Day 3-049
6 hrs, 2 .3 kms

Kuruman feels a little safer than Vryburg (in daytime at least). There's even a tourist facility around the "Eye of Kuruman" a beautiful pool/water source that rises from deep in the ground.

I stop by a pastry shop, and an Afrikaans woman seems eager to chat. I was hoping to have a conversation with a white Afrikaans, just to get their perspective on things.

It's not even two minutes into the conversation, and she starts saying bad things about people of other races, blaming them for the problems of the country (with one of her black employees right close by). I find it troubling... it seems like this is the first thing she wants to talk about to a white stranger, who I guess she assumes will sympathize with her.

And it not the exception. Several times, within minutes of starting a conversation with a white South African, they start blurting out negative racial stereotypes . I wonder, how can this country really come together if people are so divided and hateful towards each other in their hearts?

I try to change the subject to travel. She tells me she spent a couple years in Arizona, USA (which is unusual, a lot of Afrikaans don't travel outside the country at all). She said she loved it there.

"Why didn't you stay?" I ask

"Well, you know, we have everything here... family and all..."

I ask if she ever crossed to Mexico while she was in Arizona.

"Oh no! I was too afraid too!"

You're from South Africa and you're afraid to go to Mexico?? It makes sense though, once you think about it... if you live in a culture where you isolate yourselves, always afraid and despising people who are different than you, than it's logical than you'll carry those same feeling even if you move elsewhere...

I head back to a grassy area where folks are waiting for the minibus to Upington to fill up. Here I don't find any resentment from black South Africans towards me due to my skin color. They welcome me, and ask me to play a song for them....

I tall South Asian fellow shows up, and starts joking with them as well. "We need your wife's number" they tell him.

"I don't have a wife"

"Oh... so you just faka faka..."

"No! I'm Pakistani! Ony Indians do that!"

We chat together as we wait. He's actually a recent immigrant who came and opened a shop here "It's very easy to immigrate here, if you have capital and want to start a small business."

He says he enjoys the opportunities here, but is very attached to his native culture. "Once I've made enough money, I'll go back to Pakistan, and then I'll marry and settle down there."

He explains how postponing marriage can be financially profitable "each time a brother gets married all the others must give a big gift... and each gift must be bigger than the last... and I'll be one of the last to marry"

I can see how generations of honing business skills and money management--and a closely united family puts South Asians at a distinct advantage.