South Africa

[Strike For The South]

What can you tell me about this country?

What can you tell me about visiting this country?

What can you tell me about the wimmens?

[The Wizard]

I hear the weather's great and as a Dutch speaker I <3 Afrikaners

[naut]

Ok SFTS. Most of my family lives out there, and my father was born there --- the run down.

- Beautiful, yet troubled place. Many refugees, much inequality, much violence and plenty of crime.

- Visiting? No. Unless you know the country well I would not advise it at all. Highly likely you will get mugged or worse. Do not travel on public transport. Drive only. Lock your car when driving. Do not walk the streets. Do not display valuables. Visit touristy places only. Do not go to anywhere other than Cape Town or the Kruger National Park. DO NOT go to Jo-berg.

- Women? Hot, but impossible to meet.

Any locals want to dispell my fears please do so. However, as a descendant of a British Seth Efricken and a British Nambian I feel it is my duty to warn tourists of the dangers.

[Louis VI the Fat]

What can you tell me about this country?
Awesome, if troubled/doomed.

What can you tell me about visiting this country?
Go now! There are countries out there so pretty they beat France and almost rival Texas.

What can you tell me about the wimmens?
I dated one.

[naut]

What can you tell me about the wimmens?
I dated one.

Same:

[Louis VI the Fat]

On Psychonaut's advice: I visited Jo-berg. I was brutally slashed up and mugged by two guys with giant knifes, with five hundred onlookers not doing a thing. I am afraid my impression is that South Africa indeed is every bit as dangerous as people say it is. (It's almost as bad as North Paris. I might follow you one day to your Australian hide-out.)

So yes, do take every bit of advice you get seriously. SA is not merely criminal, it is violent. Men get their belongings stolen, then get to see what a knife looks like up close. Then afterwards everybody will look at you at amazed, in utter disbelief: 'how on earth did you let you off? Why were you not murdered? How come you only have minor cuts?'
Women for their part don't get their purse snatched, they get snatched themselves and gang-raped.

I was at the police station after I got mugged. The sights there...
Some poor woman sat opposite me, who was just brutally raped, and looked it. In a complete state. She was screaming in the waiting room. Cops were barely interested, they could barely cope with all the other people, most of them bleeding. She was just another statistic.


What a war zone.

Same:

Was her name by any chance 'Tracy' and did she study at Grahamstown?

Would be awesome if its the same girl.

[naut]

Your post may be light-hearted Loius, but this is no laughing matter. Please STFS do not take South Africa lightly. My Grandmother was mudered by violent gangs, and the police there are too corrupt to be any use. So if you are truly considering going there, please please please be careful and aware of the dangers.

On a less intense note.

Was her name by any chance 'Tracy' and did she study at Grahamstown?

No. Out of curiosity was she an Afrikaner or a African-Brit?

[Fragony]

It's aweseome, avoid a few places, but you don't really have to. Never went there myself but two friends of mine, both bleeding hot blondettes, had zero problems in the edgy parts. Stupid bimbo's were looking for weed, good thinking.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Out of curiosity was she an Afrikaner or a African-Brit?

Of thoroughbred 1820's settler stock, Eastern Cape, and smoking hot.

(My post was serious...)

[The Wizard]

Would it be worse than Latin America? I've lived there (Honduras) and it wasn't that bad. Surely a richer country like South Africa can't be worse?

[Centurion1]

theres a reason so many mercenaries emerge from this country. beautiful though.

[Major Robert Dump]

Dude, If you are thinking of going there as a part of one of your Baptist outings, don't. Missionaries and the like are huge targets, and I know of 2 groups in Norman alone who went, got robbed and their interpreters/guides kidnapped and killed.

On the other hand, if you are going to go as part of a hunting group with very large guns, or if you are paying a mercenary entertained to take you there to shoot militia, then by all means go. That would be fun.

[A Very Super Market]

Interesting how two of our biggest sporting events are going to be held in rather questionable locales. Rio is 10% glamour and 90% slum of varying degrees. And we are learning quite a bit about South Africa right here in this thread.

[tibilicus]

There's a reason why all the people with money live in gated communities, it isn't simple prejudice..

Doesn't really help either when the so called "mother of your country" is Winnie "I kill children" Mandela..

[Louis VI the Fat]

Me, I think that everybody ought to see Africa at least once. Africa is in your genes. It is where the human species evolved, where we lived for millions of years. Africa speaks to you on a primal level, it resonates with your soul. All the sounds, the sights, the smells - it connects with something very deep inside of you.

This is what I mean:

Film scores mimic alarm calls of animals to heighten fear and emotion, study suggests
Film soundtracks like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and The Birds mimic animal distress calls in the wild to heighten our emotions, a report claims.

