The biggest snail I've ever seen

Climbing on our table at an open-mic night in Livingstone, Zambia. Pretty awesome!

The End of the World.

Good Hope

That is, the Cape of.

European sailors dreamed of finding new worlds, so they set off to the south. Africa was strange and powerful, but the Europeans couldn't conquer it (thanks to malaria, though that was fixed in the 1800's by the gin & tonic concoction many explorers sipped). So they kept on going, and going. Finally, the rounded the edge, the Cape of Good Hope. It was the first sign of rounding Africa on their way to India and the spice islands. The Suez Canal wasn't built till the mid 20th century, and Columbus couldn't find India, so for centuries sailors passed the Cape.

I've been to the end. The extreme.

Fire & Ice

What a strange hotel. This was where we stayed in Cape Town. The lava carpet and themed elevators were charming after a couple of days. The window to the shower In the bedrooms never really grew on me, though...

Richard Branson?

So, we're studying entrepreneurship, and this strikes me as quite the story.

Richie Brans went to a weightlifting competition and saw our man Tumi. Tumi won the competition and talked to Richie afterward, who found out that Tumi was from Alexandra (see my other post). Richie decided to pass along a set of weights so Tumi could actually prep for competitions. Tumi lives in Alex, though, so he doesn't have a lot of space. Instead of hogging the goodies, he's decided to start a gym called Ikasi Gym, in Alex, where he sponsors & trains local weightlifters. It's 100 rand to join and 70/month thereafter. That's like $10.

All thanks to Richard Branson. What a guy!

Floating in the Clouds

From where I sit, the earth is miles away, and the trees, fields, farms, buildings and even mountains people squabble over are insignificant. A tree might as well be a fleck of dust. I feel closer to outer space than I do Africa, though she sits beneath me only 7 miles. I see the darkened sky and dream of the clear lights I see at night. It certainly gives the rat race a bit more perspective.

Need I say more?

Driving

Listening to Waka Waka by Shakira—written for the World Cup to commemorate the rise of Africa, the triumph of the individual as a part of a community. Its about overcoming the past and rising to a new future.

We're going to a game park, so I'm listening to all of my Africa songs, from Africa by Toto to the Circle of Life.

I like driving—it's one of my two great releases. The other is reading (I am still infected with a severe case of OCBB—obsessive compulsive book buying. I plunked down more than I've ever paid for two thick tombs on modern South Africa this morning, and it energized me to start reading them).

When I drive I feel the rush of the ground passing by silently beneath me, the flow of the wind in my hair, brushing over my hands and past my face. I downshift and the rumble of power surges through the engine, climbing mountains, sailing over bridges and running through the forest.

It's a good life.

Contradictions

South Africa is a nation of contradictions. Apartheid is over, but the whites still control the wealth. It's in Africa, but the roads are filled with Audi's, BMW's, Mercedes, and Ferrari's (occasionally a Toyota or a Renault, but they're the exception). The cities are filled with the poorest of the poor, who make 8 rand per day (~$1.15), but the wealthy hunt Rhinos for $100,000 a head.

There was a broken down bus with 16 Africans milling around on the other side of the road, only a mile in front of a broken down X5 with a black father looking under the hood, the daughter and brother playin in the grass and the mother waiting patiently in the passengers seat.

Richard Branson gives a poor black weightlifter in Alexandra a weight set so he starts a gym, with an Audi parked in the next house door that looks like it came out of the intro scene of Slumdog Millionaire.

It's a crazy world out there.

Mama's always right

Yup, it's true. It was ~3 degrees in Salt Lake when I was headed to the south of Africa. Remembering many lessons in middle school about the hemispheres and changing climates, I figured it couldn't get better than this—I'd just bring my swimming suit, towel and sunglasses and I'd be set. Not wanting to weigh down my already bloated carry-on luggage, I sprinted from the car to the terminal in a t-shirt, narrowly avoiding frostbite. Thinking better of it, I called my parents and asked them to run out my long sleeved shirt, just in case.

Mom brought the hoodie and the long sleeved shirt and said I'd be happy to have them both. Grunting, I smashed the shirt into my baggage and wrapped the sweatshirt around my waist.

It was a bit chilly deboarding I Atlanta, but that wasn't the end of the world.

Today in the Mabula game park it might have hit 50 degrees, if we hadn't been in an open topped jeep riding at 30 miles an hour. Good thing I had the long-sleeved shirt *and* the hoodie!

