Beyond the pretty picturewhat I think about South Africa

For two weeks we travelled around South Africa, from Cape Town to Kruger and along the Garden Route, and then lived in Cape Town for another two months. The story itself is in the day-by-day chapters and the stories about life there, and here is what I understood about the country.

The pretty picture

When I started googling this destination, I saw only the pretty picture of Cape Town: the ocean, Table Mountain, wine estates, penguins. And I didn’t know that Cape Town is among the twenty cities in the world with the highest murder rates, for example, in the ranking by the Mexican Citizens’ Council for Public Security.

On the ground that picture got filled in. We tried to walk where it’s calm, took taxis, didn’t take our phones out on the street, and still, in the first days, we nearly got scammed in Bo-Kaap and someone nearly snatched a phone through a car window.

A city of contrasts

What struck me most was the contrasts. Cape Town is a remarkable combination: a very dangerous city and, at the same time, such a peaceful one. Most of the time I felt very calm, even though I was, in fact, in a genuinely dangerous place.

A history that hasn’t gone away

In Langa we immersed ourselves in the history of the place: how the townships came about, how people lived under apartheid, how it still echoes today. And we also saw how the city is developing now: people opening galleries and their own businesses, leading tours, supporting one another.

This country really has a difficult history. Balancing domestic policy after the horror that took place here seems to me a very hard task.

What I believe in

I really want to believe in this country. I wish it all the best: above all, economic growth and independent development. I want everyone here to live happily.

And I believe that from here things will only get better, both with crime and with the internal tension.