at sea in the Indian Ocean

We are about 10 miles from Madagascar and almost a thousand miles from our next port, the small island of Mauritius.
Back to thoughts of Cape Town and South Africa--
Our trip to the Townships (the place where the black population was forced to live during Apartheid and where they live still, mainly for economic reasons) was sobering. I knew I would see mass poverty, but I could not imagine 2 million people living in one of 10 Townships mostly in makeshift shanties (with buckets for toilets) placed side by side by side for mile after mile after mile.The South African government is trying to replace the small (the size of our breakfast room at home) shacks, which have no running water, sewer, or electricity, with small houses made of cinder block, painted bright colors, with corrugated metal roofs, and running water and electricity, if the owner can pay the monthly utility fee. These new neighborhoods have streets and schools, but the schools are not anywhere near as good as the worst school in the entire United States--the Township schools do not have pencils, chalk, computers or more than a very few books. We walked, escorted by people of the neighborhood, called guides, paid to escort us and keep us safe, through one of the newest and best of the still slum neighborhoods in the newest and largest Township. Laughing, happy children danced along with us--holding our hands, delighted to see us. We were told by our tour guide, who grew up in and still chooses to live in a Township, not to give the children money--he said if we do we turn them into beggars. If we give them money, next time they will ask for it, soon they would stay out of school to beg.
Trash was in the streets. I had no trouble telling by the smell who was able to pay for running water and who was not. Unemployment in all of South Africa is 38%, in the Townships the number is double. Imagine almost 80% of 2 million people living with no income. Some people had small stores for basic food, a few ran beauty parlors and barbershops. These business were exactly like the tiny makeshift shops in Ghana. Residents had to walk miles to get to public transportation in order to get to Cape Town. Then, if you have the fare, the bus takes an hour or more to get to Cape Town where the most fortunate have jobs.
We were taken to a couple of government-run shops where people sold things they had made. Our tour guide asked us not to bargain down to the lowest price we could get, please just bargain down to the lowest price we are willing to pay. The people need to earn a living. We all found things to buy and we paid the asking price--$3 each for Christmas ornaments, $2 each for earrings...
Some black people have been able to rise out of poverty and even into wealth now that Apartheid has been abolished. Many of these wealthy black people, who can afford nice houses and nice cars, tend to chose to live in nice houses in the Townships because they want to support the people who still live there and because their friends are here and their culture is here. Racism is still rampant in South Africa even though the laws are now fair. Black people are legally allowed to live in Cape Town, but they are not welcome there. Black neighborhoods are still kept out of sight of beautiful Cape Town itself.
We learned from talking with people in the Townships that most of the children living in the Township have never seen the coast. The Townships are on a peninsula surrounded by the ocean. We passed beautiful coastlines on the bus on the way to the Townships. Individuals live their whole lives without ever leaving the Township in which they were born. Aids and alcoholism are rampant and keep the black population in poverty and despair.
In Cape Town the houses are lovely, the neighborhoods are all very well kept. The best neighborhoods are surrounded by high walls. All of the houses and apartment buildings are surrounded by high walls, with heavy, metal, locked gates. The windows have heavy metal bars. Security is heavier than any I have ever seen before. Violent crime is among the highest in the world. The murder rate is the third highest of any major city. A woman is raped every 40 seconds in South Africa. Amidst breathtakingly beautiful surroundings, the white population are living as prisoners in their own homes. During Apartheid, 13% of the population was white. Now the number is 9% and still dropping. If we had stayed inside of Cape Town, and not looked too closely, we would have seen an ideal place to live. We were treated well everywhere we went. The bus ride (we always have brand-new, comfortable tour buses) of2 1/2 hours to the Aquila Game Preserve took us into a huge, lush valley covered with the green vineyards where grapes are grown for the South African wines which are appreciated world-wide. On each end of the valley were mountains a bit like the Rockies, but not a stark and not as high. Upon arrival at the game preserve, we were fed a delicious breakfast, and then sent out in long jeeps, all of us armed with cameras, for 2 1/2 hours on jeep trails where our guide stopped each time he spotted wild animals, so we could take pictures while he told us all about the animal we were seeing. He was a blue-eyed blond who spoke English with an Afrikaners accent and who had spent his whole life in South Africa. We all liked him and were impressed by all he taught us.
One rainy afternoon we ducked into the 6 star hotel right on the wharf directly in front of our ship. We noticed that tea was being served in a beautiful dinning room with huge tall windows, three stories high, looking out on the bay. We decided to have high tea and thus spent a lovely afternoon, out of the rain, looking at a beautiful view, chatting with each other while being served more delicious treats than we could possibly eat, along with the best big pot of tea I have ever had. For our further entertainment, a few small song birds had gotten in and were occasionally flying across the room high above our heads, as if they had been hired by the hotel to look charming while we dined.
South Africa was fascinating, stunning, shocking. I am glad we came, glad we saw.