2 weeks deep

i've been lame about blogging mainly because i'm not sure what to write about. life in johannesburg is a lot like any other major city and i'm not sure people want to hear about trips to the movies, malls or bars.

that being said, there are differences. here are a few.

1. south africa has a really cool mix of social projects and corporate investment. this probably all exists at home and i've just been happily/stupidly unaware of it.

i've spent the past few weeks alternating between seeing these social projects (orphanage, feeding project, marimba youth league) and then reading about corporate investments and other markers of sustainability.

companies are roped into social investment through various binding and non-binding agreements here. quota system is enforced pretty heavily, and the GRI research i've been helping with tries to hold companies accountable to principles of sustainability and transparency.

i can't figure out where the line gets drawn between ticking boxes to satisfy requirements and actually taking an interest in the projects but it probably doesn't really matter at the end of the day. corporate funding drives the projects i've interacted with so far. who really cares if the big man in charge gives a crap about a feeding program.

2. johannesburg has all the markings of any other city. i live in gay town. there are a lot of huge malls with all the usual brand name stores. the orphanage i'm working at part time is in a borderline white trash area... constantly relocating people based on race made for funny dynamics there. there are a lot of bars with a lot of different feels and...

3. segregation lives on at night clubs like nothing else. we seem to keep ending up in "black bars" (as one person put it). apparently no white south african would actually go to the places we stumble in on. they also wouldn't pull out the chumpy white guy dance moves that we seem to abuse to no end.

thats all i've got for now-

johannesburg

moved to johannesburg yesterday... officially, i'd been planning this trip for about 2 weeks. i'd been thinking about it for much longer. originally i was going to come down last november but veered off to the camp instead. a few weeks back though, all my ducks got in a row and, here i am.

its been a bizarre 24 hours. beyond different accents, it doesn't feel much like ive left north america. kitchener, sure.. johannesburg is a lot bigger. but we're in a pretty quiet area that at night could easily be mistaken for claremont ave.

go figure.

it feels right though.

before i left, a friend mentioned that i wouldn't be going to africa. i got all annoyed. of course johannesburg is africa. the continent is a place, not an idea, and certainly not a stagnant image of rural lives built around mudhuts and large animals. sure enough though, my first thought when i got off the plane was that i most certainly was not in africa anymore. we touched down in dakar, senegal. that seemed right. this was way off.

what i can tell from the get go is that this is about to challenge every idea and understanding i've come to normalize about the continent. i certainly haven't been visiting this continent for long but my role as an international volunteer in slightly rural settings with a history of IVs coming through certainly paints a certain picture of "the continent". despite all my DEVS teaching against homogenization, i seem to have done just that.

live and learn?