Mugabe builds a R72m mansion

[Libertarian_Guard]

http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/2003/08/31/news/news02.asp

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is building a lavish retirement home - while his beggared nation starves.


It is one of the most extravagant buildings in Africa, costing almost R45-million to build - and a further R27-million for the finishing touches.


Yet this week, prices of consumer goods continued to rocket and the cost of fuel increased by up to 500%. Relief organisations continued to warn that almost half the country - about 5.5 million people - would need food aid before the year-end.


Architects who have seen aerial photographs of Mugabe's mansion, about 25km north of Harare, say it is as large as a medium-sized hotel.


Surveyors in Harare have estimated the building's cost at about R45-million - a staggering amount in a country where factory workers take home as little as R80 a month.


Final costs, including landscaping, security and decoration are expected to push the bill close to R72-million.


Contractors are working on the fittings while two lakes built for Mugabe on the boundary have begun to fill.


At the same time, the country's cash crisis deepened this week as Zimbabweans laid siege to banks demanding their salaries and wages.


Despite a raft of measures introduced to alleviate the problem, there were lengthy queues for cash at banking halls and automated teller machines across the country.


In some cases, armed riot police tried to maintain order as skirmishes broke out. Most banks were only able to issue a maximum of Z5 000, about R14, to individuals, and Z20 000, or R56, to companies.


Zimbabwe's inflation is 399.5% and is expected to surge towards 1 000% by the end of the year.


Construction of the Mugabe retirement home, however, continues, according to the Telegraph of London.


The residence offers more than 1.2ha of accommodation, including two-storey reception rooms, an office suite and up to 25 bedrooms with adjoining bathrooms and spas.


The Chinese-style roof is clad with midnight-blue glazed tiles from Shanghai. The ceilings were decorated by Arab craftsmen.


Mugabe's mansion is more than three times the size of his present official residence and his offices at State House - a scale that has raised concern that once he steps down as Zanu-PF leader, either at the party's annual congress in December or after his 80th birthday in February, real power will move to his new residence.


Movement for Democratic Change justice spokesman David Coltart said: "It had always been assumed that Mugabe himself has not been corrupt. The size of this house would suggest otherwise and will further complicate the negotiation process as Mugabe seeks to secure a peaceful exit.


"He must explain to Zimbabweans where he got the money."


In 23 years as the country's leader, Mugabe has, officially, earned less than US1-million - or a little more than R7-million in today's terms. That includes various allowances.


About 1.5km from the new mansion is "Graceland " - the home his second wife, Grace, built for herself using government funds set aside for poorly paid civil servants.


After exposure in the media, she sold it, and it ended up in the hands of Libyan diplomats. It is dwarfed by the new development.


Mugabe wed Grace, a former secretary in his office and 40 years his junior, on August 17 1996 at a reception at Zvimba, about 100km north of Harare, which was characterised by excessive pomp and fanfare.


It marked the beginning of an extravagant lifestyle for the hitherto modest and socialist-leaning Mugabe who, together with his late wife, Sally, had tried to avoid the opulence associated with some post-liberation leaders elsewhere in Africa.


The controversial marriage brought forth Zimbabwe's own version of 18th-century French queen Marie Antoinette.


Whenever she needed new clothes she commandeered an aircraft from Air Zimbabwe to fly her to Europe to shop at glitzy departmental stores such as Harrods in London. But then sanctions put a stop to these trips.


She quickly built a reputation for excess and a love of the limelight, from which she has shown no sign of retreating as the country suffers.


In 1998 Grace was asked where she got the money to finance her opulent lifestyle.


She claimed she made it through sewing clothes - to the disbelief of most Zimbabweans.

[FoundingFathers]

That's where our $22million in foreign aid to Zimbabwe's is going to.
:pissedoff

[IrishGold]

Who was it that said blacks could rule themselves?
What a joke!

