Groggy from 26 hours in the air and associated layovers, I stumble into the Johannesburg airport at 5:30 am. Nobody checks my bags or asks about the 16 jars of homemade jam I have stashed in my suitcases; no immigration forms to fill out, no questions about how long I’ll be staying or where -- it’s very quiet and a bit anti-climactic. When I get to my little Suzuki Spark in the new car-rental parking garage, there isn’t even anyone there to check me at the exit.
I perform the requisite preparations before pulling out of the tiny parking bay: check mirrors, try out the gears (it’s a 5-speed manual with a left-hand shift), and, yes, auto-lock all the doors. And then I’m outside, in the Johannesburg fall sunshine, reminding myself right turn means stay in the left lane… It’s early on a Friday morning, so traffic is light. My biggest challenge is remembering that the turn signal is on my right – over and over I switch on the wipers instead.
My phone, wedged into the console, has replaced the hefty road atlas that used to occupy the passenger seat while I drove in Johannesburg. I no longer need to memorize my route, anxiously flip through pages at the traffic signals, look for safe places to pull over and recalibrate if I lose my way. My trusty GPS does all this for me, though it’s a bit jarring to hear the directions coming out in a familiar female American accent instructing me to “merge onto the M1 in 200 metres.”
My home for the next two months is 111A 1st Ave. I like this address, on a purely symbolic level – all 1s and an A, a good starting point for this 2018 venture nearly ten years since my last visit, and exactly 20 since I first arrived in South Africa to work on youth-development research. I’m in Johannesburg now to do follow-up research in Soweto. Twenty years ago I spent time at a prominent youth-development organization. I was interested in understanding the experiences of a group of unemployed young South Africans from the Soweto townships, then in their 20s, who had joined the NGO to gain skills to better position them for job market. Today, they are in their 40s with children of their own. I am here to see them again, to find out what their lives are like 25 years after the democratic elections that officially ended apartheid governance in 1994. I’ve stayed in touch with many of them
over the years, and I’m excited to meet their families, see the changes in their lives, hear what they think about South Africa’s present situation and future prospects. In the past week, I’ve spent time with four of the original participants and their families. A highlight was the Mothers Day concert at the Johannesburg zoo with Lovely, her daughter, and cousins. I have plans to see the others soon. It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since I first met them, and nearly ten since I last was here.
My landlady meets me at the palisade gate with the pointy spikes on top, slides it open to let me in. I squeeze the Spark into the tiny parking spot leaving just enough room for the gate to slide closed behind me. The little cottage is secure, that’s for sure. I have a keychain with SIX keys just to get in. Front gate, driveway, side gate, cottage gate, cottage door, cottage bars… I am not used to using ANY keys at home, so this is somewhat comical. Once inside, I’m barricaded in – the patio has high walls mostly covered by a metal roof. I get a bit of sunshine from overhead but no view, and just a glimpse of neighbors’ roofs over the walls. As I said, secure.
Which is, of course, an issue in Johannesburg. My late-morning walk through Melville takes me among the high walls barricading houses, fences and spikes and electric wires of all descriptions, and the occasional glimpse of a fancy house or a lush lawn through a gate. Passing private guard houses that resemble tiny school bus shelters, I greet the bored-looking men inside (or sitting on flimsy plastic chairs outside) who smile and greet me back, sometimes with a thumbs-up. There are not many people walking in the residential streets of Melville. People tend to drive wherever they need to go, even if it’s just down the street. And despite some racial integration of the suburbs, it’s still pretty much only black South Africans who walk in the suburban streets, most of them going to or from work. Greetings feel important.
Driving home from Soweto this first week plunges me into a familiar sensory chaos, a swirl of so-called developing-country scenes amidst modern infrastructure: Kombi taxis constantly blare horns to signal pick-ups, people walk everywhere and every which way, goats ply the median, vegetable hawkers pump their rubber horns and push grocery carts full of onions and squash, kids drape old tires around their necks (striking me as symbolically alarming, but at the same time they are just kids playing). Flashing red traffic lights mark new train stations connecting Soweto to downtown Johannesburg, even though there’s nothing to stop for. Alongside the freeway, grass and garbage fires create clouds of smoke that I drive through while trying to remember to pass lumbering, belching trucks on the right side. Strategically placed “hijacking hotspot” signs flash by. When my car beeps, I know I’m passing through electronic tollgates. The lights of the Johannesburg skyline shimmer through the dusk. I’m relieved to pull into 111A 1st Ave. with my turn signal on, and not the wipers. I watch the gate slide closed behind me, deploy my six keys without fumbling, make spaghetti with fresh tomatoes and spinach, and crawl under my super-thick blanket. The tumult outside is slowly seeping into my southern Oregon being, but it will take some time still.