johannesburg is running out of burial plots (as noted below, twenty-four of thirty-five cemeteries have been filled), in great part due to the uncontrollable AIDS epidemic:

Masondo said 24 of the city's 35 cemeteries were already at full capacity and, although enough spaces remain for the foreseeable future, other options must now be considered.

"The city would like to make an appeal to residents to consider amongst other options, stack burials and cremations," the SAPA news agency quoted Masondo as saying at the opening of a new cemetery on the outskirts of the city.

South African officials have repeatedly warned in recent years of a looming shortage of burial plots, attributed in part to rapid urbanization and a cultural reluctance among African families to consider options such as cremation.

Masondo suggested that families could begin to double up with "stack burials" at existing, family-held gravesites.

conversely, a friend informed me last evening that by law, ob/gyns conducting ultrasounds in india and nepal are forbidden to disclose the sex of the infant, as an infant of the 'vaginal kind' (not a quote from my friend, but one from a text we discussed) would be in danger due to the dowry slayings.

if these messages aren't a call to arms, i don't know what is.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/04/11/safrica.aids.reut/index.html

as i punched in my vote last week for the likes of sheila klinker and joe micon, i felt the old horror of two years ago, when i stood in line 45 minutes to do the same, and the old horror of watching the states light up like evidence of rudolph's drinking problem. and every day, cnn sent me double-digit deaths while the reds complained about abortion and gay marriage and stem cell research. thus, cells-at-sperm's-meeting = 'god's gifts' and soldiers = 'praised-for-dying-for-not-our-country.' thus, religion has again been re-remolded to suggest that the production of humanity is more important than what we do with it post-puberty. or so red-christianity has promoted...in their adoption of the roman catholic church's medieval strategies...

anyway...now things are blue again, as they were fourteen years ago, when i proudly walked my eighteen-year-old legs into the schnecksville grange, flipped the switch, and then sat in front of the t.v. for eight hours weeping as the country went to the first democratic president in twelve years. because it's what my grandmother taught me to do. because republicans were 'a-holes.' during the eight years later, after a bombing of an embassy and a hospital or two, after my grandmother passed, i began to notice the little prettily-named independent party poking its head out of the floorcracks, i recognized a name i associated with my eighth grade contemporary social problems class, presidente consumer rights, and another name, one i associated with women's rights and native restoration and profiting from once stolen lands. my heart turned in that direction (always the heart), and i was immediately rebuffed, since then it was my fault, according to the gay rights advocates, that the hospital-bomber's running-mate couldn't topple the 2% gleaned by presidente c.s.p.

where am i going with all of this? i'm not sure. this is my reaction to an email this morning that informed me that south africa's is the first parliament in africa to recognize gay marriage. i am left feeling the nigh-end-of-hopeful, as if i've just stepped out of five rotten relationships, for which i was nigh-hopeful, and there's a beautiful, stray mutt sitting on my doorstep, seeking an ounce of humanity that hasn't been sucked away by the male-order succubi. will things change. i'm doubting it, since i'm growing accustomed to not seeing things so happily and delinated into evil-and-good, as my grandmother prescribed, like she prescribed her alka-seltzer for every ailment known to man. but then again, maybe this year big bird won't be on the chopping block. maybe national park emissions will be lowered. maybe a few less soldiers will die. maybe issues such as gay marriage and abortion won't decide their lives. maybe.

...some of what he's smoking:

Writing in a Sunday newspaper, De Klerk repeated his apology to the victims of apartheid and said white-rule was "morally indefensible," but denied his government was a "criminal regime" and said whites made sacrifices too.

"Would it not be appropriate for black South Africans also to give more recognition to the contribution whites have made to the new South Africa?" he wrote in the Sunday Independent.

"It required considerable courage for ... whites ... to overcome their reasonable fears and put their trust in their erstwhile enemies."

