bedrooms and hallways to find the bathroom at night.

• Imagine sleeping in bed with your alarm clock next to you.  As the power trips, it starts flashing at noon.  When you wake, you see 1:27.  What does that tell you?
• Imagine being in a grocery store.  You get to the checkout with your trolley or handbasket, and the power goes out.  It did with us while in a national chain store.  Fortunately, they owned the liquor store next door, and those cash registers were still operational on batteries.  We were carefully chaperoned from one store to the other, verifying that we would not take a shortcut to our vehicle with unpaid groceries.
• You wake before 6:00 am to prepare for the next round of load shedding, but then you are unsure if we are at stages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6?  Is the current stage scheduled to start at 6:00 am or 10:00 am, or 2:00 pm, or 6:00 pm? 
• Stages are changed at short notice to accommodate the lack of available generating capacity or increased with new capability that has come on stream.
• The government is considering adding stages 7 and 8 to its options to further cut the electricity supply.  South Africa has a theoretical capacity of 51,309 MW of total power from all sources.
• Fortunately, there are busy and confusing single-page tables available where you can try to figure out the date, your electric grid area, the selection of stages—not knowing what is scheduled for disruption today, and then you recall that the internet is down.
• Have you been to a restaurant where the servers give you a list of menu items not available because they do not have working ovens?  They have a few meals prepared before load shedding.  
• You want to use your iPhone, but your Wi-Fi is not available.  You try to use data from your carrier, but that too is not available.  Their system is overloaded, and their battery backup has failed.
• I went to bed at 8:00 pm because the load shedding had kicked in.  I knew at bedtime that the next round of load shedding was to take place at 4:00 am.  I woke up just before that time, only to find the schedule had changed.  Stage 2 replaced Stage 4.  The next load-shed is now planned for 2:00 pm.
• Picture trying to run your business, or organize your day, with these erratic and schizophrenic changes.  The cost to the country’s economy is incalculable.
• I have a family member with his own business.  Labor shows up at 7:00 am for the start of a shift, power goes down at 10:30 for two and a half hours and workers are standing around on the payroll, waiting for the next load shed at 4:00 pm.
• Thanks to Eskom and load shedding, when power is restored, it triggers residential security alarms.  The security company calls to verify if there was an incident.  Sadly, the call only came after 20 minutes or longer.  When chastising the security company representative for taking so long to call, the response was that they had so many customers to call.  Realize that power might have been restored at 2:00 am so the phone call would wake one in the early mornings.
• The surge that comes on once power has been restored does significant damage to electronic appliances by frying printed circuit boards.  It has led to a boom in UPS (uninterrupted power supply), and surge protector sales.

The only thing worse than load shedding is being surprised by load shedding.  Herman Maritz and Dan Wells developed EskomSePush, a free web application that allows users to view what regions will be affected by power outages on any particular day.  During load shedding, or when a change to the load-shedding schedule, the app will send users notifications.  The app features timers counting down the amount of time until load shedding starts.  It provides detailed information on over 50,000 locations in South Africa.  Sometimes the app does not respond because the hits to their servers with inquiries from all over South Africa crash their servers.  Sigh.

• You drive along the main road, and the traffic lights are dead.  It is now the survival of the fittest.  Who can get through the congested intersection as quickly as possible, only to be stopped by the next traffic intersection without functioning traffic lights?
• Imagine driving on a local suburban road with several other cars during load shedding at night.  The collection of vehicles provides lighting the way.  You turn off onto a side street in the suburb, and all you find is pitch black darkness.  There are no streetlights, the houses are in darkness, and there is no full moon to light the way.  Visibility is negligible.  You know you need to turn into a street with an island at the intersection.  You are not driving a Subaru that casts a beam when you turn the steering wheel.  Will you make your turn safely, or hit the island?  No fun at all.
• I spoke to a woman who was in an elevator/lift when the power went out.  Otis reported that they would get there as soon as possible, but they had many callouts.  2 hours later, with limited fresh oxygen, she was rescued. 

If you arrive in South Africa by plane, you expect professional service from customs and immigration agents.  You discover that they resent that you are intruding on their conversations that they are holding very loudly with comrades on the far side of the building.  Eye contact?  What is that?  Do not expect to be welcomed into the country.  Your passport is rubber-stamped mechanically without so much interest as learning how long you plan to stay.  We previously entered South Africa in November 2017 through Johannesburg and received the same shoddy treatment as we did in Cape Town on this recent trip.  Nothing changed.  No improvement.

