Now It’s Getting Good

I am coming up on my second full week in Jozi. Work is getting good. After a week of training I am finally interviewing folks and adjudicating visas. I had my doubts about Consular work but it seems very interesting because it forces one to use a host of human interaction skills learned over the course of a lifetime. Basically in two to three minutes I have to decide the credibility of an applicant and the veracity of their story based on a simple interview. It’s more art than science. While most of the people I interview tell the truth, I’ve had a few whoppers. Any story that involves a celebrity speaking to you in a dream and asking you to start a charity is probably not going to fly.

 

Last week I went on a tour of Johannesburg, including some areas such as Alexandra, Hillbrow and Berea, that visitors are typically advised to avoid. There is a LOT of money in Johannesburg and extreme poverty too. In most of the poor areas I visited the people were living in tightly spaces shacks. The shacks are positioned to close together that it’s hard to imagine there is room to walk between them. Most of the shacks don’t have running water and if they have electricity it’s…borrowed. These areas had a lot of vendors on the streets selling fruits and vegetables, little trinkets and generic, mass-produced crafts. There were also donkey carts and mini-van cabs galore. The poor areas reminded me very much of Ouagadougou and seeing them made it hard to believe that the bulk of the wealth in Sub-Saharan Africa was just two or three miles away.

I also visited

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