South Africa - Reverse Culture Shock

After nearly a year in Africa we've become accustomed to the advantages/disadvantages and many of the eccentricities of living in this part of the world, many of which we've written about. Traveling to South Africa with Janet's parents was like leaving the continent; arriving in Johannesburg's Oliver Tambo International, still decked out in World Cup regalia, felt like being teleported into modernity, where everything is big, bright, clean, and functional, a place where you can drink tap water and flush toilet paper. Stuck in bumper to bumper evening rush hour traffic on an 8 lane highway under a thick blanket of smog on our way to our hostel in gritty downtown Jo'berg, everything kept reminding us of our previous life in LA. The World Cup vibe is still everywhere: Bofana Bofana billboards, leftover vuvuzelas and FIFA merchandise on sale, the omnipresent flags of SA and the other participant nations, all the shiny new and renovated stadia in every city,
and the pride on everyone's faces for successfully having pulled off such an event. But under all the euphoria and talk about the Rainbow Nation and how everyone is one big family now in the post-racial South Africa lie persistant tensions and inequalities between rich and poor, white and black, and the posh suburbs and the underdeveloped townships. Still, SA is truly a world apart from neighboring Mozambique, and nowhere was this more evident then in the supermarkets, which are just like in America, overflowing with products, and lights, and aisle after refrigerated aisle of meats. Not only the quantity, but the tenderness of the beef in SA, is unlike anything we've experienced since our arrival in Africa. We worry about how we'll readjust to life in our small Mozambican town after our exposure to South Africa.