My daily Apartheid

The company that I work for is not super big, but still multi in many ways! Multiple nationalities, culture, food… and quite a number of Jews also I’ve noticed. I could never pick a Jew from a crowd… fully dressed. Oh well, I see some of them wearing those small round patches on their heads. Other than that, I never really cared to find any distinct Jewish features for any reason. To me they blend in amongst the whites of the rainbow nation.

In the canteen we have different tables with hot food for lunch, really nice food. From day one I have simply picked from any table depending on what appealed to me the most at the time. I thought everybody else did also. One day when I was early there was no spoon to dish up from the tray. Naturally I helped myself and found a spoon so I could dig in. A lady tapped me on the shoulder and told me in an irritated tone that I can’t use metal (dirty I assume) spoons on the kosher table! Before any regulars at the table had a chance basically, Jonny messed up all their food! It was suddenly not so kosher anymore! Aha… so that’s why so many people at work use plastic cutlery when there are still tons of proper knives and forks to take from. Personally I think it must be damn annoying to break four plastic knives for every attempt on a piece of meat. It would ruin my meal totally!

Later I’ve learnt that there is also a halal table. Omnivore as I am, I have visited all tables. Halal too! I can’t say I have noticed any distinct kosher or halal taste. I am still blissfully unaware whether I have upset the halals or how I may have upset them. Any other groups also for that sake. I have now narrowed it down to one table where my barbaric Viking ways are accepted (as far as I’m aware of). If I move too close to either halal or kosher, I can feel the angry looks… so you’ll find me sitting down there in the corner!

In retrospect, the queues to each table have been helpful to identify and map the different groups at work. Fellow barbarians, kosher and halal at least. It’s like a small internal Apartheid going on. A buffet style group areas act! In this lunchtime segregation I am grouped together with Zulu’s and other African tribes represented. I wonder whether this can give me any BEE/Affirmative Action credits?!

Pretoria – a face brick heaven!

Pretoria used to give me the creeps! Pretoria was in my mind a white Boer place only, and a gust from the Apartheid past. I’m myself part of a mixed couple, and had quite a few incidents on my first trip to SA in 2000. Enough to become a racist myself… to the extent that I thought every single white person here was bastards from the Apartheid period. Now I’ve overcome that part (way over it, so don't worry!), and actually got some Boer friends, and thoroughly enjoy oxtail potjie. Pretoria still gives me the creeps though, and I’ve been wondering for a long time why?!

We have family in Pretoria, and had stopovers there on our once a year trips to South Africa. On these trips I have obviously developed an impression. I must stress though that this has nothing to do with our family in Pretoria (they are very nice and loving), and neither the area they live in (Waterkloof). Just the surrounding areas… I think?!

A couple of years ago though, I started to notice the extensive use of face brick in South Africa, and especially Pretoria. Face brick gives me an old fashion feeling… 70’s or thereabout I believe. I used to live in a face brick apartment block in Norway from the age of 4-8yo. They don’t make them there any more, coz it’s out of fashion. I guess my Norway trends are stuck in my head… and have a hard time adjusting to the building fashion here in SA.

I see all the vast fields with hundreds of identical houses. Small and basic low cost housing in some places, and fancier and more expensive in other places. All of them are in face brick though! It reminds me of the apartment blocks in Hungary. Our taxi driver from the airport pointed it out and said in a very dry tone of voice; “Russian Architects”! Russian architects and anything to do with Russia have a very low standing in Hungary and the other East Block countries. That was the communist regime inheritance in Eastern Europe. But hey, South Africa and ANC have got some solid communist roots too! Maybe the Russian architects came to SA also? Maybe some of the communist support from mother Soviet Union, or a major substantial part of it, was in fact building technique know-how?! Face brick experts!!

Why the hell did they have to make it all in face brick though?! South Africa must be extremely rich on resources needed for face brick production, never mind gold, platinum and diamonds! This is not a past phenomenon in South Africa. All over the place you see new complexes coming up in face brick. Not only low cost subsidized houses. In up market areas they also use face brick extensively?! ANC is still in power you see, and the communist engineers and face brick experts are not yet retired. The natural resources are far from exhausted either.

Reuben is a good friend and family member. A couple of years ago, I remember a property discussion with Reuben. A guy in the neighborhood had put up a massive big house, and the whole bloody thing was in face brick. About R2 a brick he said in complete awe. The number of face bricks was obviously a statement of wealth. Only I didn’t get it. The house belonged to an Indian fellow. That makes sense, as Indians are generally quite status oriented I’ve noticed. Their cars are usually styled up with everything available on the market… So a rich Indian guy’s house should of course be in face brick! Tons of face brick!!