Jan van Riebeeck landed at the Cape on April 6, 1652, to establish a halfway station for ships traveling between the Netherlands and East Indies.  The goal was to provide fresh water, vegetables, and meat for passing ships on the month’s long voyage.  He was responsible for his employer’s directives, the Dutch East India Company.  Van Riebeeck found a phenomenal infrastructure of roads, rail, cities, power grids, farms, and a booming industry.  It is this fake news message promoted by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) government. 

Van Riebeeck then stole this infrastructure from the local blacks.  It is this rationale that the ANC uses for its policy of expropriating land without compensation.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The Kohisan are the traditional nomad non-Bantu indigenous population of southwestern Africa.  They were the inhabitants that van Riebeeck bartered with for animals, many years before the Bantu migrated south into South Africa today.  The “occupiers” built the infrastructure over four centuries, providing jobs and income for the locals.

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” Willian Shakespeare in Julius Caesar.  I have an undying love for the country of my birth.  I am completely mortified by what the ruling African National Congress (ANC) is doing to destroy the country through corruption and lawlessness to turn the country into another Venezuela.

It is complicated. One can argue that the ANC is not blameless but looking for retribution after how the white Nationalist Party government treated blacks under the apartheid regime.  South Africa legislated onerous and racist apartheid (separation) laws in 1950.  Marriages and sexual relations between Whites and other races were banned.  The Population Registration Act of 1950 introduced the government’s classifications of race: Bantu (Black Africans), Colored (mixed race), White, and Asian (Indian and Pakistani). At some period, the Chinese were treated as “honorary whites.” 

A series of Land Acts set aside over 80 percent of the country’s land to its White citizens. This legislation could split families, as parents and children could potentially be registered as different races. The government required non-White citizens to carry passes (known as dompas—stupid passes) authorizing their presence in restricted areas; created separate facilities for Whites and non-Whites to limit their communication; limited the action of non-White labor unions and refused non-White participation in the national government.  Due to these apartheid laws, “over 17,745,000 Africans have been arrested or prosecuted” between 1916 and 1984.

Let us step back in time to understand how we got to this point.  The original inhabitants of South Africa were the nomad non-Bantu Khoi and San, or Kohisan people.  Bartolomeu Dais, a Portuguese mariner, was the first to explore the coastline in 1488.  Vasco da Gama, with a fleet of Portuguese ships, rounded the Cape in 1497.  The Dutch East India Company under Jan van Riebeeck established a settlement in 1652.  British sovereignty was established in 1815, paying the Dutch 6 million pounds for the colony, outlawing the Dutch language, and instilling the English language and British culture.  In 1820 five thousand settlers migrated to the country. 

1830 was the beginning of the Great Trek, as Dutch-speaking inhabitants moved north.  From 1852 to 1902, sometimes called the Republic of the Transvaal, operated as a nation-state.  In 1866 alluvial diamonds were discovered.  Between 1870 and 1880, mines at Kimberley produced 95% of the world’s diamonds.  The first Anglo-Boer (Afrikaans farmer) war broke out in 1880.  In 1886 gold was discovered — the Second Boer War from 1899 to 1902 resulted in upwards of 30,000 lives lost.  In 1910 the Union of South Africa was formed under General Louis Botha and Jan Smuts, his deputy with the South African Party (SAP), following a pro-British white-unity line.  In 1922 the South African National Congress—the forerunner of the African National Congress (ANC)- was formed to fight for black and mixed-raced people’s voting rights.  In 1914 General Barry Hertzog formed the National Party (NP), championing Afrikaner interests advocating separate development for the two white groups (English and Afrikaans).

In 1948 the National Party formalized and extended the existing system of racial discrimination and denial of human rights into the legal system of apartheid (separate development).  1960 heralded the establishment of the Republic of South Africa, withdrawing from the British Commonwealth.  Homeland Citizens Act of 1970 authorized the forced evictions of thousands of black people from urban centers into “homelands” or “Bantustans.” In 1993, the United Nations General Assembly identified Apartheid as a “crime against humanity,” resulting in 91 member states voting for 26 abstentions, with Portugal, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States voting against the measure. 

The Africa National Congress (ANC) took control of the country in 1994 with a one-person, one-vote mandate, and, after national elections, the apartheid Nationalist Party white government was voted out.  Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, with a law degree and spent 27 years in prison, was elected the first president and served for a single 5-year term.  Thabo Mbeki, an educated British economist, followed next as president and was ousted by Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma with a grade two education.  Zuma perfected how to siphon funds from government-run enterprises to share with selected family members and comrades.  Zuma was ousted in 2018 after several terms to be followed by Cyril Ramaphosa, a lawyer by profession, reputed to be one of the wealthiest people in South Africa.

