Studying, confusion and embarassment

Tuesday, June 14th
Today was exceptionally unexceptional again. These days spent making our eyes red reading and rereading Air Law again and again are shit. But it’s a necessary step in the process. Many, actually most of the aircraft that AirServ uses are leased from a South African company, therefore they are registered in this republic. Anytime you operate another country’s aircraft you must at least ‘know’ their regulations, however silly they may be. Two more days before we take the big exam, and when it is done it will mean a huge weight has been lifted.
We did manage to escape the compound today and take a ‘family’ outing to Pretoria, where Bryce needed another Hepatitis shot. The drive there takes one thru seemingly endless burnt grasslands and burning grasslands. It seems everything is alit here, including white people’s paranoia. If you had invested in barbwire, razor wire or steel doors in South Africa in the past 10 years I’m sure you would be a wealthy individual. Its everywhere. The crime is prevalent here, but it almost makes it worse seeing all the wire strewn between EVERY house. It’s depressing actually. The racial tensions and mistrust are still prevalent years after the apartheid crumbled. The gap between the classes is boggling, and again, depressing.
On the return drive to Midrand we took a back road. Coming over a hill we were passed in our 3 cylinder super unbelievably, inconceivably and embarrassingly compact car by a large Land Rover, driven by a black man, but in the back sat an older, richer looking white couple in a suit and elegant dress. As we sped our shitbox down the hill behind them we were enveloped in a cloud of horrible smelling smoke that emanated from our left. As we passed below it the origin of the smoke was evident, a gigantic, sprawling shanty town unrolled before our eyes. It was enormous. Tin, straw, cardboard, reused construction material, all making houses the size of my kitchen in Durango. And the smoke. God the smoke poured out from there, from random fires in the alleys between the shacks and from the fields surrounding the town. And the desperation in the faces, whether I imagined it or not. All of this next to a highway where whites and others, but mainly whites, were driven in huge SUVs to their important meetings or social wine tasting, or who knows where …God, what a contrast, what a world.
An employee at the simulator center picked us all up the other night with the intent of hitting up the nightlife around here. On the drive out she started explaining some of the racial aspects, explaining who is allowed to hang out with who. She stated that whites don’t hang around with blacks for the most part, it’s a faux pas. I asked then how it will look when we all arrive at the club together, being that she is black. I thought she was about to throw me out of the car when we swerved and started slowing. Oh shit. “I am not a nigger, I am mixed, and don’t ever call me black again.” . Wow. The mood quickly changed back to light hearted and my awkwardness faded but the response left me puzzled, and I’m still confused…