On a More Serious Note..

Normally, I use this blog as a platform to tell everyone back at home about all the awesome things that I get to do in Cape Town. Unfortunately, this one is a little bit different. On a tremendously more serious note than I am used to, I’m going to write about the real South Africa. Not the American student living in South Africa, but about some of the problems this country is facing that I currently have to deal with. All of this, by the way, if it gives you any indication of where I’m going, is inspired by a quote my professor said during Crime & Deviance in South African Cities:

“We are living in a war zone. There isn’t a war going on, but we essentially live in a war zone.”

She said this in reference to today’s lecture, which was a statistical look at violent crime in South Africa. To give you a point of reference, here are just some quick facts I wrote down about the crime rates in South Africa:

·      9 times out of 10, a private security firm like ADT will arrive at a crime scene faster than the police.

·      In 1994, 25% of the police in South Africa were functionally illiterate.

·      46% of the South African population lives in rural areas.

o   65% of those living in rural areas never see a police officer, or see one less than once a month.

o   Of those living in rural areas who have experience violent crime, only 20% have reported it to the police.

o   64% of those living in rural areas live from 11km-50km from a police station

o   96% of those living in rural areas don’t have a cell phone, while 94.7% don’t have a phone in their house, and the nearest phone for 42% in rural areas is between half an hour to two hours away

·      From April 2008-April 2009 there are 2.1 million reported crimes (in a country of 48 million); per capita (for every 100,00 people), there were 4414 crimes reported

o   According to “iceberg theory”, this is only a small percentage of “real crime”, as in crimes that actually take place

·      South Africa has the second highest rate of homicide, second only to Colombia, and ahead of Brazil and other countries that have histories of civil war

·      The murder rate is the lowest of all violent crimes, behind such crimes as robberies and aggravated assaults

·      There is a new drug popular in South Africa that involves smoking anti-Retrovirals, which are medications people take when they have HIV

o   Thus, individuals with HIV are being robbed for their medicine, and cannot take it

Although my friends and I lovingly refer to our suburb as “Robdebosch”, and the street outside our house as “Rape Row”, the fact of the matter is this is still a dangerous place to be. Having lived in a city for two and a half years already, I’ve gotten a certain confidence about me which makes me feel like I can do almost anything in DC. The same is not true about Cape Town. I’m not paranoid, nor am I afraid, I just have a very heightened sense of awareness. Already, I have a friend who has both been pickpocketed and had a bag of clothing stolen from a property she thought was safe. It’s only been a month.

For almost every single one of us here, this is our first time going to school in such a dangerous place. We all recognize that the safety precautions like “don’t walk home alone at night,” “beware of someone trying to help you with the ATM,” and “make sure you’re always aware” are more than just precautions; they are things you must do in order to protect yourself. And I’ve noticed myself making changes to my routine to ensure this. I lock my bedroom door, as well as any gate that stands between the front door and me when I leave the house. I carry my wallet only in my front pocket, because I will notice better if someone is pickpocketing me. This kind of stuff, which seems so trivial, is vital to ensure my own safety, as well as the safety of my belongings.

But, my question just becomes, why? Why is there so much violent crime? And why is there so much other crime? One would think that after South Africa became a democracy, and apartheid was formally over, the country’s crime rate would have decreased. That is what logic tells me. Unfortunately, that is not the case, and hopefully my Crime & Deviance class will get me closer to the answers.

Still, it is unnerving to feel like almost anything can happen at any moment. I remember yesterday Kayla telling me that she had to walk the long way home because her intuition told her that the park she was about to walk through with two men standing in it alone wasn’t a good idea. Normally, I wouldn’t trouble myself to think about something like that, but it’s a very real possibility that something may have happened to her had she walked through. I think that’s what scares me the most; you can never really know what’s about to happen to you.

This isn’t to say that Cape Town isn’t a fantastic city, and that I don’t feel safe here at all. I walk every day up to UCT feeling perfectly fine (albeit very sweaty) knowing that nothing is really going to go wrong. However, it’s the little things that have been adding up, and making me more and more careful.

Please don’t worry about me though, I’ll totally be fine!