De Klerk said that Afrikaners -- the white descendents of Dutch and French settlers -- had sacrificed centuries of struggle for self-determination to help create a democratic South Africa.

somehow, he's conveniently forgotten that 90% of the whites pulled their money out after his 'great sacrifice' for the 'erstwhile enemies.' bullshit.

well, after 28 hours of airport hopping (and 19 hours of smelling and listening to rednecks talk about their bullet penetrations into random impala), I am home. none of my underwater shots came out. next year in Australia, I'll make Ken take the shots. and he can watch my carryons while I take demerol shots. somehow, in my absence, the all-but-Tampa-Bay-last Yankees pulled ahead of the Red Sox; a woman almost took the Indy 500; and Ken vacuumed. the world stood still (but the dog remembered me, so I'm happy). my sneakers are also en route to the washer (I ran out of socks a week ago, so the sneakers regularly sat outside the front door). i am also covered in at least 15 funky mosquito bites. but other than that, in one piece. FREE INTERNET!!! BROADBAND!!! MY BED!!!

My final full-day in Cape Town was spent inside of a shark cage (and yacking over the side of a boat--not necessarily in said order). An incredible experience.

our "craft"

the "cage"

two beautiful humpback whales that passing through, right next to our boat (the skipper said that this was the first time in five years he'd seen humpback whales pass through the area - usually southern rights)

my first view of a great white shark in the wild

shark alley, between Geyser Rock and Dyer Island

the "bait" - a fish head (I didn't ask what). but these guys weren't picky. when I yacked my luna bar over the side, they were happy to share

me getting into the cage (I look like a giant penguin--jackass, no less)

$&*(#ING COLD!!! it took me 5 minutes until I was able to control my breathing - we went under minus snorkel/air. holding breath only.

i'm only missing my pocket protector

a double thrashing (he really wanted that fish head)

(click on post to see more images-will post film when I get home)

a whale watching crew who enjoyed our excitement

a white smacking the cage with the tail

the only head shot I was able to get. it all went so fast (unless some of the underwater shots came out--going to develop them when I get home)

so incredibly beautiful - there were at least ten sharks around the boat today (rare, they say), between 10 and 12 feet long

the crew - skipper, divemaster, and cameragirl

sadly (for my head) home, but good (for my stomach)

a cute seal from the Robben Island dock in Cape Town (lunch, precisely)

The final part of the day was spent at Robben Island (as my posts grow shorter and shorter as I grow poorer and poorer--spent $110 rand today on an underwater camera; I only have about $200 left). This is the island where only black prisoners (both political and criminal) were detained (i.e. Nelson Mandela  and Robert Sobukwe for a very long time). Sobering, but we were rushed through, so we didn't get the kind of in depth touring Thebe offered us in Soweto.

a touristy lighthouse on the dock from which we pulled out

a harbor seal - the port was a mix between pier 39 in san fran and inner harbor

the island, a few miles off - an Alcatrazesque swim, I'm certain

birds cling to these weird, barbed-concrete arte nouveau

our guide, a former prisoner (all the guides are, supposedly) - he was imprisoned for five years on the island

penguins live under the brush of the island - not sure if they're the jackass variety I'm going to catch tomorrow, though. Supposedly, the whites left a bunch of cats on the islands that are preying on the birds, depleting their numbers. perhaps a lecture from bob barker would help

doubling as black political prison AND leper colony! Robben Island multitasks!

the house and grounds where Robert Sobukwe was kept (president of the ANC). he was denied contact with anyone. when it was discovered he was dying of cancer, he was transferred from the island to house arrest, but never saw a day of freedom

the lime mine where the men were forced to work, digging and piling, moving piles, removing piles, to the same spots, pointlessly, sisyphus-style, day after day. the lime was used to pave the roads. this cave was where the 31 men working were supposed to have urinated and defecated, every day, but become the grounds for political communication and activism (plato would be proud)

a springbok on the island

a gun, built after WWII, for whatever reason (1948) that could shoot 30km. for what? I don't know. cat hunting?

the island lighthouse

a golf course, which I doubt the prisoners saw much of

the prison...

