South Africa is a country that makes you feel the weight of its history whether you’re looking for it or not. We were there for a week. That’s enough time to notice things, not enough time to understand it all.

Before visiting, I read a number of books and web pages to learn “more”, but … there’s a lot to learn. I recommend the movie Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, and it’s dense but I got a lot out of reading South Africa — The Rise and Fall of Apartheid.

I also read Michener’s The Covenant — I have mixed emotions, it’s 1200 pages, some of it is very dated-feeling. Michener definitely tries to be 1970s-style respectful of various cultures, but also very clearly has a hierarchy of cultures in his mind. But … it did give me a feel of the whole sweep of South African history, and the differences between the Dutch and English settlers there (and how crazy the Boer war was).

I can’t recommend enough Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime. It’s particularly excellent in audio-book format, because part of his story as a mixed-race South African is his effortless ability to switch languages, and listening to him move from Xhosa (a “click” language) to Zulu to English to Afrikaans (which is not-quite-Dutch) — is fascinating.

From talking to various people as well as my reading, it feels remarkable that South Africa is not even in a worse place.

As one guide said to us, as much as there was violence in the “80s and “90s … the country has moved from decades of a horrible apartheid regime to something like a black-majority democracy without a full-on civil war. And that wasn’t guaranteed, at all.

All that being said … it’s a strange dynamic. The gap between rich & poor in South Africa is the largest in the world and it’s so evident. On the way from the airport into Cape Town’s C.B.D. (Central Business District), you pass just endless miles of townships, right next to the highway. And then there are sections of Cape Town’s suburbs that … look like the wealthiest suburbs of the US (with high walls/gates).

I’m sure some readers will see this and say the US has a horrible gap and too much poverty too, and I’m not unaware of that … but the townships outside Cape Town do look like a next level of poverty. You can see semi-legal jerry-rigged power poles over many of the townships, and one of Mandela’s priorities was to get running water into more of the townships. But running water is not yet consistent, and the townships look very sad. I’m disappointed in myself that I didn’t visit a township, there are various ways to do so; see this interesting Cape Town township travelogue (by someone else).

Another observation is the degree to which Mandela is just venerated there (and appropriately so). He’s everywhere — he’s on every bill of the currency.

There are statues of him, there are souvenirs of him.

There are beautiful art works of him.

Several locals of all races confirmed he’s still viewed positively by almost all. Sadly, his successors … not so much.

I’ve mentioned this before, but there does seem a legacy of just casual, no big deal, racism while visiting. We went to one Cape Town CBD wine bar where the first 2 staff we met were knowledgeable, and extremely competent — and also happened to be black. Then the white owner/manager came in and started chatting us up … then after a minor issue started berating his black staff right in front of us. He then turned to us and right in front of his (black) staff gave us a knowing glance and said some form of “well, you know, you can’t hire good staff anymore”. Blech. And one driver made more than one terrible judgment of the blacks on the street looking for work … and somehow felt that was ok. Minor issues … but really shocking at the same time.

It’s a country that’s hard to look away from, for more reasons than one.