Researchers say that the score for popular movies tap into our basic animalistic brain to evoke all kinds of feelings from sadness, to fear, to excitement. They believe that "non-linear vocal attributes", the rasping and distortion of voices used by mammals in times of duress, are used by film soundtrack composers.

This technique included the overblowing of brass and wind instruments and the metallic rasp of a French horn when a hand is placed in the bell. They also employed feedback loops from electric guitars and the crash and bang of drums and cymbals.

Professor Daniel Blumstein, the lead author at the University of California, compared a number of soundtracks from Hollywood blockbusters to the distress calls of marmots. He found that the deliberate distortion of sound and sudden pitch and harmony changes at times of dramatic tension and mimicked the alarm calls given out by the marmots at times of duress.

"Noise is associated with horror and fear," said Prof Blumstein who reported his findings in Royal Society journal Biology Letters. "Abrupt frequency shifts are associated with sad dramatic scenes. Noise is associated with horror and fear. I would say it taps into our primal fear which is shared with other mammals and birds.

"It scares us, but it also scares other animals."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7...-suggests.html

We are animals. We are African animals. Art is finding the hardwired African instincts in us, expressing the sensations, the vruelty and beauty of the African wild.


I had such a shock of recognition in Africa. Suddenly, while there, I realised why the sounds of my electric guitar excited me. I was only mimicking the far away shrieks of danger that I had never heard in my life before, but that reside in my soul, that are hardwired in my brain to raise adreneline levels for.

[The Wizard]

I've been reading articles that many are returning as they just couldn't get used to, say, Britain, the USA or the Netherlands.

Also, if we're talking primal instincts and Africa, shouldn't we direct Strike to Ethiopia?

[Centurion1]

i am going to watch that video just to see what the mysterious Louis actually looks like.

[Strike For The South]

Well dang, I had heard some stories but I didn't know it was that bad!

FWIW I wouldn't be going as a missionary (lol) I'd be a tourist with some friends.

How would you compare it to say Mexico?

[A Very Super Market]

You wouldn't get trapped in a cloud of smog and suffocate.

Nobody visits Mexico City. They visit the tourist villas, which should go the same for South Africa.

[Centurion1]

i spent time in mexico, i think in some ways its better in some ways its worse. Think so who knows. I hear south africa is very nice if you have to money to make it so.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Well dang, I had heard some stories but I didn't know it was that bad!

FWIW I wouldn't be going as a missionary (lol) I'd be a tourist with some friends.

How would you compare it to say Mexico?

South Africa is someplace else. Almost a category of it's own, concerning crime. Such a shame.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Crime is a prominent issue in South Africa. South Africa has a high rate of murders, assaults, rapes, and other crimes compared to most countries. Many emigrants from South Africa state that crime was a big factor in their decision to leave.[1]

A survey for the period 1998–2000 compiled by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime ranked South Africa second for assault and murder (by all means) per capita and first for rapes per capita.[2] Total crime per capita is 10th out of the 60 countries in the dataset. Note that these statistics only compare statistics from approximately 60 countries (typically better-developed countries) and many of the remaining countries of the world will have higher rates of violent crime — though these are usually unmeasured, disputed or uncomparable. The UN statistics also contain some flaws (e.g. gun crime in South Africa[3]).


South Africa also has a bad record for car hijackings when compared to industrialised countries largely associated with the lower rate of car ownership. One South African insurance company, Hollard Insurance, no longer insures Volkswagen Citi Golfs as they are one of the most frequently hijacked vehicles in South Africa.[4] In some areas there are road signs that indicate a high car-jack zone.[5]
A recent new trend in South Africa is for thieves to enter restaurants and rob the patrons eating there. In July 2008, the Restaurant Association of South Africa (RASA) was forced to raise the security classification of the capital's restaurants to "caution areas". The RASA said since January, 15 people have been killed in 687 attacks carried out on RASA members' businesses.
Crime against commercial farmers has continued to be a major problem in the country.


The United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute have also conducted research[6] on the victims of crime which shows the picture of South African crime as more typical of a developing country. These statistics show that South Africa has lower rates of violent crime than many African and South American countries.
From 2003–2009, however, the murder and crime rate has stabilized according to official police data.[7]
Sexual violence

Main article: Sexual violence in South Africa
According to a survey for the period 1998–2000 compiled by the United Nations, South Africa was ranked first for rapes per capita.[8] One in three of the 4,000 women questioned by the Community of Information, Empowerment and Transparency said they had been raped in the past year.[9] More than 25 per cent of South African men questioned in a survey published by the Medical Research Council (MRC) in June 2009 admitted to raping someone; of those, nearly half said they had raped more than one person.[10][11] Three out of four who admitted rape attacked for the first time during their teens.[10]
South Africa has some of the highest incidences of child and baby rape in the world.[12]

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_South_Africa

One in three women in South Africa have been raped....last year. The full, shocking impact of that statistic is nearly incomprehensible. On average, a woman gets raped every three years of her life, for her entire life. And most of these are not date-rapes, but of the brutally violent, gun-point, forced entry in your house, a whole gang, snatched from the streets, pulled out of your car, kind.