an activity area in which the men were forced to break rocks (which was supposed to appease the red cross--when the red cross wasn't visiting, the men were in the lime mine, blinding themselves with the dust)

cells of solitary confinement for the political prisoners. regular prisoners were grouped together in lots of 100 or more, like army barracks

the "showers" - where many a cavity search was conducted. the men were only allowed two showers per week

Mandela's cell - the political prisoners slept on the floor, while the criminal prisoners had beds (see below). Mandela supposedly managed to maintain a garden, in which he planted the pages of the manuscript for his autobiography. a wall was constructed in the garden, and his documents were discovered and destroyed

an enlarged dietary sheet showing the different allowances for coloureds and blacks. no jam/syrup if you're darker than the guy in the cell next to you. fucked up. sooo fucked up.

The first half of the day was spent exploring Table Mountain, and then we ventured into Cape Town, which was just about as annoying as the Voortrekker monument.

the castle of "good hope" - an old military base that housed the military (of course) and the governor. moat and all.

this is where the fat governor parked his ass

a sad image of a Khoi/San "warrior"

the castle of "good hope" couldn't be complete without an out-and-out torture chamber

a cute kid. the chef's son. only two years old. looks like he's four

some sort of cormorant-esque avian

no exxon-mobil here--perhaps that's why Bush isn't interested. i've never seen an oil office building in the middle of a city, though

we were roped into a diamond cutting tour - champagne and all.

these guys supposedly spent five years of training just to do the basic shaping and shaving of the diamonds

I sense some residue of segregation, here. these guys are white, and trained for five years, and they're the designers

tanzanite - only one mine for these newly acclaimed "precious stones" -- supposedly their price will skyrocket in the next few years, as the mine is depleted. the story of Africa's life

Table Mountain is the flat mountain that flanks Cape Town, along with the "12 apostles" and "lion's head and rump." We took the cable car to the top and did some exploring. Didn't run into any rock hyraxes, though. Some shots from last night, too.

the cable car wires from bottom

on the way up

the contraption

lion's head from the top--the landscape almost looks scarred

a bad self-portrait

i hiked the perimeter. i only wish i had a few days to hike the entire thing

supposedly lots of rock hyraxes in this brush. like rabbits. i didn't see any rabbits

probably as steep as knife edge

Robben Island from above

Cape Town

red lichens. i've never seen red lichens before. only green and pink.

and back again

cooling towers...feels just like home

ken! you're dad's here with me!

stubby

dirty water, long pipes jutting into the ocean, but still full of crabs, sponge, and gobies--go figure

Well, I've waited 12 years to do it, but it looks like I'm going to be shark cage diving on Friday. a big sendoff from South Africa. We'll be going off from Kleinbaai Harbour, about two hours south of Cape Town, and boating the twelve kilometers into Shark Alley - between Dyer Island and Geyser Rock. While we're chumming, we should be able to see the breeding grounds of jackass penguins (no joke) and cape cormorants and gannets and fur seals. I'm heading out by myself, with white shark ecoventures.  When I was studying marine biology as an undergraduate, I used to dream about great whites. Now I just dream about my grandparents.

The University of Western Cape is a bit different from UNISA, namely in that all the instructors I've seen/met have been white boer, except for one professor at our seminar yesterday, and the large 6' TV hanging above the cafeteria boasts MTV all day, every day. AIDS awareness/testing importance is broadcasted here more visually campus-wide, but there are also student socialist groups advertising, as in UNISA. We attended a lecture yesterday on the border wars between Namibia and Angola, and the presenter, Patricia Hayes, discussed the symbolic photographs of white soldiers that arose during this time. The discussion mainly centered on phallocentric and ethnocentric notions of penetration - through both war and sex. I pointed out the photographs by Javier Bauluz, Indifferencia, which depict Spanish indifference to Moroccoan immigrant bodies washing ashore (she showed us images of white soliders' indifference to exhumed bodies of Angolans). Today, we'll be sitting in on a seminar on colonialism. Will post pictures of the University a little later to this post....they have bandwith problems here at UWC library, and don't allow students to post/check email until after 5pm.

