Becoming a Jo'burger

Drinking coffee like a local

Tonight I walked home from the restaurant where I had dinner at 7:15 pm.  This might not sound like a big deal, but as I put my key in the gate of my new guesthouse (the gate is embedded in the 3 metre high wall topped with barbed wire) it was very definitely dusk.  Not dark, but dim.  The street lights were on and there was nothing left of the post work flurry of street activity.  I realised that this is the latest I have been out on my own since I arrived in Jo'burg, and I felt pretty chuffed with myself.

I feel I have conquered a few cities so far in my life - Melbourne, Bristol, Beijing, Sydney.  In each city I went out on my own (more or less) and made a previously foreign place my own.  In a small way, I feel I have begun also to do that in Jo'burg.  For a start, I now routinely refer to it as Jo'burg, rather than Johannesburg, though I think it will be a while before I adopt the term 'Jozi'.  But I have been reflecting on what else it is that makes one feel like a new place becoming a kind of 'home'.

In the three short weeks I have been here, the following experiences have made me feel like I am becoming, in part, a Jo'burger:

• Getting a local phone number.  Day one, tick.
• Walking the streets.  Not much on my own, granted, and never past 7.15.  But in truth this is the practice of many locals - Jo'burg's reputation as the crime capital of the world, though definitely exaggerated, is not without its basis in reality.
• Catching the bus.  Twice in fact!  Though both times with help - I think I am almost ready to try this solo.  Public transport is truly the key to owning a city as your own.
• Mastering the local taxis.  I can book them, give directions, chat about the weather...
• Making friends.  This seems remarkably easy here, I have many new phone numbers and promises to catch up when I back later in the year.  The other day I even received a call from Tania and Jo, my walking tour guides, invting me to join them for coffee in a cafe near my hotel!  Yep, local.
• Going to the gym.  Not the hotel gym, the real gym - I've been to two.
• Going to the market.  Ok, so this is precisely the kind of thing that tourists do, but it was a fabulous market so I wanted to include it.
• Being recognised in the street.  I was stopped as I left my previous hotel in Braamfontein by Josef, the 'artistic director' of the inner city rejuvenation, who told me he had been on the lookout for a redheaded Aussie hanging about the suburb.  My reputation precedes me...
• Being mistaken for a local.  My taxi driver this afternoon said he could not tell I was from Australia, I sounded just like a South African to him.
• Being greeted by name in your local cafe.  This is perhaps the ultimate local-defining experience, and one of my personal favourites - when the cafe staff not only know what coffee you drink, but your name as well!

The lovely woman who works at my current guesthouse, Bongi, told me when I arrived home tonight, 'Once you know Jo'burg, you know South Africa.  Capetown, Durban, Pretoria - they're a piece of cake compared to Jo'burg!'