Abstract: “Why would you leave all that beautiful weather to come to this cold and rainy island?” I still get asked this sort of question, six years after leaving Johannesburg to live in the United Kingdom. In fact I was born in London, but my parents decided to move back to South Africa when I was little. Fifteen years later, the apartheid regime had ended, Nelson Mandela was president, and, lets just say, things in South Africa were chaotic.
Bristol
ALEXANDER CAMINADA/REX
At the age of 17, I was like many British students. I was concentrating on getting fantastic matric results (similar to A levels) to get in to the University of Witwatersrand medical school. My interview had gone well, I got the results I needed, and was duly accepted. Everything should have seemed rosy, but six months into my first year of medical school, my mother and I were on a London-bound flight, anxious about what we were leaving behind and fearful of what we were going to encounter.
So what on earth could have made us take such a radical step?
When I try to tell people about the way of life in Johannesburg, they duly reply “Oh, isnt that awful.” But I can tell that most people think I am exaggerating everything, that life cant possibly be like that. People in Johannesburg live their lives in fear—and I am not only referring to the wealthy white population. The crime rate is even worse for the black population who are still living in extreme poverty in shacks in townships like Soweto.
It is not advisable to drive at night as this is just asking for your car to be hijacked—if you …
Publication Year: 2003
Publication Date: 2003-05-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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