Women are not required to stop before a robot, so dangerous is it for them to be in a non-moving vehicle.

It is out of this world.

[naut]

You wouldn't get trapped in a cloud of smog and suffocate.

Last time I was in Seth Efrika. We were driving up from Jo-berg, through the veldt to the Kruger. And you couldn't see more than 200 metres in any direction. The thing is around Jo-berg there are so many African shanties and other assorted slums and they use coal for their fires (it gets really cold in Jo-berg as its a plateau at 1500m altitude, so they need the warmth). Now you wouldn't suffocate, but it wouldn't be much fun either.

Nobody visits Mexico City. They visit the tourist villas, which should go the same for South Africa.

Seth Efrika != Mexico. Mexico expects American tourists, so these safe Americanized areas have appeared all over the place, as they are economically viable. Seth Efrika has millions of refugees and other displaced persons, all with nothing to their names. There are no "tourist villas". The only place that is remotely along those lines would be the Kruger Park.

To get the scale of it when you fly into the country, you look out of your window in the aeroplane and you see Jo-berg. And you see miles and miles of slums stretching in every direction. And then your father looks and says, "When I was young there was nothing there, just the bush, the veldt and some forest." Or you are in Cape Town, and you see the train go by and your mother says, "We used to catch the train to the beach every weekend. You can't even catch the train now. If you are white you aren't getting off at the other end." Or you drive on the freeway and you pass by slums on every side, and you see that they've got outhouses near the river and they're defecating straight into the river that they're also washing/drinking/swimming in. Or you are driving to the Kruger Park, and you stop to fill up with petrol and the guy behind the counter says to your parents, "Don't take the first exit to the Kruger. There's a shanty town up there on the road, they've been pulling over cars and getting them to pay a toll at gun-point." Or you drive on the freeway and every now and then you see street signs that say, "Hijacking hotspot, Do not slow down."

And on the other hand where else can you see a massive impromptu football match on the lawn of the Union Buildings. Or drive on the freeway and be passed by an old VW with 37 people crammed in and on it. Where else can you go to a game reserve and see 5 prides of lion (incredibly rare, most people don't see any). Or have a leopard walk out in front of your vehicle (again incredibly rare, most people don't see one). Or see an elephant so old its single tusk nearly reaches the ground. Or see a family of elephants playing in the river. Or see a giraffe so old that it is no longer spotted, but almost completely black (their spots get darker and darker as they age). Or see a hyena scouting for prey on a ridge. Or get charged by an overly aggressive bull elephant.

If you want to go, then go. But, basically my tips would be:

- Hire a car. There is no other safe way to get around. Lock the doors of your car when driving.
- Go to Cape Town. See the beaches, Table Mountain, the Cape of Good Hope, Boulders Beach and swim with the wild penguins, take a walk around the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront and on the waterfront visit the Two Oceans Aquarium.
- Go to the Kruger Park. And either join a tour or hire a car and drive around yourself.

Then again if you want to see game then you could go to Botswana instead. Botswana is gorgeous.

[Cyclops]

Interesting thread. As an Aussie I feel kinship for Sth Africans, especially since I worked with a bunch in London (since that trip I consider Sth Efricans cousins and Kiwis as siblings-nationalism be buggered, we have a lot in common). Very sad to hear about all the rapes and murders and attacks.

I used to have the sterotype: the black/coloured Sth Africans are good, the Anglos are a bit compromised and the dutch ones are bad.

A bit of a peek at the history and meeting all sorts changed my mind. The black Sth Africans I knew were all beaut people but Ii heard about/saw some baddies too. The dutch ones and Anglo ones were alright too-although I met one brute (hey occasionally the stereotypes are true). The anglo Sth Africans I knew calle him a crunchy.

One thing, they are not dishonest people. all the Sth Africans I met were pretty honest and straightforward. Not that we Aussies are liars or anything, but these buggers say exactly what they think. Also what they feel. If a Sth African liked me I knew it. If she was upset I knew it. If one of the guys was a dirty little backstabbing thief I knew it. If he was a decent kid it was bloody obvious. They're a scary mob, being honest like that.