[Libertarian_Guard]

From one crisis to another - that's life in Zimbabwe
Focus on Zimbabwe
Despite government denial, life has become absurd when not tragic, writes Dumisane Muleya

http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/2003/08/03/news/africa/africa09.asp


For Zimbabweans, tackling everyday problems has become like playing a game of solitaire with a deck of 51 cards. No matter what you do, you never win.
Think about it: 70% of the population lives on less than US1 a day in a country where inflation is 364.5% and unemployment is around 80%.
Thousands of companies have closed down or reduced operations. The economy is shrinking at an average of 10% annually.
Zimbabweans have to cope daily with shortages of food, fuel, electricity and money.
Shops have empty shelves. Go to a service station and you invariably come across the "No Fuel" sign. Enter a bank and you will be told there is no money.
If you are lucky you can withdraw Z10 000 (about R50). This can buy only 10 loaves of bread or less than 10l of petrol - if you can find these commodities. It's not enough to buy 5l of cooking oil or 10kg of the staple mealie meal.
The cash crisis is worsening. Banks have run out of money because of government's failure to print enough bank notes.
The government has no foreign currency to buy the special paper needed to produce bank notes and its printing facilities lack capacity to generate adequate paper money.
Countries such as Germany which used to print money for Zimbabwe have withdrawn their services due to non-payment.
Since last week clients have been besieging banks, demanding their money to buy foodstuffs and pay essential bills.
Long queues for cash are now manned by armed riot police.
Last weekend police had to use teargas and baton sticks to control angry crowds in Harare and Mutare who had broken into banks, threatening to seize their deposits back.
"This crisis is threatening the whole financial system and the banking sector and it might precipitate an economic collapse," a senior bank manager said. "I have never seen anything like this. Can you imagine a government which can't even print money?"
In a bid to alleviate the cash crisis, government recently introduced Z24-billion, but it proved to be a drop in the ocean.
Now the government is threatening to withdraw or change the colour of the highest currency denomination - the Z500 note - to encourage people to return money to banks.
Most people, especially black- market dealers, are holding onto billions that they sell at a commission to banks. Many people say it's now better to keep cash under the bed than in a bank.
"Zimbabwe is the only country in the world where its highest bank note can't buy a pint of beer or a loaf of bread," says Martin Kaseke, a Harare resident. "It has become worthless. Malawi's kwacha is now stronger than our currency, which is getting as weak as the Zambian kwacha."
Inflation is one of the major problems in Zimbabwe. "In the early 1980s bread cost 10c. I never dreamt I would live to see bread selling for Z1 000 in Zimbabwe," Kaseke said.
Many families now are forced to forgo some meals and Zimbabwe's breadline workers are increasingly getting agitated about the hardships they have to suffer. Trade unions are negotiating for quarterly wage increases instead of the traditional annual pay reviews. They also are demanding frequent cost-of-living adjustments to try to get to grips with the situation.
After work people who don't have cars now resort to standing in the middle of roads to try to get lifts home. Desperate hitch-hikers sometimes try to physically stop cars to get lifts. Some people cycle, others walk 10km to and from work every day.
Due to worsening poverty and suffering, people are now resorting to bizarre strategies to survive. Some sell local money. If you want Z50 000, for instance, you can buy the money with a Z70 000 cheque - upon producing evidence that your account has got money in it.
Black-market entrepreneurs use dead bodies to jump the fuel queues, as funeral parlours are given preference. Recently a Chitungwiza Hospital mortician and his assistant were arrested for issuing fake burial orders and releasing bodies awaiting paupers' burials to buy fuel and sell it on the black market.
Other public transport operators now make a living by qeueing for fuel, then emptying their tanks and selling the fuel on the black market.
They say this is more profitable than their normal business.
In another incident that illustrates the depth of the economic crisis, a man recently lost his lip after being bitten by a woman during a fight over a loaf of bread.
These occurrences bear graphic testimony of just how bad things are in the country.
Social service institutions, like hospitals and schools and the former illustrious University of Zimbabwe, are increasingly becoming dilapidated. Hospitals have no drugs or equipment. It is now more expensive to stay at a hospital than at a five-star hotel.
Schools do not have sufficient learning materials and teachers are running away, as are other professionals such as nurses and engineers, to other countries as part of the Great Trek abroad.
The brain drain is severe and has left Zimbabwe having to hire nurses and doctors from countries such as Cuba and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Roads - most of which were built during colonial times - are poorly maintained or simply neglected.
Land seized from white commercial farmers and parcelled to government cronies and peasants without resources to utilise them lies uncultivated.
While the people suffer, the government continues to remain locked in denial and continues its habit of blaming others for the country's woes. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, unpredictable weather patterns, including cyclone and drought conditions, global economic trends and imperialists - especially the British and Americans - are blamed for everything, even erratic rainfall.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo's propaganda saturates the airwaves. At any given time if you switch on the television or any one of the four radio stations - which are all state-controlled - you are likely to hear propaganda jingles urging the people to remain resilient.
Through television and radio stations 24 hours a day, Zimbabweans are always urged: "Rambai makashinga (continue to endure), our land is our prosperity." Politicians also sing the same refrain at meetings and rallies.
There is an attempt to use popular pastimes, such as football, beauty contests and music, to mobilise people behind President Robert Mugabe, whose support is rapidly evaporating.
However, all is not gloom and doom in Zimbabwe. In the middle of the crisis people still revel at night clubs, parties and at other festive occasions.
In Harare a popular place where different people - ranging from businessmen to journalists - drown their sorrows is the Cresta Oasis Hotel.
A veteran Oasis patron is prominent businessman and telecommunications expert Chemist Siziba, who drinks beer there with his friends almost every day.
Siziba likes to stir controversy and sometimes asks - often to the utter disbelief of colleagues: "How can you say there is a crisis when most of you here can still afford to buy a round? Zimbabweans are the most sophisticated Africans and that's why we are still surviving now. Our economy is the most advanced in Africa."
In a country in such turmoil, Oasis is never short of dramas. Debates, especially on politics, often get heated and people at times come near to physical blows.
But the Oasis remains a good hide-out. Some jokingly call it "the Matabeleland embassy in Harare" because most people from Matabeleland provinces drink there.
Mugabe's secret agents also are something of a feature at the hotel. Inevitably, there have been dramas involving his spooks and some of the drinkers.
One day an amateurish secret agent brought a tape recorder and tried to capture a conversion involving journalists, diplomats and other patrons. But a businessman spotted him and seized his equipment before ripping it apart.
And why not? In a country where dead people queue for petrol and the freedom of expression is brutally suppressed, our voices must remain, at least, our own. It is all we have, after all.

