Going to Africa

The Top of Africa (Carlton Tower, Johannesburg)

Arrived Johannesburg.

Well the flight might have been a mere 13 hours, but it definitely took me longer than that to get here!  The journey began in 2004, when I saw the film 'The Constant Gardener'.  The film was great, but what made the biggest impression on me was the fact that, while I sat watching Hollywood bandits raid refugee camps in a comfy seat in the Belgrave cinema, the same thing was really happening, to real people, on the other side of the world.  It plagued me for a long time that I could just leave the cinema and go about my business - seeing movies, going to uni, drinking lattes - while all this was going on.  Of course Africa is not the only place in the world with more than its share of troubles, but it seemed to me then to be the one that was furthest from my own experience.  So I decided I wanted to go.

In the end it took a few years (and a few aborted attempts) to get here.  But now here I am, on African soil, doing research towards my PhD in refugee law (of which more later).  Given what I am here to do, it is fitting that I am in Johannesburg, quite possibly the refugee capital of the world.  UNHCR statistics from 2010 show that in that year alone South Africa received 180,600 applications for asylum, one fifth of all applications worldwide.  Something like 2 million Zimbabweans have fled their country in search of a better life here.  Not bad for a country that only 20 years ago was a producer, not a receiver, of refugees.  But not great for a country that still cannot house and care for its own population.

This trip is a short one - just three weeks - in preparation for a longer stint later this year, when I will return for about 5 months to conduct my research proper.  So this visit is really about orientation, meeting people who work in the field and just getting a sense of what a real refugee problem looks like.

I've been here for two days already, and seen and done quite a bit - walked the Nelson Mandela bridge, seen the view from the Top of Africa, met my new colleagues at Wits Uni, walked to uni and back without being mugged, joined the gym and found fabulous coffee.  But more on all that later - for now, welcome to my blog!

Tamara