More than anyone, Jacob Zuma proved to be a highly corrupt politician.  Zuma was initially indicted in 2007 on 18 charges of corruption, fraud, and racketeering, including accepting bribes from a military contractor.  The arms deal, made by the government of Nelson Mandela in the mid to late 1990s, involved the purchase of naval vessels, submarines, fighter jets, and other equipment from European nations, including Germany, Italy, Sweden, the UK, France, and South Africa. The deal totaled 30 billion rands, or between US$3 billion to US$5 billion at the time. 

French arms supplier Thales may still face charges.  South Africa’s anti-corruption watchdog alleged that the billionaire Gupta family had exploited their ties with Zuma to win state contracts.  Schabir Shaik was found guilty in 2005 of trying to solicit a bribe from Thint, the local subsidiary of French arms firm Thales, on behalf of Z Zuma, alleged to have sought bribes from Thales to support his extravagant lifestyle. a. Zuma is alleged to have sought bribes from Thales to support his extravagant lifestyle. Zuma had extensive state-funded upgrades to his rural homestead at Nkandla. Zuma’s rule is estimated to have cost the South African economy R1 trillion (approximately US$83 Billion).  Zuma is married to six wives with an estimated 20 children.

What is the responsibility of a government?

• a government to provide the safety of law and order, protecting citizens from each other and foreign foes
• The government as protector requires taxes to fund, train, and equip an army and a police force; to build courts and jails, and to elect or appoint the officials to pass and implement the laws citizens must not break
• Using the United States as an example, a political structure comprising the President, Congress, Supreme Court, and departments of Treasury, War, State, and Justice.  Critically the three branches of government; the Senate, The House of Representatives, and the Office of the President are co-partners where one does not have authority over the other.  A system that calls for compromise to meet the will of the people
• The government as the provider of goods and services that individuals cannot provide individually for themselves, including the means of physical travel, such as roads, bridges, and ports of all kinds, and increasingly the means of virtual travel, such as broadband. This infrastructure can be, and typically initially is, provided by private entrepreneurs who see an opportunity to build a road, say, and charge users a toll, but the capital necessary is so significant and the public benefit so apparent that the government takes over
• The government can cushion the inability of citizens to provide for themselves, particularly in the vulnerable conditions of youth, old age, sickness, disability, and unemployment due to economic forces beyond their control.  Providing social security that enables citizens to create their financial security
• The government to heavily fund education, encourage more active citizenship, pursue binding international trade alliances, and open borders to all immigrants
• The most important priority of the government as an investor is to provide education from cradle to grave, and schools, roads, medical care, firefighters, etc.
• Governments need to be concerned about monopoly enterprises that block innovative entrepreneurs from getting a foothold in the market and moving technology forward
• To establish a “social contract” with the people who trade some independence for protection and other services, usually granted through a constitution
• The most basic duty of a government is to protect its people from violence.  It may include the military, police who enforce laws, and organizations to ensure the health and safety of the environment and food chain
• A capitalist market economy controlled by buyers and sellers where the government verifies fairness
• Citizens on their own without orders will create problems.  Businesses without control may harm the population

It is worth reflecting on where South Africa has succeeded or has failed.  South Africa is the only country where they have enacted laws to protect the majority from the minority.  One such act that has backfired is Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) and its derivatives such as Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE).  BEE is a racially inclusive program launched by the South African government to redress the inequalities of Apartheid by giving black people (African, Coloreds, and Indians) South African citizens economic privileges that are already available to Whites.  It is a form of Affirmative action.  Let me illustrate where this does not work. 

A government entity will release a tender offer for software development.  A BEE registered company will win the tender with an inflated bid to grease the palms of its management cohorts.  After a couple of years, the BEE-appointed company cannot deliver the solution, and a tender is awarded again without the stipulation of BEE qualifications.  A white-owned and white-run company with highly qualified technical people is now assigned the project and completed it in a few months.  It turns out to be their most profitable assignment because they priced it higher than the previous BEE contact.  The BEE or BBBEE stipulation is responsible for more whites parting for countries outside of South Africa than any other.  BEE does not create a level playing field. In 2020 974,400 wealthy blacks have benefited from BEE, shutting out 30-million impoverished people.

What is troubling is that when the ANC took control of the country, many of my family and friends were terminated from their jobs. Positions that had to be filled by blacks. In some situations, whites were forced to train their replacements, taking as long as a year to attempt to get the new hires up to speed. Many remain in South Africa today, and several of those struggling to make ends meet without government financial support.

An attitude exists in South Africa among the majority population group.  If you are unhappy with your circumstances, take action to destroy things.  School and university fees are not free, so burn down the schools and universities.  That solves the problem, does it not?  Trains do not run on time.  Set the coaches alight, and steel the copper wire driving the trains—again proving what?  I will not get into the fact that petty crime is a way of life.  Then again when you have a government that is corrupt and siphons off as much as it can for its own pockets from the State-Run Enterprises, it becomes a chaotic situation in a lawless society.