[Libertarian_Guard]

Should you want to read yourself sick.

http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/specialreports/zimbabwe/

[IrishGold]

It was not like that in 1970!
But then, the blacks were not governing thermselves then!
Hmmmm!

[Uncle]

THE REAL BACKGROUND TO ZIMBAWE
AND WHO IS REALLY BEHIND IT

http://www.davidicke.com/icke/articles2/backzimbabwe.html

Zimbabwe in south-central Africa has long been a focus for the Illuminati. The Sumerian tablets indicate that the Anunnaki were operating in this region all those thousands of years ago and the Zulu shaman, Credo Mutwa, confirms the sacred nature of this land in African legend and history.

The Illuminati front man and black magician, Cecil Rhodes, insisted on being buried on a range of hills there which are reported to contain an interdimensional gateway according to legend. This land was called Rhodesia after Rhodes and when "independence" arrived 20 years ago, it was renamed Zimbabwe after the famous ruins dating back to the ancient world.

The Illuminati, with Rhodes at the fore, created the original Rhodesia after destroying the power of the black African tribes, and then it was the Illuminati again, under the manipulation of Lord Carrington, who created the new Zimbabwe. Carrington (Bilderberg Group chairman, president of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Trilateral Commission, and Committee of 300) worked in league with his bosom buddy, Henry Kissinger. Together they have caused untold death, destruction, suffering, and mayhem in Africa.

It was Carrington who manipulated the Lancaster House negotiations in London so that the white minority government of Ian Smith in Rhodesia was replaced by the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe, the man who has since raped the country and the nation for his personal fortune and rules the country as a Hitler-like dictator.

Mugabe is cynically creating conflict between black "war veterans" to divide and rule the population to hang on to power despite his outrageous stewardship of the country. From sources within Zimbabwe, it seems that these "war veterans" who violently won power for Mugabe, have told him that they can just as easily do the same to him unless he starts delivering what he promised them at the time of the war against the white regime. Rather than take action which would cost him anything, he printed money to pay them off and has told them to take the white farms to keep them quiet. Thus he has taken the heat off himself in relation to them and focused it on the white farmers, two of whom have been murdered so far.

The Illuminati operators within the British and other governments have watched as Mugabe has slaughtered opposition leaders and supporters and they continued to watch without comment or challenge as he has turned Zimbabwe, a land of untold abundance, into a nightmare of poverty, scarcity, and violence. Only now are we getting the crocodile tears (appropriately) after the story, long followed on this website, was picked up by the mainstream media.

Lord Carrington had the nerve to write to the Times Newspaper calling for "free and fair elections" in Zimbabwe - Carrington would not know the meaning of free and fair if it bit him on the bum. And Lord David Owen (Bilderberg Group, Trilateral Commission), the British Foreign Secretary before Carrington who began the "independence" negotiations with Mugabe, called for the world to support the dictator's efforts to introduce "land reform". Of course there has to be land reform, but that is not what this conflict is all about. That's the smokescreen.

As Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, nothing in politics happens by accident. If is happens, it is because it is meant to happen. So it is with the current tragedy that is Zimbabwe. Years ago, I detailed some of the background to the manipulation of this land by Lord Carrington at the Lancaster House negotiations which led to Mugabe's installation. One of the sources for this was Doctor Kitty Little, a former Oxford don and New World Order researcher, who knew many of the leaders personally.

This is what I wrote in ?And The Truth Shall Set You Free:

"The new Constitution for Rhodesia replaced dictatorship by white rule with dictatorship by Robert Mugabe for the benefit of the Elite. It was agreed upon in the autumn of 1979 at a conference at Lancaster House in London, chaired by Lord Carrington, who had taken over as foreign secretary from David Owen after Margaret Thatcher's election victory a few months earlier. The constitution was presented to the assembled Rhodesian political leaders, black and white, by Carrington, who insisted on an answer by the end of the week. One man in the Rhodesian delegation who would have seen the inherent flaws in this was John Giles, a constitutional expert. On Tuesday October 4th 1979, on the very day that the Rhodesians were due to discuss the Carrington proposals, John Giles went missing and was later found dead.

Dr. Kitty Little was at Lancaster House that day to meet Ian Smith, a friend of many years. She has been trying ever since to make the background to both the conference and the death of John Giles public. The previous day, Dr. Little says, Giles had been to Hamley's (the famous London toy shop) to buy Christmas present for his children. On the morning he disappeared he rang his wife, sounding very cheerful and upbeat, but later that morning he was observed looking suddenly very worried about something, In the afternoon, an official car, a Granada Ghia, came to pick him up. He was never seen alive again.

While Lord Carrington's proposals, in the absence of Giles, tied the Rhodesian delegation in mental knots and won the day, the police were advised that Giles was missing. The next morning, John Giles was found dead on a path close to the rear entrance of Lancaster House. Verdict: "Suicide". His death would not have been made public at all, unless an ambulance man had alerted the press. The coroner, who did not call policemen at the scene to give evidence, decided that Giles had jumped from a first floor window at Lancaster House, which those who have been to the spot say was an impossibility, given where the body was found. And that's another thing. The Lancaster House staff used the service door of the building and would have had to step over the body to get in and out. It was supposed to have laid there through a whole afternoon, evening, and night. Yet it wasn't found until the following morning.

The case was handled by the local police and the authorities refused to discuss it with the Rhodesian-Zimbabwe Special Branch. No police file exists on John Giles, I understand. Kitty Little insists that Ken Flower, the head of the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation was, or had been, a member of Britain's intelligence section, MI6. She also says that it is now known that MI6 was working to destabilise Rhodesia in order to force the dictatorship swap that Lancaster House was really designed to produce. According to Dr. Kitty Little's impeccable sources, Ken Flower might qualify for the Guinness Book of Records as the doublest of double agents! While head of Rhodesian Intelligence he was also working for MI6, the KGB, East European Intelligence, the CIA, and a number of African Intelligence networks. He worked with the "D" group of MI6 operatives who, to quote Dr. Little, "did nasty things and had them blamed on Ian Smith". Zimbabwe is obviously very important to the Elite and the multinational corporations, one of which, Rio Tinto Zinc, had enjoyed the experience of having Lord Carrington on its board (and the Queen is a major shareholder).

There is considerable evidence to support Kitty Little's contention. Two months after the Lancaster House conference, it was revealed that Margaret Thatcher (Bil) and Lord Carrington (TC, Bil, RIIA, Comm 300) had ordered a massive surveillance operation on the delegates. Telephones were tapped, rooms bugged, diplomatic communications were monitored, and the British used Rhodesian security to interpret the African language. This was revealed by reporter Barrie Penrose in the London Sunday Times of February 3rd 1980, under the headline, "Minister's Phone was Tapped by Secret Services". This, said the article, was why "Lord Carrington could conduct the conference on the basis of brinkmanship. The intelligence service told him what the brinks were." Which leads to another question: if the rooms and phones were bugged, why did they not know what had happened to John Giles until he was found dead the next morning? Ummm. Kitty Little contends that Margaret Thatcher was kept in the dark by Carrington about a host of foreign policy subjects and only selected information was allowed to reach her. This clearly would have coloured her views of which policy to follow. It is emerging that for all her apparent power, the "Iron Lady" was another puppet, perhaps even more than most.