We have a view in Oz we can beat them at anything. They have a good cricket tradition and a great rugby one (and their soccer is getting impressive too). When their cricketers looked like surpassing ours we discovered we didn't like apartheid all of a sudden.

Also we went there for a war where the dutchmen somehow settled on the Englishmen's gold and diamonds before anyone knew they were there, and refused to return them. I swear what is it with us Aussies and getting involved in grubby colonial/commercial ventures?

[Husar]

Me, I think that everybody ought to see Africa at least once. Africa is in your genes. It is where the human species evolved, where we lived for millions of years. Africa speaks to you on a primal level, it resonates with your soul. All the sounds, the sights, the smells - it connects with something very deep inside of you.

That's not the sounds and smell, it's the mosquitos and the fever.

I've been there for two weeks, with missionaries(some of you may cringe looking at it(fundamentals) but they were mostly really nice, to me anyway), wasn't that dangerous, mostly because they knew how to get around, but they warned us of all the dangers, too.

Went to Durban as well, two things that stuck out:
1. stories of taxi drivers shooting eachother over who gets a passenger
2. the tourist beach had patrols with submachine guns literally every one- or two-hundred meters and some on quads driving around as well

I felt relatively safe and it was a great experience, the country is quite beautiful as well (though the trees aren't exactly greener, but the shapes are different ).

Most horrible experience was when moths would haunt and taunt me at night, even killing one on my pillow didn't help, next day I got some chemicals though and could watch lots of mosquitos etc.falling from the roof (we slept in straw huts and had no mosquito nets, those would probably help).

Oh, the memories...

Would like to go there again one day(not necessarily to the mission ), but yeah, it's dangerous.

[Furunculus]

What can you tell me about this country?

What can you tell me about visiting this country?

What can you tell me about the wimmens?

Its great, and dangerous.

Best captured with a good camera, which must look rubbish so as not to get robbed.

Beautiful, but raddled with AIDS.

[Strike For The South]

Actaully from this thread Mexico sounds like paradise compared to SA

And the reason I ask this question is I plan to spend some extended time in some place outside of my hemisphere. I have narrowed it down to

-France, UK, And the low countries
-India
-South Africa

And since I know the littlest about SA I thought Id ask

[SwordsMaster]

What can you tell me about this country?

What can you tell me about visiting this country?

What can you tell me about the wimmens?

The country is great. You should go, but this is one of these places where you need to do your homework, as a wander into the wrong area at the wrong time will cost you.
Jozi is a great place. But even more so than in Capetown you must listen to your common sense and keep it always on. (Examples: Don't stop at traffic lights at night if there is no traffic, don't stop at places where there are suspicious looking youths loitering, keep the valuables in the trunk so as not to get smash-n-grabbed, etc.)

I don't think SFTS needs to worry about rape, but do remember HIV is high, specially among black women. Women are generally very beautiful, and haughty, but that depends on the kind of challenge you enjoy - i trust you will develop an eye for prostitutes soon, and, well, if you don't, they will let you know how much...

Joburg international is well served from London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Madrid to name a few. You will need a car to move around as the cities a large, and public transport unsafe for whites, and even more so for tourists. Whatever you do do not get into arguments with taxi drivers, as they are usually armed. Many areas you can go to with locals but can be dangerous on your own, places such as Soweto, Diepsloot, or Alexandra. On a highway, specially at night, don't stop for anything, even punctures, until you get to a petrol station.

Enjoy the scenery, near Joburg I recommend Hartebeesport Dam, and all the lion parks and nature reserves, and visit Carnivore, it's a restaurant slightly outside the city where you can eat many of the game animals. Also, get a GPS. This is a must.

Anyway, let me know if you have any specific questions, I have spent 6 months in Joburg last year and loved it. Plus, as the russians say: you will die at most once.

[The Wizard]

South Africa is someplace else. Almost a category of it's own, concerning crime. Such a shame.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_South_Africa

Despite the horrible rape ratio, if it's less bad than "many South American nations", then it shouldn't be too much to worry about (as a guy). As long as you speak the language, don't carry jewelry or many valuables at all, and keep away from no-go areas for tourists/affluent Westerners. Oh, and for Pete's sake Strike, make sure you have a car. Preferably a big one. I speak from experience living in Honduras (the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere after Haiti).

[Louis VI the Fat]

it shouldn't be too much to worry about (as a guy).

For your information, Strike´s not a guy. In case you haven´t noticed, she´s been sending me all those and forever.


I´ve been saving up for a ticket to Texas for over a year. Her arse is mine.

[The Wizard]

Pssst... I was just precluding any feminist outcries