socialist movements on the UWC campus

AIDS awareness

a sculpture of transitions. but all of the cleaning staff I saw were still black

the library (a giant wheelchair ramp)

a mural inside of the library

in the Robben Island/UWC museum are displayed tshirts from the apartheid resistance. this one struck me in particular. the giant white hand forcing the black child's head into the orange juice squeezer.

from our hotel room about 6AM

morning mist

kelp beds

big, bad jellies

another big, bad jelly. neon blue blastocyst?? blastophele? I don't remember my marine biology at all.

sun up

a red diatomaceous tide warning. don't eat or handle shellfish. yay

A week of stress and guilt converts to a stress and guilt of another kind. Here I am in this pseudo-California paradise, called Cape Town, a two-hour flight from Johannesburg, where we're staying until Saturday. I can't stop gawking. It's not without it's poverty. There are squatter camps within town, but not in this "posh" section we're in (I've only seen white customers, here. Buses of blacks come in every day, as in Johannesburg, to work). Only our servers, cashiers, etc. have been black. In Johannesburg, it was very different. I'm not sure why we're staying here. And I won't lie...I couldn't contain my excitement when I woke up next to the ocean this morning, throbbing in the darkness. It was like a salve to the wound of last week. But I know it's false. Really false. Whether that makes me a hypocrite or not.

Johannesburg below

crop pie-charts

flying into Cape Town -- Table Mountain, which we'll be scaling on Thursday

the mountains are so incredibly close to the sea

our room

the living room (click on post to see more pics...)

the view from our window

the kitchen

our window again

and again

and again

our "apartment" (the four of us are sharing one)

(sorry...last one, I promise)

our apartment window

the tidal pool outside of our apartment (full of jellies and busted shells. that's it--no Schooner Point)

Lion's Head

sunset from our restaurant

a becks. think i've died and gone to capitalist, colonial heaven

almost good enough for a greeting card

A beautiful Sunday (and I almost ALWAYS hate Sundays) spent at Pilanesburg National Park in the North West province, with our forever-patient tourguide, Thebe. We drove through the park, but were forbidden to disembark, except at the restaurant at its center.

the landscape

a weaver bird's nest

some wildebeests. i used to get called "wildebeest" at the school busstop in 6th grade. don't quite see the correlation. but i was also called "nigger lips," even though most people's lips here are smaller than mine

the rare sighting of a jackal. they eat berries. kind of makes that richard gere movie look pretty stupid, now, eh?

an elephant we followed around for an hour

a grey lourie. makes a really obnoxious call

our lunch-time disclaimer (click on post to see more images...)

warthogs off the patio where we ate lunch

the previously sleeping rhino which Thebe stirred to attention by revving the engine and grinding tire tread

his buddies (rhinos are HUNG)

some impala. like our deer. thousands and thousands

a baboon's ass. cliche', but they move too fast to catch on film. especially when hanging from the roof of a VW bus

a nasty resort/casino, but it was part of the package, so we had to go

burds

some cute monkeys crowding the road on the way out of the resort

spent the day touring Thswane/Pretoria with Thebe and company. from what I saw the town is full of a bunch of pissed-off white people, who are claiming that the changing of the name of Pretoria to Thswane is robbing whites of their "assets"--whatever those might be...I hear the Dutch aren't hung that well.

an ibis drinking out of our non-chlorinated hotel pool. yum.

the voortrekker museum, dedicated to those god-fearing dutch who "trekked" across the countryside pilfering land from the zulus (which royally pissed the zulus off. hence the next panel). it's to celebrate how the dutch created a fort (not here, of course) and lined guns up around its roof's walls in a circle and shot the zulu like sitting ducks. that's Thebe, our tour guide, who explained it all without cracking one bad-ass joke, climbing the stairs

a lovely engraving of the zulu raping and slaughtering dutch women and girls and children after their husbands and fathers tricked the zulus out of their land (with guns). the visual rhetoric here is blatant and so fucking stupid.

the hallowed walls...

a cool shot in the roof (sometimes I get something right)

shot of UNISA from the roof. can't figure out if it looks more like an airport or the starship enterprise

yet another view of Thswane/Pretoria (click on post to see more images...)

supposedly at noon every day, the "light" of civilization shines down onto the tomb (two floors down) to celebrate the final dutch victory over the zulus

an actual torch that's lit down in the museum. this...and then the autographs in the visitor's book calling the museum "fantastique" and "wonderful"--remind me that people are so damned stupid. stupid. stupid. stupid.

guns vs. shield and spear. hmmm...