We await to see what the Illuminati has in store for Rhodesia and their puppet, Robert Mugabe. If he becomes surplus to requirements they will hang him out to dry as they do with all their "leaders" who pass their sell-by date. Or they could go on using him for a while because while he runs Zimbabwe, the Illuminati do.
<br>

[IrishGold]

Okay Uncle, you are our "Man in the street" for that part of the world. Can you give us your take on the situation there? I know there is a lot of "stuff" on the net regarding the race thing there, but do you yourself feel threatened? Is the actual living conditions better or worse for the whites now? Same questions for the blacks. What, if anything is better now vs. then? If I remember right, the photo of you holding the fish made you look like late 20's or early 30's, so you may not be able to answer, but give us your best guess based on your observations.
Thanks
IG

[Libertarian_Guard]

IrishGold what are you asking? Uncle lives in South Africa, not Zimbawe. Think of how strange it would be if Uncle asked you how things are in old Mexico just because you happen to live in Texas.

Unless Uncle works in Zimbawe, he would not have any first hand knowledge of their plight, or are you asking about S.A.?

[IrishGold]

Thanks Libertarian_Guard, I was asking just what I said.

I live over 300 miles from the Mexican-US border, but I still have some knowledge of what goes on across the border. This is because I know several people who still have contact with people who live down there.
I realise that Uncle may live in the Cape Town area instead of Pretoria and thereby not have such a good feel for the conditions across his border to the north, but he would still be a better bet for information than NASDAQ_400 who lives in Germany.

Besides LG, you started this thread by posting an article from a South African Paper.
:cheers:

[Uncle]

Okay Uncle, you are our "Man in the street" for that part of the world. Can you give us your take on the situation there? I know there is a lot of "stuff" on the net regarding the race thing there, but do you yourself feel threatened? Is the actual living conditions better or worse for the whites now? Same questions for the blacks. What, if anything is better now vs. then? If I remember right, the photo of you holding the fish made you look like late 20's or early 30's, so you may not be able to answer, but give us your best guess based on your observations.
Thanks
IG

Thanks for the compliment IG but I'm 34.5 :)

In my younger and wilder days (+/-1990), myself and two/three other friends would regularly make trips right up to the great lakes region. These would include lakes Victoria, Tanganyika, Malawi etc.

These trips were done on Yamaha XT550s and Tenere 600s. Most of the trips were very low budget with no back-up support except that which you can carry and still have a reasonable time driving. We also made extensive trips to Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique.

We used to pass right through Zimbabwe, exiting via Churundu but first having a few beers at Lake Kariba.

Zimbabwe at that time was the land of milk-and-honey with a 1-1 Zim$/$US, if my memory is correct. Work for everyone wanting, and no short supply of anything.

Will I do a trip again via Zim ? NFW. Things have to be bad if one look at the farm murders and farmers packing what they can carry, leaving century old farms, to go and start a new in Mozambique.

I have no first-hand experience of the current Zim, but I think we might see a bit more on the news than USA or Europe.

Another big problem is the illegals from mainly Zimbabwe and to a lesser extent Mozambique, that is taking away jobs etc locally. Very much the same as Mexico I guess. The locals in SA is getting quite PO with the illegals as they see them as a direct threat. Some stats I seem to remember, 1/10 of our population is an illegal.

In short, I think nothing is better there now.

Locally:

I grew up on a small-holding (10 acres) without electric-fences, burgular-bars etc. I can remember spending ages in the dirt-road with your friends riding bicycle, swimming in irrigation dams and generally having a ball. We had one or two instances of housebreak, but this occured while we were away on extended vacation.

My Dad died in '91 and we spent about $1 000 in getting the place secured. By that time we had a 2inSW.38 for my mom and a 12-guage SW-pump action that was used by my Dad. We all had training in using the weapons. My mom had enough when she shot and killed a house breaker in the kitchen.

Living conditions for the low class remained as is. Shanty town. There is quite a lot of new black middle-class while the white middle-class has shrunk. Lots of new black upper-class. Search Khumalo at http://www.moneyweb.co.za

Have anything improved ? I don't think so. I now have to live in a cluster development with 24hr security and electric-fences. My son can't go outside the complex on his own. I'm always ****ing paranoid while driving incase of a car-jack. My wife phones me when she leaves work. Myself and the wife carry a gun 24x7. I suppose I can count myself lucky in that we live in a good neighbourhood. But no. I wish many a time that I could afford going some place without the constant threat of crime.

