Made it into Johannesburg. Staying at a nice B&B near Lanseria airport. My jetlag is awful and I need to start flight tests in the morning to validate my American license in South Africa.
In SA, in the winter, there is never a cloud in the sky, it’s perfect weather.
Except for the past few years. I’m dodging thunderstorms today, jet lagged, in a Cessna 182 that is almost as old as I am and has instruments from the 70s. Thanks global warming, big wet fuzzy kisses to you.
Next day: License validated, I can now run off around the world flying South African registered aircraft for the next five years. Scary.
Met our hosts, really awesome folks, Nick and Christina Hanks, and their niece Charlotte. I have a good feeling about these guys, I think this is going to work out OK if I don’t kill us. The other pilots and their wives are pretty cool. Canadian couple and a Belgian couple living in Cyprus.
South Africa is totally fucked up. Everyone here is absolutely nice and wonderful, but the segregation is still overwhelming. Almost every house has bars and razor wire surrounding it, security is heavy, because the poverty is so high. If it’s not locked up, someone’s going to steal it. At our B&B, the visible staff is all black, including the manager, a great guy named Moses. Only Moses seems the slightest bit self empowered. I accidentally ran into a waiter and apologized to him and he couldn’t stop apologizing to me, even when I said it was totally my fault. That said, the quality of life here, if you are white and have even a little money, are quite good, probably better than home. I could see people wanting to retire here if they could get used to it.
Julie is going into Soweto to see how the other 95% live while I continue my SA license validations. We’ve got some friends of our host who do volunteer work there, so she’s going to get the inside scoop, not the tourist bullshit. I wish I was going too, but everything here just takes a fuck-load of time.
African tip: “Just now” means between now and a few days from now. “Now now” means now. “I’ll bring the car around to meet you, just now” means go have lunch while waiting for your rental car.
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