I happened to mention my view on face brick for my wife some time ago. I think she saw my passion about it. Since I mentioned it though, she has also developed distaste for face brick. This is currently making things hard for us, as we are looking to find a place closer to her work in Hatfield, Pretoria. Except from the abundance of face brick, we don’t really know the area very well, so agents are taking us around for house viewings. By now we’ve seen a lot of Pretoria, only to confirm the vast use of face brick. We’ve actually been on the verge of ruling Pretoria out all together. Centurion is another place we’ve been trailing with agents. It’s closer than Fourways where we live at present. Centurion is yet another face brick heaven though!

Never mind my personal taste (coz I think it is damn ugly!!) but look at it fashion wise. Fashion comes and goes. It might not be as frequent fad as with clothes, but still. Face brick houses in South Africa, counting from the numbers, must have been built intensively since the 70’s at least. It never stopped though. It carried on and on, more and more face brick. If face brick was fashionable for a decade only (+/-), and gone in the mean time, then it would have been retro by now… and surly fashionable for some people yet again. But no – it’s been bloody 40 years of face brick only. Fashion doesn’t last that long, am I right?! 40 years of face bricks, that’s a hell of a lot if you put all of it in one pile. I wonder how long it took to build the pyramids in Egypt?! Those pyramids would be puny compared to the face brick mountain in this country. They should make the face brick towns in this country a new wonder. How sad that the voting for the 7 new wonders are over!! A wonder should be something positive though, so maybe it’s a good thing I wasn’t carried away earlier.

I know that face brick is low maintenance, but it still doesn’t justify it for me. We have decided to move “closer”, or in the “direction” of Pretoria though. I reckon it’s about 99,5% probability that we move into a face brick house. When we eventually buy a house, hopefully within a year, I reckon it’s about 90% chance that will also be a face brick house. You just can’t escape it!

In retrospect:

Since publishing this article I have tried not to think too much about face brick. On Saturday though, we were driving to Centurion... and had a relapse on the face brick subject. Somebody pointed out to me; "See Jonny, they're building a face brick house". I was pretty unaffected - really! A few seconds later though, when we passed another two towering face brick developments, I could feel the blood pressure rise again. What strikes me is that you don't have to look very hard to find a face brick house... or a new face brick construction site. It's right there in your face all the time!! Maybe that's how the inventor of face brick was visualizing it too?! He had a clear vision of making "the brick" that would replace everything else on the market and become the Coca Cola or Microsoft (in lack of a good enough example!) of construction. Vast areas with face brick houses as far as you can see... reminding you no matter where you turn. In your face all the time basically - and thus FACE brick!! I must admit that it's brilliant. Never mind Bill Gates and Donald Trump. I expect that this yet unnamed face brick king will top the richest man rankings any time soon!!

Another Ape - another trek Out of Africa

I went to a party the other day. One guy stood out from the crowd as loud and outspoken; let’s call him “Pablo”. He seemed to have opinions about most things. He had some theories that I found amusing and very interesting, and just the kinda stuff I enjoy... If his theory happens to be correct, I’ll have to revise my own “Out of Africa” theory, but what the hell. So I’ll try to quote some of his theories… hope I get it right! I should also add that there are no racial motives behind this theory… I believe!

Apparently, there is a difference between the black people and the other races in this country. The blacks were here from the early morning, and bred right out of the cradle – The Cradle of Humankind that is. They have found tons of evidence to confirm this. Mrs. Ples, Lucy and Littlefoot and lots of other unnamed apes (John Doe’s) and humanoids. These monkeys are our prehistoric forefathers, earlier stages in evolution, before they developed into humans like you and me. As the general scientific theories go, they are the forefathers to people in all continents. They spread out from South Africa to all the continents – almost like today’s island hopping in Greece, and like my forefathers on their great trek (http://stensbys.blogspot.com/2007/05/out-of-africa-great-trek.html).

Pablo’s theory though, reject that the same monkey made the great leap across the Mediterranean or the Suez Canal, and out of Africa. There was another ape that developed further north somewhere that crossed the rivers, ponds and lakes or whatever… and then spread out to inhabit the other continents. So, there was one monkey for Africa, and another one for the rest… So what? You’ve got two different monkeys to explain the nuances in skin colour?! The Stensby Ape’s trek was a bit shorter than earlier assumed (Coz I must assume that my ancestors was among Pablo’s lot), but still a lot more impressive than that of the voortrekkers. But there is more to it than that. When Jan Van Riebeck and the Dutch and later the Brits came to South Africa, they were technologically much more advanced than the native Africans that they met. A small difference could be random… but they were centuries apart in development! According to Pablo, there was no wheel even in Africa when the first colonizers started to nose about the African shores. How could this be if they were descendants of the same monkey?! So it’s proved then, that there was another monkey! Let’s just call it Pablo’s monkey to make things easy.

