ever since chris and i started going out 9 years ago (almost to this day!), i've always been interested in his south african background. i had never known there to be such a large chinese south african population in vancouver, but surprisingly enough, there are a lot of them!
when i was growing up, a special needs teacher at my elementary school was a chinese south african. she had immigrated to canada with her children and they were raised here. but when i was a kid, i just knew her as the nice (short!) lady with the funny accent :-) also in elementary school, my best friend's background was south african as well - her dad was from capetown, not johannesburg, like chris' family. in high school, i found out my friend tara's mom was from jo'burg as well. and now a co-worker of mine is actually the son of my father-in-law's good friend from jo'burg. such a small world!
i've always had this picture in my head of what south africa was like, and chris always reminds me a little bit deluded :P there aren't zebras and elephants walking through your backyard. the crime rate is ridiculously high, no one leaves their barricaded homes after dark, and anyone could be killed over anything at anytime. so sad.
so when i saw the news headline today, i was captivated. i can't imagine living in such terrifying conditions. hopefully someday in the future, it will be safe enough for us to visit the country, johannesburg in particular, since that's where chris' history is. chris still has lots of family in south africa, and many of them are trying to escape from the fear of daily living. unfortunately it's not as easy as packing your bag and booking a flight out of SA.
i guess i really am a naive city girl....
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I think crime is a huge problem in African countries since there is such a huge disparity of wealth. Mauritius has the same problem.
My great aunt was murdered a couple yrs ago in her home for the equivalent of about $5 CAD. And my cousins place was robbed even though they had a security guard and were home sleeping. Very sad stuff, but it won't change until something is done about the economy to help the poor people in these countries.
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