Tips to get the Best Safari Seat

So, if you want the folks on a safari to give you preferential treatment, a side seat in the back (often the highest point in the car) as well as great access to any view, just bring a camera. I'm not talking about your run of the mill back of the iPhone cam, but a serious one. And make sure it's got a telephoto lens.

The rule of the safari is he who has the biggest camera makes the rule.

That being said, I've taken ~1700 pictures over the past two days, including some phenomenal lion and rhino shots. None of them on the iPhone, though, so there won't be many pictures in the next few posts.

Mabula!

This is the pool and waterfall behind the Mabula Game Lodge, with yours truly. Loving life.

Photography

Click, click.

The shutter snaps. One sixteen-hundredth of a second. I can't really comprehend that speed.

Speaking of photography (last post), I've fallen in love with it. There's a mysterious satisfaction about snapping a clear photo. I love clearly capturing the face of a friend, a moment of laughter, or a knowing smile. Especially with shortened depth-of-field (thanks to my 85mm f/1.8 Canon beauty), priceless memories are captured for a lifetime.

Now, traditionally I've been a pack-rat. I still have ticket stubs to my first performance of Phantom in Her Majesty's Theater in London, entrance tickets to castles in Prague and movie tickets to see the Dark Knight. I've got museum plans for the Prado, the British Museum and the Met. I have a copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire purchased in Piccadilly Circus next to my first copy of the Sword of Shannara, both bowing under the weight of Long Walk to Freedom, but supported by Diplomacy and The Eye of the World. Now, each book carries it's own memory—Long Walk I read during lunch at Hopkins, Diplomacy on the ratty green couches where my childhood happened, and I think were replaced this week, the Eye while waiting for my parents on the Great Wall, and The Goblet while eating the most divine fruit salad in-between broker's visits to houses surrounding the Heath—in other words, my books are their own collection of memories. (Mom, if you're reading this, that's why you can't ever trash them—how else would I remember the green couches, which are long past their expiration, the great wall / sitting in the closet reading before you woke up, or our near brush with Britain? They're more a part of my life than anything else I've left in that not-too-tidy room of mine).

Now I've reached a point where being a pack-rat doesn't make much sense, digitally. Of the 200 pictures I've reviewed from the safari, I deleted about 70 (35%). It's a good feeling. Finally I can clear out the garbage and not feel bad about it. I've taken 4,000 pictures in the past 3 weeks, and it's grand. I may only keep half of them, but that's fine.

For better or worse, mom, you get to keep my books till I can buy a house. Then I'll fill it with them.

Oh, dreams!

Scenes from Alexandra

Including a gym we visited / the owner of the gym, as well as a bakery owner. They both walked us through the businesses they run, their short term goals as well as long-term strategy.

They were very gracious—and Alex reminded me of the Indian slums, just a little more classy & with concrete floors.

Market Failure

I've reached that happy state where I have no idea what day of the week it is or what the date is—like a kid playing in the snow in the days before starting kindergarten.

Speaking of snow, it's summer here—I jumped from -3 degree snowstorms to 78 degree tropical happiness. Joburg isn't near the water—it's something like 40km from the nearest river, and a long way from the sea. Most cities are built around a good port, a bend in the river, or a tactical point in the defense of a nation. Johannesburg is in the midst of the jungle, away from life-giving water, mountain passes and other natural attractions. So what is it about this chunk of land that attracts 7 million people, and wars between the Dutch, French and British? (the locals never really had a chance against the guns and smallpox)

It's all about the gold. Gold mining accounts for no less than 20% of the economy, and until 2007, South Africa was the largest gold producer in the world.

The only thing in the region more influential than gold is diamonds. Cecil Rhodes (of the Rhodes Scholarship and Rhodesia—now zimbabwe—fame) made his fortune picking up the lovely stones. Oh, that and enslaving the local populace and forcing them to work in atrocious conditions deep in dangerous, dank and dingy mines.

Which raises the specter of something quite unsettling to me. Market failure. It's a terrible thing—the invisible hand pushes us all to be productive and innovative, yet pushes some people too hard. It only works if everyone plays by the rules, but there are a lot of people who don't.

They take advantage of others who were less fortunate than them—maybe they were born to the wrong family, or weren't as smart or as strong. Whatever happened, it's a mess. And that's often the problem in countries in Africa and South America. The patronage system prevents innovation, or gangs and lawlessness keep entrepreneurs and other solid businessmen from doing what they do best. People are afraid to invest—in physical or human capital—for fear that they won't be able to control their future. With tremendously high discount rates, it's no wonder they cannot save enough to improve their future.