The people locally are getting quite fed-up (black and white) but the government is refusing to re-institute the death penalty. According to them it is against the constitution. I think any person who commits a violent crime does not have any rights, he gave that away by his actions. Big news recently was the car-jack murder of a mother-in-law, the bride-to-be and her 1y old daughter, naturally after being sexually assaulted. If I were the groom I would have gone ballistic, perhaps he is still ticking.

The government appears to be more corrupts than the previous regime, perhaps because the current can't hide it's faults that well. Search for Yengeni, Zuma at http://www.sundaytimes.co.za to name but two. I won't even mention affirmative action.

In short, there might be a slight glimmer that things can go better, but I think it has gotten a lot worse since 1994 even though everyone can vote now. It seems to hang together in a way as house prices are still going up, http://m1.mny.co.za/mnpty.nsf/Current/C2256ACE0030C6E4C2256D9B001476A5?OpenDocument, but I'm no so optimistic as I were a few years ago.

I'm not prepared to debate anything I've said. These are my thoughts and they are not likely to change. I'll try and answer any questions anyone has, but these would be my opinion only.

One last thing. I wonder how this place would have been if we've received the proper price for gold all along ? Much better, I'd guess.

Golden Regards
Uncle

[IrishGold]

Thanks Uncle, That's exactly what I was looking for!
My reason for asking was because one of my daughters went to college with a former SA citizen, (a black girl who has not been back to her homeland since the early 80's) and they are talking about taking a vacation there.

Even on the internet, it seems the "news" is really slanted to the left and "All of Gods Children Get Along". It ain't so my friend, and thanks again for being so candid with us!

[Uncle]

Thanks Uncle, That's exactly what I was looking for!
My reason for asking was because one of my daughters went to college with a former SA citizen, (a black girl who has not been back to her homeland since the early 80's) and they are talking about taking a vacation there.

Even on the internet, it seems the "news" is really slanted to the left and "All of Gods Children Get Along". It ain't so my friend, and thanks again for being so candid with us!

We, (me wife kid), regularly go to a place on the Natal North Coast called Umhlanga Rocks. We haven't had any problems thus far. In general the coast north of Durban is quite safe* and the beaches are "cleaner" i.o.w. almost no hawkers and vagarants wanting to lighten your load. Also lots of people willing to keep an eye out.

There is also places on the south-east coast, George, Plettenberg Bay, Knysna, that is relatively crime free. We've been down to an uncle of mine during April whom retired on Botha-beach near George. This are is also quite "clean".

For more vacation places see http://www.rci.co.za, just to get an idea.

What we've noticed more and more is the increase in the amount of tourists. Large groups of Germans, UK-English, even a Texan or two. I've been in Cape Town recently and once could swear Germany moved the October-fest there, except it was in May.

There are quite a lot of beautiful places that one can visit without fear of crime, BUT I'd rather suggest that you be part of a large tour group on your first visit.

I live about 30km (18mile) north-east of Johannesburg. The company I work for has a transmission tower in JHB CBD and we don't go there alone, even during the day. At home I can get in my car and go buy smokes at 22:00 but you won't catch me near JHB. But I can't walk to the cafe, which is about 1-1.5 mile away, that will be looking for shit.

One can still be quite safe provided you don't go to unsafe places, or act stupid, like walking around at night, especially in places you are not familiar with. One would need to live here quite a bit to learn where not to go.

As for your daughter and friend. If the visit includes a trip to Soweto, or similar suburb, no-go. I feel unsafe there during the day accompanied by a black colleague. There are some parts of Soweto that have excellent houses and suburbs but one wrong turn can get you into shit.

I definitely don't think this is the place for two ladies who haven't had time to become "street-wize". If it was a booked tour through an established travel agent or if they had mature local friends to take them around, it would have been a totally different story.

I travel in Africa quite a lot incl Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Kenia and it is quite remarkable to notice the difference between the attitudes of SA locals and the locals in Africa. The SA locals seems to think you owe them something if you are white while the Africa locals are from another planet, friendly, helpful, mostly easy going. I must add that this is a gross generalisation(sp?) but a comment quite similar in content was made by one of my black colleagues while we were on a maintenance trip in Zambia. Go figure.

Golden Regards
Uncle

[IrishGold]

Thanks Uncle, I will make sure my daughter and friend read every word you have written.

Then I will tell them that you are just exaggerating everything and I think they should just hop on a plane and go.
:rant: :rant: :rant: :rant:
NOT VERY F***ING LIKELY!