I grew up about 5 miles from Allen Organ. nice to know that they're advertising well

the prison where 131 political activists were executed.

some squatters outside of the "fine home" of Mr. Kruger. thought this was kind of funny.

here he is with a bunch of pigeons shitting on his head. equally funny.

the redneck South Africa - a demonstration against the renaming of Pretoria to Thswane

if someone could logically explain this to me, I'd pay him (yes, only a male would attempt to) 20,000 rand

the old parliament building

the "palace of justice" -- where the Rivonia trials took place, citing Nelson Mandela, among others, for treason, and sending them off to Robben Island (which we'll be visiting come Thursday) for "life" imprisonment

the rich-rich Melrose house

here's the daily shopping list

the floor, which struck me (and not because I fell on it)

the master bedroom, with mother of pearl inlays in the giant brass head and baseboards

a tree outside of the house. the roots remind me of pythons

a pretty flower outside of the president's garden. funny, no security here. you don't get gunned down for flying within three miles. hmmm.

the president's abode. there were dancers out front and guys selling imported engraved bowls, spoons, and figurines on the front lawn

Last Thursday and Friday were spent at UNISA--the University of South Africa, a long-distance university that services the entire country (and most other parts of the world). It was my visit here that prompted my "frustration" entry.

UNISA - the University of South Africa

U

i don't know, i just thought it looked neat

Thswane/Pretoria

us and the Profs. Professor Ramose, in the lower right corner, gave a four hour lecture on South African economy, racism, you name it. It was incredible, and worth the 3k I went into debt for on this trip. He moved through the introduction to the Freedom Charter line by line and discussed how inept the entire thing was (see the "black and white" business--excludes all others. plus the "our's" and "we's" remain undefined--to whom is the charter speaking? who are the authors?) He also discussed the severe loss of funding once the whites pulled out (and only a small fraction was reinvested). I questioned him regarding the Truth Commission--why weren't reparations allocated? why wasn't some form of revenge taken? most postcolonial nations cannot develop because no reparations are made for the suffering. he said that reparation processes were underway, but somehow, it's been this long, and nothing been done.

Peter, Tshiamo, and Moloiwa - representatives of the student body/government. Tshiamo--I argued with him. I evidently underestimated the South African sense of humor. He got me all heated because he said he was going to marry three wives (white, asian, black, whatever). When I ran into him later in the day, he told me that the girl he was walking with was one of them. Turns out it was his sister. Label me "jackass." Click on post to see more pics....

this is Bester Chimbo--I believe she is a math major at UNISA. it just sucked that the male rants eclipsed her responses. all of our student tour guides were male. i would really have been interested to hear a female perspective.

a cute (and very fast) skink--alas, the bad picture. there's a real stray cat problem here. i've almost taken home three cats already; the last one this morning had very infected eyes and was roaming around the cafeteria at the University of West Cape. i wanted to bawl

a view of Thswane/Pretoria from the cafeteria

the school library (aka Saks Fifth Avenue)--you need a library card to get in...and out

bird of paradise flower planted on campus

a picture at the end with several of the students

I'm in Cape Town now, which is as different from Soweto/Johannesburg as night is day. Mountains flank a vast stretch of winding beach, and I'm reminded of northern California, except for the immense, jutting cliffs. In CA, they were sand. Very much stone here. I will post several dozen pictures tomorrow. Was hoping to finally have internet access from my room, which looks over the water, but we don't even have a phone. Everyone's words are really helping. I only wish I had time to respond (I'm charged by the minute--you're charged by the minute to breathe, it seems, if you have no home base). I hope everyone is well.