where in the world? ::

So, since I’m staying in South Africa for a few more years, I figured people might want to learn more about this country I now call home. Here’s the first in a series of posts…

We live outside of Harrismith. It’s not known for much other than the one-stop (a gas station, a few restaurants and shops) people stop at on the way between Johannesburg and Durban. There are about 7,000 people that live in town, they’re mostly Afrikaaners [Afrikaaners are generally of Dutch decent, so they're white] and English. The neighboring township, Intabazwe, has about 65,000 people living there. Intabazwe has a large Zulu and Basotho population, so both Zulu and Sosotho are spoken in the township [also called a village]. 

Harrismith reminds me of many small towns in America. There are a couple of grocery stories and a few furniture stores. KFC is really popular here, they just revamped the one in town. There are a few other South African chain restaurants, Nando’s [although, I think Nando's is a worldwide chain], Wimpy and Spur. It was named after a British Governor, Sir Harry Smith, and established in the 1800’s. Apparently, Harrismith is “the capital of the country’s top red-meat producing region.” [...um, slightly humerous since I'm a vegetarian...].

 

Intabazwe has a much larger population than Harrismith, but lacks infastruture. It’s considered a village because it doesn’t have everything you could consider standard in a city. Most shops are small and many are out of people’s homes. Tuck shops are common; they are small convienience stores that carry things like some food, sometimes produce or cleaning products. Shabeens [bars] and bottle shops [liquor stores] are generally the same, either out of someone’s house or a small shop. 

Although places like Cape Town and Johannesburg are generally fairly intigrated, because Harrismith is in such a rural area, it hasn’t kept up with the cities when it comes to integration and diversity [in JoBurg, for instance, it would be common to see a people dating outside of their race, I think I've seen one or two mixed race couples in Harrismith since I've been here]. Although there isn’t blatent hostility, there still seems to be a distinct separation between black and white people*. Part of the reason there aren’t a lot of black people that live in Harrismith, although they probably would be welcomed, is because they can’t afford it.

*Also, as a side note, in South Africa, it’s culturally appropriate to call people black, white and coloured [South African's use British English...]. Coloured is a term not generally offensive here, it was one of the racial groups designated under the Apartheid system of racial segregation, along with “Black”, “White” and “Indian”. 

done. //