On Paradise, Powercuts and Poverty.

South Africa is blessed with beautiful places. Just driving through the rural areas around King is stunning enough, but then there are places like Hogsback: A little hippie escape in the mountains, with the most beautiful eco hostel i have seen so far. It was my first weekend in South Africa when we spontaneously took off to one and a half days of relaxation, eating delicious food at the Butterfly Bistro, enjoying a horseback-ride and a small hike, sleeping in the coolest dorm ever, being woken up by a kitten chasing my feet under the blanket and cuddling with two cute (and a little annoying) puppies who kept us from reading, sleeping or eating by constantly chewing on everything they could get between their teeth (like books, blankets, shoes, t-shirts…). But who could be mad at something as sweet as this?

And there is Hamburg - pretty much the opposite to its german counterpart: a small, quiet village on the Sunshine Coast where absolutely nothing exciting is happening. But the view you get after conquering a few kilometers of unpaved dirt road is incredible. And while there is no place to eat out and only one of the two hostels in the travel-guide actually exists (while the other one is only taking down reservations over the phone), it is a very relaxing place to enjoy some beachtime and drink a beer while watching the sunset (and do some shopping at a half-vacated art gallery).


Though South Africa is a beautiful country, on a structural level it is deeply messed up. While Apartheid was a morally pretty fucked-up, racist time, some say at least the economic situation was better during this time and most people were better off then - at least in the Eastern Cape. While I have not enough knowledge to judge this statement, I can say that now (over 20 years later), there is unfortunately still a lot of separation and poverty. And the big south african electric power company - Eskom - who was exporting a majority of its produced electricity into various other countries a few decades back, is by now not even able to supply its own country with enough electricity. (Talk about mismanagement here.) Although I imagined load shedding to be worse and more frequent, it is still annoying and anything but helpful for economic development. While some companies like big supermarkets and fast food chains have generators, enabling them to keep their businesses running during blackouts, a lot of small businesses are cut off and not able to take payments during this time…

Apart from that, complaining about blackouts on a personal level seems spoilt when you look at the living situation of most families in rural areas and townships. Two hours per day without electricity is easy to cope with when you can actually afford having electricity in general. Having a horrible shower without warm water most of the time is easy to cope with when you actually have a shower with running water and even a flushing toilet in your house (and not a drop toilet in your backyard). Freezing inside your house without heating is easy to cope with when you can afford blankets and warm socks. Having a leaking roof during heavy rain is easy to cope with when you actually have a dry house 364 days a year. Having to drive 45 minutes to East London to buy good bread or find a decent place to eat out is easy to cope with when you actually can afford to buy enough food or even eat out. A lot of people here cannot. They don’t have a job or a proper house, they struggle with money, with health, death and HIV, rape, violence, hunger and lack of perspective. They don’t have running water and their children are running outside barefoot, playing with empty PET bottles instead of fancy toys. And still their smile is happier and blither than anything I’ve ever seen. (So how can I even vindicate one single sorrow and doubt I ever had compared to this?) Well, it’s all about perspective. And gratitude.

But hey - congrats to South Africa for not calling themselves a developing country anymore and refusing to give people volunteer visas. I can definitely see a lot of improvement and decent living conditions for the whole population and no need for any help. (Irony off.)