lion eyes

it was with more than a bit of apprehension that in january i prepared to go to south africa for a temporary work assignment. when i told people i was going there the inevitable first reaction was surprise, followed by warnings of the crime situation. then i would be asked if it was cape town or johannesburg. when i answered johannesburg there would be cringes, jokes, and suggestions regarding where i can find kevlar vests and recommended types of guns for me to purchase.

surely it couldn't be that bad, i thought. some quick googling showed me that, in fact, it was. south africa has, per capita, the second highest murder rate in the world behind colombia. it boasts the highest rate, per capita, of rapes, assaults, and murders with firearms. oh great! what was i getting myself into?

given everything that everyone had told me about johannesburg, and after expecting the place to look something like mogadishu in black hawk down, i was surprised to find joburg (as locals call it) to be much more liveable than i had expected.

i quickly borrowed a small white toyota from my customer. during my orientation there i was warned not to drive to certain places, to be careful driving around at night (and certainly not to walk around, of course), and that at night stopping at red lights is purely optional.

so, white knuckles on the steering wheel, i ventured out on the first day to explore the town. it turned out i was in one of the best neighborhoods in the city, meaning i regularly saw bmws, mercedes, porsches, and other cars driving around. after a ferrari blew past me i decided that maybe it wasn't so bad at all. after all, should a would-be assailant want to rob someone, i thought, a guy in a convertible ferrari with a big gold watch would probably be a more juicy target.

the apartment where i live is a new building and has a dual-gate system, similar to what one would find in a prison. to enter the building (or exit, as in the picture below) one passes through one gate. the gate shuts behind, and once the gatekeeper sees all is clear, the next gate opens and one is released to head out or enter into the complex.

around joburg there is quite a lot to see and do, especially for a short visit. although the big game parks are the big lure for tourists, there are a lot of smaller places available nearby which (for someone used to living in the city anyway) are pretty darn cool.

above is the entrance to the self-drive section of lion park, about 30min north of the city. the sign, saying 'stay in your vehicle' is the first of many, especially near the lion enclosures. these were put up after a chinese tourist decided a couple of years ago that it would be a great idea to get out of the car and take a picture with his friend the lion. the tourist and his family quickly learned that these aren't the heavily sedated animals displayed for tourist photo ops back in asia.

in the lion enclosures it's possible to drive extremely close to the lions, as you can see from the photo i took above with my small sony camera.

the sleepy-looking group above suddenly perked up when a truck appeared with tourists in a cage in the back. this truck obviously alternated as the feeding truck, given the level of interest all the lions were showing in it. they passed by my car, brushing it and getting so close that i could have reached out and petted the lions (should i have wanted to follow in that ex-tourist's footsteps).

the lions crowded around the truck and followed it for quite a while. a younger lion, whose pic i snapped above, took a keen interest in my white toyota- perhaps mistaking it for a bloated whale-like albino zebra. it took a few steps towards the car before losing interest and heading back to the tourists on the truck. a good thing, too, as the lion cubs are known to pull off all sorts of bits and pieces from cars while playing around.

later we stopped by the joburg zoo, which was much nicer than expected. i thought this sign was quite amusing as obviously we don't want to create any problems for management!

the zoo was very open and the animals generally had a lot of free space in which to roam. it was nice seeing them wander about there and in the lion park. after that i drove back through the gates into my apartment, surrounded by electric fences and guards to hunker in for the night.

overall living in joburg has been much less of a drama than i expected. sure, there's a sense that one should be very careful at all times, but it's ok so long as one keeps aware of one's surroundings. and there's a lot of pluses- the weather is great, the air is amazingly clean (compared with asia in general), there's a big selection of food, the cost of living is low, people are friendly, and there's a lot to see and do.

so all in all, not a bad place to be. now, if anyone has any good suppliers of kevlar vests, please drop me a mail....