Archives for Johannesburg

Culture Shock and the Writing Life

April 16, 2009 by Jess in Africa, AIDS/HIV, America, Cultural categories, democracy, development, dogs, Family, health, HIV/AIDS, immigrant rights, literature, politics, poverty, power, race, rape, Social Issues, South Africa, Uncategorized, violence, writing, Zimbabwe | Leave a comment

The thing that is both wonderful and terrible about immersing yourself in another culture is how quickly you find yourself humbled by your own flawed expectations about how the world should work.

When I first arrived, I stayed with a Zimbabwean immigrant family on the outskirts of Johannesburg. They run a small local paper, employ Malwaian immigrant workers, and live lives riddled by the contradictions of Zimbabwe/South Africa border politics. Currently, I’m staying with a white South African and her American husband in Pretoria, who have introduced me to local and national politics, the internal world of the ANC, and liberal white culture in South Africa. Read More

Share

World’s Most Dangerous Cities

March 26, 2009 by in Social Issues, South Africa, U.S.-Mexico Border, Uncategorized, violence | 101 Comments

As another procrastination technique this morning, I’ve been doing a search on google to find out what people consider to be the world’s most dangerous cities, as well as the world’s most dangeorus countries. Admittedly, this is not a scientific exercise. There seem to be many opinions out there, and several newspapers report varying statistics. Maybe somewhere, there’s a very official list, but in lieu of discovering that, it’s fun to speculate.

Most Dangerous Country

South Africa always ends up on the list as #2 for world’s most dangerous countries. (#1 spot seems to usually go to Colombia or Jamaica.) This is very comforting, as I’m not going to either Jamaica or Colombia, but I am about to leave for South Africa.

Most Dangerous Cities

I am not surprised that Johannesburg always makes the list of the top ten most dangerous cities in the world. Jozi is a city that scares the hell out of me, too, which is why I stay with a family when I go there. I don’t have any interest in hotels, renting a car, travelling without purpose, not knowing where I’m going.

But I did find several other surprises. Ciudad Juarez–a city I know well because I grew up in El Paso, a stone’s throw away from Juarez–has started creeping up to take the #1 or #2 spot. It even outranks Baghdad! Joburg seems to hover around the bottom middle of the list. And thank God, neither Cape Town nor Durban show up at all.

The most surprising list of all was this one. Maclean’s apparently ranked London as #10 and Saskatoon, Canada as #9. Really???? Detroit was #5, beating Johannesburg by 2 spots, which is listed as the 7th most dangerous city in the world. This website tries to explain why the cities received the rankings they did. London has apparently had a huge increase in knife violence in the past couple of years, while Saskatoon has a lot of aggravated assault and robbery, sexual assault, and homicide problems. The world’s #8 most dangerous city, Norilsk RUSSIA, has been closed to foreign visitors since 2001. Crazy. Oddly, the world’s #3 most dangerous city, Linfen CHINA, is dangerous because of air pollution. Yes, not crime. But if you go there, your lungs will get fouled up and you’ll never be the same. Interesting….This list ranks Ciudad Juarez as the world’s #2 most dangerous city and that, of course, has to be because of the drug war tearing that city apart. The world’s #1 most dangerous city is Mogadishu. Okay, glad I’m not going there!!!

Now, to stop procrastinating and to get back to work….

Share