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Easing In, Easing Out, Easing In Again

Todays' office is a bit of everywhere and a bit of no-where.

Arriving at Johannesburg International on the tail end of a 24 hour journey requires the strategic wearing of headphones and the music that comes with it. The music is simply about fooling my body into thinking I have enough energy to clear the airport. The headphones make it easier to socially disengage, stare into the middle distance and push the hustle of the semi-serious taxi drivers. The thing is, with new airports you don't really know how bad the hustle is going to be and with the plan for today I want to be prepared for the worst. It is however, pretty tame.

Rule number one when clearing customs is to ignore everyone and to get a sense of the place before the place focuses its senses on you. Rule number two is to always pick the driver; do not let the driver pick you. I pick Mervin, as choice which, as it turns out is rather fortunate since he is a Merc-driving local encyclopedia and a gent to boot.

Todays' schedule is going to be busy. What would you do with 24 hours in South Africa? I know that in 3 hours I need to check into a hotel that's 20 minutes away (it turns out to be 50 minutes in this traffic), then head directly to the Mareka Institute to give a presentation, and that I have an afternoon to rest up. But I can't be here and not make the most of it - so with only a few hours spare what to do? Mervin kicks into laid back guide mode - a road map is hauled out and he explains the various areas that surround Johannesburg, Pretoria and out-of-the-way location of my hotel. Places I've never been to stand out from the page - a result of one too many news stories during the apartheid era. What is the location equivalent to familiar strangers? Places so familiar that your first visit gives a sense of deja vu? The last time I had this feeling was on my first trip to LA - cruising the city with a local friend captured and bumping up against locations captured by popular and unpopular culture.

As you might appreciate after the journey I'm in need of a shower but the hotel pool tempts me in. The receptionist warns me that its use might lead to hypothermia, something I shrug off as hyperbole until that point when I'm entering the water head first and looking for a way out. The ambient temperature at this time of the day is 5 degrees, and I don't last long. The ducks can have the pool to themselves.

The presentations go well enough, and it's a chance to get a sense of a place and its people.

The rest of the day is spent in the company of Mervin and a visit to the townships and squatter settlements. My knowledge of Soweto didn't extend to it having a Country Club (it does), and if I'm honest - it didn't extend too much of anything really. 24 hours in a location is way too little but I want to come back and have a chance to learn first hand.

Its 6am and Mervin is waiting outside the hotel to take me to the airport. The journey is notable for two things - the sun rising over the passing townships is a sight to behold. And conversations about car-jacking and murders. Yesterday night a local businessman was hit at an off ramp, six bullets pumped into his body. 52 security guards have been murdered as part of a strike for better pay. 52. Every culture has their own sense of scale whether its temperature, income, rent, mobile phone penetration or incidence of HIV or strike-related murders. 52 is way off my scale.

So as you can see, todays' office started the day before yesterday and ends here, 5am in Kampala. In a hour's time the next working day begins.

Writing from Tokyo | June 21, 2006 | Permalink