Getting around Joburg

Since we international students here in South Africa are car-less, which ultimately is all for the best because I think I would kill someone if I tried to drive here (what with everyone driving on the opposite side of the road and all), we have to figure out more inventive ways of getting around the city. Usually it's the standard hitching a ride with a friend (usually piling the car with more people than it strictly should hold) or getting a ride in a metered taxi (often doing the same, much to the annoyance of our drivers). However, these sorts of transports are more for the weekend outing. Everyday is a little trickier. You don't want to be a hassle and continuously ask for rides, but metered cabs are really expensive.

So this really only becomes an issue for me personally when I need to go into town for my internship. Up to this week I have been taking metered taxis (when I say metered, I just mean that they are your common private taxi that you call to pick you up, like in the States) sometimes three times a week back and forth. This really adds up. On the other hand, it was a little too far to walk (and apparently a little unsafe) and I didn't know how to take the minibus taxis (vans that you share with lots of other people). I have been keeping receipts and hope to someday be paid back, but we'll see.

Anyways, I had been having trouble finding someone to help me because the majority of Wits students I talked to never take these taxis. I guess they're more for the private transport. But this week I finally found someone who could show me the ropes to the minibus taxis. The reason they are so complicated is that to hail one you need to know the right hand gesture to signal the destination you personally want, because each taxi is on its own route. I kept asking people what hand signal I would need and kept getting different answers (which I think is because it depends on where you get picked up from). One signal is that you hold your index finger up slightly diagonally, one is where you hold it upside down, but the one we used to hail a cab when I went with someone was just holding up all five fingers. Anyways, the trip down was pretty uneventful because I had someone with me and could talk to him the whole time. The trip was quite literally a tenth of the price of a metered cab, which was awesome. We did have to hike a bit to get to my office, but I actually paid attention to my surroundings (sometimes I forget to do that) and could remember how to get back.

He couldn't make it back to take me home, but he showed me the spot to pick up a return cab from. I walked the three blocks over without any trouble and figured out which cab to take back. Unfortunately this involved having to ask this older guy who looked like he was in charge, and then he proceeded to hit on me. Oh well. I got in the front of the cab and the very nice woman sitting next to me commiserated with me about how forward guys are in South Africa (she's from Zimbabwe). Anyways, as the cab was leaving suddenly everyone started passing money up to me, telling me things like "two 7.50, three 8.50" and I had to make sure they gave me enough money and give them change. Except that people kept passing piles up and telling me amounts until I had like three piles of money in my hand and had completely forgotten what each amount was supposed to be. I was totally flustered. Luckily the woman beside me was a pro and actually knew what she was doing. So she did most of the work while I tried to add numbers in my head and probably just made a mess of things. No one yelled at me though, so I couldn't have completely screwed it up. I was the first one out as I just asked to be let out right by the Wits gate when he stopped at a stoplight (called robots here). Overall it was successful.. in the sense that I didn't get lost and I made it to and from campus for only ten rand (maybe about $1.25). Of course, later that same day Ayesha (our program head) emailed me about arranging campus transport for me to my internship. So, just as I figured out how to use the minibus taxi I was told I no longer have to. Oh well.

The other type of transport available to us during the week is walking. Sasha, Teresa and I actually walked to this really cute little boutique place about ten minutes from campus. The place is so adorable! It has little coffee shops and a really cool bookstore I want to check out and they have high-end food markets on the weekend that we are planning on making a trip to see soon. The one thing is that the walk there involves walking next to the highway. There is a sort of sidewalk, so we're not walking on the road. On the way back we decided to find a different way back to campus. We walked across a field which turned out to be part of a private school (we got lots of weird looks from kids in uniforms) and then I stepped into a mud puddle. Then we walked down this really pretty sidewalk with trees on either side and we passed a house where the kids stopped playing in the yard and just looked at us. And then we reached the end and found that there actually was no way out that way, just a lot of barbed wire. Which was unfortunate. And we could have walked back past the kids (who were still looking at us, because the end of the road is not far from their house), but we didn't want to give up that easily. So we walked to the corner of the fence and found a place where you could push the bottom of the fence out and slip underneath. So we all climbed up onto this ledge and slipped under the fence. It was quite an adventure. But then we still didn't really know where we were, so we climbed up this clay drain thing up a hill to a car park and walked a bit and realized that we were actually on campus. So really all we did was break onto campus. Which is a little worrisome that that's possible, but it made things pretty easy for us. Next time we may just stick to the road though.

Tonight probably won't involve any sort of transport since I have a very long essay to write for Monday that makes up 50% of my grade for the class. I think I will most likely stay on campus.