From Cape Lodge in South Africa

(written while in the Johannesburg airport, a day after New York and morning of my first night in Cape Town)

Two things made it clear I traveled to the other side of the world: the 15 hour flight and the change from 85°F to 2°C.

How long is a 15 hour flight, one might ask? Longer than you’d expect.

In fact, it’s long enough to get to know the person beside you (quite well), watch The Adjustment Bureau, read Bloomberg Business week, (try to) take a nap, read Bloomberg Markets, eat lunch, get bored, watch some movie about California wines, get bored again, read some more, eat dinner, watch The Departed, have trouble falling asleep, get another mini-bottle of wine to try and fall asleep, not fall asleep, eat 4th meal, get bored again, read some more, start another movie, eat breakfast, then land.

And how long is a 10 hour layover in a tiny, freezing-cold airport while exhausted? Enough to sleep on cold, metal benches sucking every Kelvin degree of warmth from one’s body. Certainly a downgrade from the NYC 2-star sketchy hotel with sticky carpet we stayed in.

But. . .I can’t get far with such thoughts before realizing tomorrow night I’ll be sleeping tangent to slums. There is no carpet to be sticky, no movies to be bored of, and no prospects of even being in an airport to board a plane.

Of course, ten minutes away is Fish Hoek, a previously whites-only suburb of Cape Town full of money, beaches, and their own country club.

It’s juxtapositions like this that keep me sober. During my time in Hong Kong, I realized that no matter in the business and Burberry-rich district of Central or the shack-ridden country side of Guangxi (广西壮族自治区), two things were always present: the creation of nature and the life of humanity. It’s these common denominators in every scene – slum, city, country, or suburb – that make me think about what’s common to humanity.

Beneath the Burberry and under the tin-roofs, what is common both?

Smiles. Frowns. Pain. Joy. Yearnings for life and longings for love.

So, with no shower in 24 hours and 5 more to go before the journey’s complete, I look forward to the next five weeks. They’ll be filled with table-topped mountains and men of a different color. I’ll meet women like none other and marvel at the wonders of creation. It’s gonna be quite the journey. Stay tuned. . .

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~ by Kley Sippel on July 14, 2011.