Yesterday, I went for a ride in a taxi. There were 19 people in the taxi. Comfy...like AppleBee's.
That was ride 1. The South Africans gave me the first ride 貸切 for free.
The subsequent rides had a few more of my African sisters and brothers on either side, front and back. During my second visit of the day to a police station, we were courteously informed by representatives of The Republic of South Africa that ridership was legally limited to 13 passengers.
We had 19. This was the first.
try imagining a poster like this in an American police station.
moreover, try imagining cops who walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
Kuils River, Western Cape, South Africa
At the jitney hub, hundreds of the vans, with a fairly consistent colour scheme
were surrounded by thousands of black South Africans. I was even easier to track there than I was in Japan. As long as I didn't look at myself, I didn't see one white person. One only finds this racial consistency in an American church.
The street vendor prices were much cheaper than Cape Town, where I was staying, so I bought some fruit and a snack for later. The vendor from whom I bought the snack carried his wares strapped around his neck, and called me "poppa". This is a fairly common form of address here, and elsewhere. After he called me poppa, I asked him
Why are you calling me poppa? I should be calling you poppa. White people come from Africa, no?
He was unprepared to debate linguistics with a cracker tourist. His fellow vendors looked on amused.
Ya gotta love your prison. It's the only one you'll ever get.
Parow, Western Cape, South Africa
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