We brought back souvenirs, including these placemats. I am very partial to all things protea (the national flower of South Africa).

On returning home and reflecting on our time in South Africa, it is a joy to live in open spaces.  As we drive in our suburbs, we notice the absence of high walls, with barb wired tops and electrical fences crowning that.  Security gates that do not block access to driveways.  We live in freedom with our broader roads and the absence of drivers maniacally driving at any speed to get nowhere in a hurry.  We live in a sane society.

We arrived home near midnight to find a strange electrical fault.  The power in our bedroom and bathroom was out, while the rest of the condominium was working correctly.  In checking our condominium passages, I found the same anomaly, most lights were working, but some sections were without power.  When we woke up, everything was working correctly.  Later in the morning, we received a phone call from Wisconsin Electric to apologize for the outage that affected 1,000 homes in our area.  I do not recall Eskom calling their customers apologizing for ongoing and repetitive load shedding.  But then again, their customers are a general nuisance, and inconveniencing them is inconsequential.

In my opinion, much of South Africa’s mess traces to the Nationalist government’s apartheid policy. The ANC came to power a generation ago and did not provide an adequate education for their people because their only purpose was to vote for the ANC! They did not see the need for effective black education because they were laborers who did not need knowledge. Now the country sits with generations of uneducated people, uneducable, unemployable, with a government not competent enough to create permanent jobs, with financial shortages due to corruption.  The pass rate for final-year students at state schools in South Africa rose to the highest level since 2013, Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga said. 

Of the approximately 800,800 students sitting for the exams late last year, 78.2 percent passed, Motshekga said.  She said about 312,700 people (39%) are eligible to study at higher-education facilities such as universities. Almost half of the children who enrolled in the first year of schooling in 2007 did not write the final year graduating tests.  South Africa’s Department of Basic Education lowered the pass rate for mathematics to just 20% to keep children moving through the country’s struggling school system.  The World Economic Forum ranked South Africa’s quality of education system 138 out of 140 countries.  Of the 12,372 students at 249 private schools and testing centers who wrote papers set by the Independent Examination Board, 98.9 percent passed.  About 90.7 percent achieved a mark high enough to enter university.

Cyril Ramaphosa has appealed to the million whites to return to South Africa.  Why?  South Africa ranked the unhealthiest country on earth.  The ten measures were healthy life expectancy, blood pressure, blood glucose (diabetes risk), obesity, depression, happiness, alcohol use, tobacco use, inactivity (too little exercise), and government spending on healthcare.

On May 8, 2019, South Africa will hold elections.  I will stick my neck out and bet that the ANC will win at the polls again, albeit with a reduced majority.  The status quo will remain.  Corruption and lawlessness will be intact.  The white flight will continue, the currency will weaken, and inflation will continue its upward trend.  I am not confident about the country’s future, having read two books by investigative journalists:

• Pieter-Louis Myburgh’s Gangster State: Unraveling Ace Magashule’s Web of Capture
• Jacques Pauw’s The President’s Keepers: Those keeping Zuma in power and out of prison. 

I follow South African news sites daily.

As I ponder a quarter-century of ANC rule, I question what exactly have they contributed to South African society? I think in terms of any field of endeavor: medicine, science, engineering, literature, music, military, political, sport, education–or any other that you can offer. I would love to stand corrected.

As you read blogs on this website that I established in September 2016, it has cost me under US$1,000 for hosting costs, bearing in mind that I did not add in my time for writing blogs.  In Myburgh’s book, he references a similar technical website (WordPress) developed for the province of Free State under Magashule’s control that cost R95 million (US$ 7 million) but not sure how many websites this entailed or was it just one.  More corruption anyone?  The potential in South Africa is unlimited, but it will require robust, honest, and ethical-political leadership, without all the racism calling for the killing of whites. I appreciate Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane’s rhetoric, but sadly a message that all South Africans will not hear.

If you know what an idyllic location to live in might be, nothing beats Cape Town and its environs, or many spots in the Western Cape. The scenery, the weather, the people. It competes with the Caribbean and other scenic spots in the world. If only the politicians did not set out to destroy the country.

With a high unemployment rate of 27.5% or 6.2 million people without jobs, this has increased crime rates and affected a general lawless society due to government corruption. Naturally, many local friends ask us if they recommend visiting South Africa.  I always respond with a resounding yes, with one stipulation.  Only travel with a reputable tour company that provides a fully guided, well chaperoned, and safe escorted service.