Done by Denis for BA’s magazine Horizons a coupla months ago. Snuck in here for relief from the D2 diet.
For Claire's wedding the in-laws came from Toronto and we made the usual jokes. "Were your friends horrified about you coming to Africa? Were they sure you'd be mugged before you left Arrivals, and eaten by lions and get Aids from a coffee cup?"
The in-laws smiled sweetly and dropped a brick: "Mainly they were horrified about us coming to Johannesburg. They said there must be a mistake. No-one would want to get married in Johannesburg, surely we meant Cape Town."
When our pulse-rates throttled back to Cruise, we poured the in-laws their champagne anyway. To show how big we are.
We can take put-down, we Joburgers. For more than a century we have lived with the mining-camp label, as if cities built around fish are somehow purer. We've been gentlepersons about this. We admit a shortage of beaches and mountain trails. We know our mine-dumps aren't as scenic as the spirit-levelled hill behind Cape Town, but hey, look, we made ours. They just occupied what geology had given them. We could do quite a bit of bragging if we wanted, but we zip our lips, in pure politeness.
Even when they ignore our offers to lend them a few good Joburg property people, to flatten their hill and get some real development going, do we cry? Not on your life. We're above that.
It's only in very deep moments, at the therapist, that we confront what we'll never ever dream of saying publicly: that it hurts to be misunderstood.
People want superficials, see; pretty stuff. That's the problem Pretty is not our long suit.
Oh, we can give you Pretty, all right. From most sides, approaching Jozi is like Dorothy sighting Oz; a dazzling urban oasis. Many of our ridges give you startling views, carpets of trees, sometimes fifty-kilometre carpets with the Magaliesberg behind. Hundreds of our roads are ceilinged by trees; living cathedrals. Our weather-god (who by the way never broils us, rarely freezes us, and sends no gales to pound our brains against our skulls) gives us the bluest biggest skies, blessedly punctuated by short sharp thunderstorms to stir the soul.
We do Pretty, yes, more than people think. But what we're best at, is Real.
Real is Joburg's trademark. Real is not a thing you can put into headlines or hang on your wall. It's in the city's molecules. Africa's greatest custom – the stranger as the friend you do not know – hits a brand of high-point in Jozi, its main intersection with the worlds of commerce, industry, go-get. While the world talks of change, Jozi walks the talk. It pioneers new co-ords of co-existence, new horizons for harmony.
Of course there are hedges. Not everyone lives the ups of Africa, or opens to the ups. When people do, they may find warmth of which the headlines give no inkling. It isn't a sales warmth or strategic warmth. It's built-in. It can come from buying a hawker's apple, or just walking down a street, bringing in rolling waves of brief affection (and an antidote to the down-side news that is also in the mix.)
The rule is the normal one: give African love and it returns your love with interest. Just that Joburg is where the rule is laid on thickest.
I hear that Claire's in-laws tell their friends in Toronto that when the people-factor is really strong, you don't much worry about mountains and the sea.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by Andrew Reed , October 09, 2011
We should be content in our uniqueness and that Jozi has plenty to offer besides trees!!! NB as they are, there is gorgeous nightlife, exquisite cuisine and too much sport to handle in one weekend.
written by MLB Jersey , March 22, 2012
written by MLB Jersey , March 22, 2012
http://www.mlbfansmall.com/toronto-blue-jays-jersey
San Francisco Giants Jersey
Seattle Mariners Jersey
written by rolex daytona replica , April 11, 2012
As for "Pretty" I agree with you: you do have to search for it.
Here we just look out of the window.