It’s not Black and White

We arrived back in Capetown at 10:00 am, but check-in for the Blue Train to Pretoria wasn’t until 2:30 pm.  So I arranged a tour of Capetown’s District Six and townships.  Life in South Africa is still highly segregated, no longer by legal fiat, but by economic and social structures.  The country has the highest income inequality of any country on earth; and that separates the whites and blacks geographically.  The blacks live in townships, mostly because they can’t afford white neighborhoods, but also the middle class blacks stay in townships for cultural and tax reasons.  Before we judge too harshly, the United States is the richest country on earth and is in the top third (or bottom) of income inequality.  Said differently, 2/3rds of all countries have a more equal distribution of wealth than the United States, from Norway (always the Scandinavians) to Ukraine.  

I’ll discuss “townships” more thoroughly after our tour of SoWeTo in Jo’burg.  For now I’ll mention District Six.  The confluence of Apartheid and Urban Renewal of the 60s created disastrous results for a black community in Capetown.  During our architectural education in the 70s and early 80s the profession and educators began researching the results of architecture/urban planning ideas and visions of the 40s and 50s.  French architect Le Corbusier was among those who embraced the potential of modern architecture and urban planning to create “a machine for living”.  Combined with decay in the urban core, “great migration” populations of blacks from the south that needed housing, and desire for “city beautiful” programs many cities embraced Urban Renewal as a way to solve these problems.  Cabrini Green in Chicago, Pruit Igo in Saint Louis, and the plan to demolish Pike Place Market in Seattle were all examples of this solution in the US. Coupled with South Africa’s policies that black and whites could not live in the same communities resulted in the demolition of District Six.  

Photo Mock up of Former District Six Streetscape

Museum visitors on District Six Map

Former typical sign in District Six

District Six was a vibrant, low income, cosmopolitan, mixed race but mostly black and colored, neighborhood where people lived, loved and labored.  The government forcibly relocated all 60,000 residents of this community to segregated townships elsewhere, and then bulldozed the entire neighborhood.  Because the clear intent was to destroy a community of color to benefit only the white population, and there was increasing international attention on South Africa’s policy of Apartheid, no developer every touched the opportunity.  Since then it remains a reminder of Apartheid policies.  While many of the original displaced people want to return, the entire area adjacent to downtown Capetown remains a fenced field of weeds.  All that remains of District Six are photographs, street signs, and written memories in a museum located in an abandoned church that used to serve the community.

After our tour we were dropped off at the train station in a separate lounge for Blue Train passengers, served champagne and a light snack, and waited for our departure.  The Blue Train is a remnant of Cecil Rhodes’ late nineteenth century vision for a train from Capetown to Cairo.  Alas, the train only got as far as Dar es Salam in Tanganyika (the country before it combined with Zanzibar to create Tanzania).  Rhodes was a British mining magnate (formed De Beers Diamond Co. in Kimberly, SA), prime minister of the Cape Colony, and statesman who created the commonwealth countries of Northern and Southern Rhodesia (present day Zambia and Zimbabwe).  He was knighted by Queen Victoria and established the Rhodes Scholarship.  He was also a racist believing the Anglo/Saxons were a superior race to all others, and encouraged the colonialisation by whites, and even Chinese to replace blacks on the continent.

The Blue Train is old world style transportation similar to the Orient Express.  The interior was designed by Trish Wilson, an interior consultant we used on a number of hospitality projects (she was married a white South African). The cabins are beautifully paneled in beech wood, the logo is emblazoned on all the coaches, cushions, linens, and lights.

The outside of our coach

Our cabin had an en suite bathroom with a sofa, chair and table in the salon during the day.  Dinner is a formal affair with men in tie and jacket, and women in formal wear.  (They lent me a jacket as I told them on the reservation that I refused to take one for two nights of a six week trip.)  During dinner we were entertained by a Jazz Saxophonist.

Lounge Entertainment

While at dinner the staff folded down our cabin table, and overlaid the sofa with a double bed pulled down from the paneled wall, fluffed with a down comforter and pillows.  Every six cabins shared a butler from 6:00 am to 11:00 pm.  The only use we made of the butler beyond the scheduled turn down service was Robin ordered cappuccino delivered each morning at 6:30.  Heaven!  “When mama ain’t happy......”

Our Cabin - the bed folded down from the panel behind the sofa.

Bill working on the Blog 

Our first overnight train experience was the Ghan (named after the Afghanistan camel herders in Australia) from Alice Springs to Darwin.  After traveling modestly or in camps for several weeks, we liked the unscheduled time to reflect, read, and relax (while Robin worked) before the next immersion.  The Ghan was only over one night as a test.  The Blue train was over two nights; and we are convinced we like the rhythm of the rails.  Trans Siberia here we come!

One of the observations we reflected on after two weeks in South Africa was when Robin commented that she was feeling uncomfortable that all the wait staff in South Africa, including the Blue Train, were black.  She felt she was in a scene from the movie Help, and didn’t like the white/black divide.  Another was an inherent bias I had that all blacks must feel the same about the poor blacks in the shanties.  Both these thoughts were challenged during our train ride by conversations with staff.  We also experienced much more willingness for blacks and whites to talk about race than we do in the US.  Whether because of Mandela’s Truth and Reconciliation commission or political correctness in US  liberal circles to not talk about uncomfortable differences; I don’t know.

At dinner one of our wait staff, Israel, a black middle aged man with wry humor and disarming smile, told us when he grew up on a farm during Apartheid and first saw a white person he hid.  Because of their white skin he thought they must be angels and were there to take him away.  We laughed together as I told him some of my Chicago stories.  

Our travel choices typically include staying at locally owned guest houses or lodges that hire staff from, and return the profits to, the community.  Combined with our conversations to understand cultural perspectives of the local population, from an uneducated boatmen at a remote border crossing in Senegal, or a white Africaan taxi driver, or the black wait staff on a luxury train, elevates a holiday vacation or tourist activity to Travel as a Political Act.

We had one excursion off the train at Kimberly, site of one of the worlds largest diamond mines and Rhodes’ fortune.  Along with the discovery of gold, this was the reason for Jo’burg’s existence.  There is blog story just for this stop, but time is running out. 

De Beers Museum Sign 

The Big Hole (after digging as deep as they could
They started making tunnels)  

As we traveled through the countryside of South Africa we kept our blinds open day and night to watch the landscape pass, the sun set, and the moon to illuminate our surroundings.  When we awoke on our third day the train crawled though the outlying townships of Jo’burg and their train stations.  It’s was very disconcerting to wake up lying in bed with your spouse, covered by fluffy white down comforters, and four feet away have black township commuters staring at you through the large cabin window. We shut the blind until after breakfast.

We arrived in Pretoria, capital of South Africa, at 10:00 am and were taken to The Cradle of Humankind midway to our hotel in Jo’burg.   To be discussed in the next post.