As Lucy, Mrs. Ples and Littlefoot grew up in abundance of food and resources, they were never pressured or challenged to find new ways. They were laid back and happy with things. Pablo’s monkey though developed further north. I can not remember exactly where… but whether it was Egypt, Middle East or Turkey… it was damn dry and far from the same abundance of flora and fauna. Why the hell did they end up there in the first place? My theory is that they were chased out by the other monkeys. Pablo’s monkey now had to be smart and creative to stay alive. Indeed it proved fit to survive also… so fit that the wheel was just around the corner. It’s like the Norwegian proverb: “Emergency teaches a naked woman to make clothes”! The significant difference back then was that Pablo’s monkey, unlike the laid back ones further south, developed the ability to plan from one day to the next. Pablo’s monkey also managed to overcome before insurmountable obstacles like crossing a river either by a raft or some kind of bridge. Mrs. Ples and Littlefoot were cut off by the Limpopo River, Zambezi and the Congo and thus stayed put, but did not care as they managed well in their abundance on this side. Not one single bridge, or a single structure like a log across the stream, has been found throughout Africa after the African monkeys. If it was really Mrs. Ples’s clan that chased Pablo’s monkey up north, then I owe her eternal gratitude. Then I will go to the Sterkfontein Caves once again to pay tribute. I guess I should not bear grudge against my forefathers either then (http://stensbys.blogspot.com/2007/05/out-of-africa-great-trek.html). I have to thank Pablo also, for putting my family’s evolution into a new and more favourable perspective. Now I can understand the reasons for ending up in the cold so far north. At the end of the day, I much prefer brains in the north to the alternative.

Whilst the smart apes migrated to Europe and other places, the other apes carried on in Africa at a slower development pace. So the technological development took different paths already hundreds and thousands of years ago. In light of the monkey story, it’s not so strange after all that the technological development was a few centuries behind in Africa. It certainly explains a few things that have been on my mind lately as well. Black people, at least some of them, are so laid back (like the ancestor ape) that they can hardly get out of the road in time to avoid cars on the highway! The Brits also went all the way to India to find proper working capacity on the cane fields, instead of using the (laid back/lazy) African tribes that was already here.

How can the whole nation (SA) pull together as one?:
Pablo went to Europe and was very impressed by the well functioning socialist European societies… especially the Scandinavian ones. This makes me proud of course being a Norwegian. Now we already established that there was a different breed of monkeys behind the “out of Africa” societies, but there is another explanation behind the socialist systems also. Europe was the scene of the Second World War. After everything was bombed to pieces there was a feeling of solidarity among people and they wanted to rebuild their countries. People helped each other and shared whatever they had at hand. 60 years after the war was over, you find societies where wealth is distributed fairly even throughout the whole population. Just that could be a goal for South Africa and many of the African countries to reach for, right?!

So what about South Africa then? Wasn’t Apartheid South Africa’s answer to Europe’s World War 2? Sure, for some, but only for one part of the population – the blacks. It’s a fight to claim back something rather than pulling together… It is admirable of course that this country came out of Apartheid without a civil war. But is that for the better really, or is it more like prolonging the pain? Maybe they NEED a war to get a new start with clean sheets? A civil war would probably not be a good solution anyway though… so they should find somebody outside their own borders to fight against. Then blacks, whites and Indians could have a common task to fight for or against... or whatever. It would mean pulling together at least. The only likely candidate I can think of at the moment is Zimbabwe… or Bob I mean of course! But then again - Mugabe and Mbeki are far too good friends for anything like that to happen!!

Sir Jonny of Africa

It’s like the manager of the crocodile farm in Tongaat, who went to Norway some time in the late sixties and found it totally surreal to sit in a car together with a black man that was not the driver… imagine! He was a big white Boer guy with all the apartheid attitudes intact. But the worst thing of all for our “crocodile friend” was watching the road workers up there in the north… coz they were white like him!! Must have been a depressing place to go for him.

Flip the coin… and now Jonny comes to South Africa! Everywhere I go, I’m Sir??!!! Suddenly Jonny Stensby, from a farm in Vang the size that wouldn’t even make half a livelihood, is put in the same league as Paul McCartney, Richard Branson and other important guys that did something great?! In the shop, at the parking lot, from your own maid… everywhere! Flattering, weird, polite… or maybe just “polite” without meaning it? But that would be sarcasm, right?

Wherever or whoever it comes from, there is one common denominator though – it all comes from blacks or coloureds.. or the people from the bottom of the extinct apartheid pyramid. They seem to have the world’s biggest inferiority complex… even now, 10 years after Nelson Mandela was released together with millions of blacks to mingle freely with whites.

In the beginning I found it very weird to be called Sir! I even told our maid on several occasions that she could just call me Jonny, or dude or give me a Zulu nickname or something. The answer would always be: “yes Sir”. Some times it can be a bit cool to be called Sir, but afterwards I feel almost guilty for even feeling that. I realize that it’s because I’m from the ass end of the world (my wife’s favourite expression about Norway), with my rude Viking genes, that I can’t deal with politeness and flattery like that.

Still – guilty! It would be cool if Sindi (our maid) was in a position to issue an official paper stating that I am hereby to be called Sir Jonny! Who is in charge of giving out titles like that anyway? If Sindi were in such a position… I guess that would make her… not a maid. Damn!