Investments

When investors put their money into a business venture or organization, they expect to see some sort of return.

Many beautiful people put their time, energy, and, yes, money into making this South African experience possible for me, and until this point, there's not been much return for them. I have been living a lot down here, and they've not actually heard much about it.

As time winds down, I realize that they must be repaid somehow. Perhaps experience is the only currency in which I am currently affluent, so I will share my experiences with them in an attempt to repay the debt that I owe.

So, to you who have done so much for me: I will see you soon, and have I got some stories to tell.

Parallels, Pt. 2

Once upon a time, white men from Europe sailed some boats over to North America.

The white men found that there were already people in America, who had dark skin and lived in harmony with the land. But the white men wanted the land for themselves, and they knew it just wouldn't do to have these Native Americans running about, so they killed some with guns and diseases and chased some into the Dakotas and called them Indians, even though they weren't from India.

So a few years passed, and the land became British colonies, because the British were pretty good at taking land back then, and they started enforcing all these taxes on tea and paper and all sorts of other stuff.

When the old settlers (who started calling themselves Americans) decided they weren't happy about the British pushing them around, they fought a bloody war, and they would've lost if some French folks hadn't stepped in to help. So then the Americans won the land from the British!

 But the Americans weren't the only people living on the land in America. They had all this fertile soil that needed farming, so they went down to Africa and snatched up hundreds of thousands of black people to come work the fields for free.

The Americans didn't really want to acknowledge that the black slaves were equal human beings, because then they'd have to start paying them and treating them better than cows and pigs, so they came up with all sorts of scientific and religious reasons why the black people weren't really people at all, and why they had to be slaves.

So then the white men came up with all these rules about how slaves weren't allowed to read or write or speak any language other than English, and they whipped them and hung them up in trees when they tried to escape or fight back.

But then there was this big nasty war and hundreds of thousands of people were murdered, and in the end, the slaves were free (sort of) and all the states stayed together as one happy country (sort of)!

It wasn't over then, though. The black people didn't have any education or training, due to being slaves and all, and all they could do was continue to work the fields for the white men. Then the white men came up with these things called Jim Crow laws and segregation.

Segregation and Jim Crow laws pretty much tried to squish black people in America by making them use separate schools and public toilets and stuff from the white people. Also, black people weren't really allowed to hang out with the white people, or marry them, or look at them, or think about them, otherwise they got beat up and hung up in trees. And black people couldn't vote, or even really think about voting, unless they paid all this money, which most black people couldn't afford back then.

These Jim Crow things lasted a long, long time until black people started getting real upset and marching in the streets and sitting in the wrong seats on buses and stuff, led by some fellas named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X (and some of their mates), and they forced the white people to make some pretty big changes.

Then they wrote this thing called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and all the black people could vote for free and get the same jobs as white people and marry whoever they wanted! What a day that was, right?

Anyways, that was a couple years ago, and now everything is wonderful and everybody plays board games together and has a good laugh!

There have been some weird things going on, though.

This black guy named Rodney King got beat up real bad by some policemen, and we got it all on tape, but the jury said the policemen didn't do anything wrong, so I guess they didn't. Either way, people got so mad about it that they started breaking windows and lighting things on fire and stomping about in the streets.

And then this kid named Trayvon Martin got shot for wearing a hoodie and buying Skittles, but the jury said that it wasn't really a crime to shoot an unarmed black person, so I guess it's OK.

Also, some sad kids in Colorado grabbed a bunch of guns and silly clothes and went to their high school and shot a bunch of people. But then all these other people started going to schools in Virginia and Connecticut and other states and shooting people, too. One guy even shot a bunch of little kids. It was really sad.

Also, everybody figured out that they could sue everybody else for no reason, so everyone got lawyers and started suing each other for fun.

Then the public education system started falling apart. And then people started spilling oil everywhere. Then politicians started getting really stubborn and only trying to help their pals instead of helping the country. Then they started paying loads and loads of money for big guns and robot planes so they could point them at the Middle East.

Then those politicians were all like, "Poor people are lazy! Rape babies are God's will! Teachers need guns! Corporations are people, too! Sesame Street is from Satan," or something like that. Then they all decided to not ever do their jobs and just keep bickering about stuff because they know the American people will just vote them back into office again.

But, like I said, it's all puppy dogs and unicorns, really. Everybody's happy!

Parallels, Pt. 1

Once upon a time, white men from Europe sailed some boats down to southern Africa.


The white men found that there were already people in Africa, who had dark skin and lived in harmony with the land. But the white men wanted the land for themselves, and they knew it just wouldn't do to have these black men running about, so they killed some and chased some into the desert, but a bunch of other black men showed up, so there wasn't much the white men could do about it.

So a few years passed, and after the Portuguese and Dutch (and some French and German folks as well) had their go at the land, the British showed up and took it, which is basically what they used to do all the time.

When the old Dutch people (who started calling themselves Afrikaners) decided they weren't happy about the British pushing them around, they fought a couple of bloody wars, but they lost and the British kept the land, but they stayed good mates (sort of). They even fought wars as pals against the baddies in Europe and Asia.

Later on down the line, the Afrikaners won the land back from the British in an election (sort of), and the Afrikaners started changing the laws.

But the Afrikaners weren't the only people living on the land in South Africa. Remember all the black people? There were loads and loads of them! And Indian people, too, and this mix of Malaysian people with all the other races that they decided to call Coloured people.

The Afrikaners didn't really want to share all their land and stuff, though, since they'd worked so hard for it and had just got it back from the British. Also, they saw that black people in the rest of Africa were starting to chase the white men out, since the land belonged to the black people in the first place, so the Afrikaners started this thing called Apartheid.

Apartheid pretty much tried to squish all non-white races in South Africa by keeping them in designated areas and controlling their education and taking their culture and killing them if they stepped out of line.

This Apartheid thingy lasted a long, long time, until people from other countries and people from South Africa, led my some fellas named Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and Desmond Tutu (and some of their mates - not all at the same time, though), forced the Boers to make some pretty big changes.

Then South Africa held its first real democratic election, in which all races were allowed to vote, and Nelson Mandela (and his crew, the ANC) won! And they wrote this new constitution, too! What a day that was, right?

Anyways, that was a couple of years ago, and now everyone loves each other and holds hands and sings songs!

There have been some weird things going on, though.

This one black guy, Andries Tatane, was killed a while ago at this rally, and everyone said these policemen did it, but the judge said they were innocent, so it's kind of a mystery how Mr. Tatane died in the first place. I mean, we have the whole ordeal on tape, but the judge obviously knows better than we do.

And then all these platinum miners got a bit peeved because they get paid (basically) next to nothing for doing all this hard work, so they went on strike and started shouting and waving signs and stuff, but then all these policemen and security guards tried to stop them and in the end a whole bunch of people were dead.

And then the current president, Jacob Zuma, was all like, "I hate gay people! Walking your dog is for white people! Women should have more babies! If you have AIDS, just take a shower," or something like that. And then he and his buddies (Nelson Mandela's old ANC) decided to write something called the "Secrecy Bill," which pretty much controls government info so they can keep secrets and not tattle and stuff like that.

Also, lots of the schools in South Africa aren't really that great. And most people live in these crowded neighborhoods with bad plumbing called townships, where crime and drugs and stuff are pretty bad. And also a whole bunch of people have HIV here, which is pretty sad.

But, like I said, it's all sunshine and rainbows, really. Everybody's happy!