So what can we do to fix it? I think a lot of it is fixing the system—getting the corruption, the violence and petty crime out of the way to begin true progress. Even so, the true end goal is to reduce discount rates. Make people see that they should live for their whole lives, not just for today.

That's the same problem a lot of Americans have—from high school dropouts to lazy bums in cushy jobs. Mind you, I'm neither saying that everyone in a good job is lazy nor that we should work all the time (anyone who's known me over the past two years would know better than that), but rather that people should work hard while they're on the clock and should try their best going forward to make their world a better place. That is, once there is a level / fair playing ground for everyone.

My mother posted a quote above our doorway when I was a child that said it all: "The chief cause of failure and unhappiness in the world is trading what we want most for what we want at the moment."

70 Degrees & Lovely

Wow! It's times like this I wish I'd gone to Stanford...

This is the campus of the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), a division of the University of Pretoria. They hosted us for the day and took us around the Township of Alexandra. Watch for a posting on it.

The Rainbow Nation

So, I've been a bit slow about posting, but I arrived to Joburg on Monday night. Hooray! Three flights, a lost wallet and 24 hours later, I'm finally in the Rainbow Nation! It is grand!

Monday night we stumbled out of the airport (none of us got much sleep on the plane) to find that a previous HBS group had missed their cab driver, so we hopped in and he took us to the Holiday Inn. I know what you're thinking--that ghetto trash? Turns out the Holiday Inn is a bit different abroad... this is one of the nicer hotels I've stayed in. Think the Westin. I chatted with Moma & Papa Wheeler for a few minutes about the lost wallet, then quickly fell asleep. It was nice.

Tuesday we were welcomed in the restaurant on the 9th floor, with a view over the city. Turns out there's not much to be seen--a few tall buildings, some slums to the southeast, and lots of trees. For some reason I thought there'd be more, but that's fine. I guess it's more about the substance and the history than the natural wonders.

And what a history it is! I've mostly heard about South Africa from Winston Churchill's involvement in the Boer War and the books "The Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay and "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela. I know the former sounds like a pretty cheesy title (because it is) but it's one of my favorite books. It's inspirational, instructional, and fun. It's an easy read--I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it yet. I read "Long Walk" about 7 years ago, but I mostly remember it dragging on and on... but it is informative. It's amazing what they've accomplished here.

We went to the Apartheid Museum, one of the "must-see" attractions of Joburg. Perhaps the only one, in fact--the rest of what we've seen has been amazing, but not for your average tourist. The museum, though, chronicles the beginnings of racism in South Africa, followed by the loss of the British to the Afrikaners in the late 1940's. The new National Party, empowered by the election of 1948, made a formal law that it was illegal for anyone but whites to hold certain jobs, live in certain areas, or intermarry or have relationships with white people. Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for his civil disobedience, and remained incarcerated for 27 years. Those were some bad years for the country. In 1994, Apartheid was formally ended and Nelson Mandela, newly freed from prison, was elected president of South Africa. What a day!

The thing that really struck me was that this all happened when I was nine years old. The dirt on the Soviet Union's grave was still fresh, and there went another bastion of old-fashioned racism, ignorance and intolerance. Sixteen years ago. That means that most of the people I have met here, blacks and whites, were living under this system at some point in their lives. Many of the university professors, students and general workers I've encountered were old enough to know what was happening. A 32 year old student was 16 when Mandela was elected.

The really amazing thing was the response of the newly empowered president, fresh from hunger strikes and weak from prison, did not retaliate. The most beautiful word I have ever seen was "Reconciliation," Mandela's creed (as seen in Invictus), emblazoned on the wall on the exit from the Apartheid museum. Rather than take from the rich whites, or kill or oppress them as has happened in so many other nations, they sought unity and peace. It is peaceful, for the most part. There is rampant crime, but the nation knows peace. People are a lot better off than they were, though the income disparity remains. There is no longer a formal divide, and many non-whites have made a name and a fortune for themselves, though the whites remain the predominate source of wealth. But they are working for a better life, and they are able to be happy.

My other exposure to South Africa was Jerusalema, a movie I saw on a plane a couple years back about a kid started out in petty crime then took over j-town. I'd recommend seeing the edited version. Mom & dad, wait till I get home to watch it...