Afterthought -

I think I've put this on here before, but I was mulling my world this evening and this poem came to mind. Pablo Neruda. Who else. How on earth can these students not appreciate the beauty of such poetry??


Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
`
Write, for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
`
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
`
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
`
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
`
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
`
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
`
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
`
What does it matter than my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
`
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
`
My sight searches for me as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
`
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
`
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
`
Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
`
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
`
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
`
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Why I'll never again date a guy who uses Facebook...

I use Facebook; I'll not even bother denying that. I put up photos, I update my status to inform people where I am or where I'm going, and occasionally I'll post a link to some article or another I thought a bored individual or two may appreciate. If someone puts something particularly witty on their wall, I'll give them a 'thumbs up', and every now and then I'll make a remark – usually noting (thanks to the Facebook reminder) that it is their birthday and I hope it is a happy one.

As for my Relationship Status, that is nobody's business. Favourite movies and books? Quite irrelevant. A long list of current and previous employers and the schools I attended over twenty years ago are decidedly absent. I am not a 'fan' of anything on Facebook; I shudder at the thought of being a 'fan' of something as vague as a subject ambiguously entitled 'Travel' or pretentiously named 'Literature'. Back when I first joined the site, I became a member of a bunch of groups for no reason whatsoever. I should probably delete all that too, if I can ever be bothered.

The majority of my supposed Friends on Facebook aren't quite that. I have a purging session every now and then: clean out the cobwebs, remove the people whose photos I no longer peruse and whose love-lives are suitably dull as to not spark even a moment of mild curiosity in the gossip recesses of my brain. (I'm female and, whether they admit it or not, pretty much every female has a default gossip filing cabinet in her mind; it needs stocking up every few days or everything seems remarkably tedious.)

Considering that if my close friends are on Facebook I've already added them, the only people I add these days are: people I want to be darn nosy about, people I feel obligated to add otherwise there will be ripples of friction spreading through the virtual stratosphere, and people I add for the briefest of moments to catch up on their lives and then promptly delete. Usually after establishing they've never left their home town and married their next door neighbour, have produced a brood of ghastly children and are living off benefits; their photos show them on drunken nights out either in England or Ibiza (the former with pale white skin, the latter with lobster red skin), and they've usually acquired a couple of decidedly ugly and aggressive looking dogs. You wouldn't believe the number of people I was at school with who now fall into this category.

The problem with Facebook, as almost any user of it knows, is that the majority of users are artful swines who deliberately use it to manipulate or injure others. Not always, and not necessarily even consciously at times, but nevertheless it is done. The deletion of key photos; the spiteful status updates aimed at an ex – even worse, such updates that aren't spiteful but rather along the lines of, 'Look at me! Life is wonderful! I can't believe how happy I am these days!' Passive-aggressive is an art-form on Facebook. You can write on someone's Wall ostensibly to just 'pop by and say hello', but secretly to annoy the bejesus out of a partner who thought you'd lost contact with that individual.

I have seen whole relationships conducted on Facebook walls: the I Love Yous and I Miss Yous written for all the world to see. Why your entire friendship group needs to know that you miss your snuggly-wuggly is a little beyond me.

I justify using this cursed internet phenomenon for a few reasons: one, it keeps me in touch with people when I'm overseas (which, let's face it, is pretty much always). Two, it allows me to put photos up so friends can see them if they want, and not have them inflicted on them by me in some painfully drawn out evening display of My Latest Holiday. (Plus, having had a hard-drive crash, and the back-up also crash, I'm mighty glad some of those photos are there as otherwise I'd have lost them forever.) Furthermore, it allows me to satisfy that gossip-loving female mind of mine. And I talk with people using the Chat feature.

Quite frankly, a guy who uses Facebook – with all that wonderful manipulative potential just waiting to be pounced upon with the click of a few icons and tap of a few keys – is not the guy for me. A guy who does anything as frivolous as blog is not the guy for me. (MySpace doesn't even warrant a serious mention; it goes without saying that anyone who uses MySpace is painfully cretinous in the first place and therefore not welcome in my world. Likewise Twitter. Who gives a damn what the hell you had for breakfast and all that menial information people clog up the internet with via that particular site.) Facebook is designed for women and their aforementioned gossip requirements. That's it.

And after I've hopped back online to post this, I'll wander over to Facebook and see if anyone has commented on my link. It's to a conversation someone created between Mr Darcy and Mr Thornton, a wonderfully dark and brooding duo who would surely send even the most level-headed ladies into swooning ecstasies. Did I put that link up to mock all those guys on my Friends list who are ex boyfriends, or those who never even temporarily made it to 'boyfriend' status? Or to amuse the odd decently-read female who happens to be passing by my profile page? You can figure that out for yourselves, dear reader, because whatever I write on here will only ever be my conscious interpretation of events, sifted and sorted to fit with what I want you to know about me. The wonders of a virtual version of yourself: you can edit away unflattering photos, convey emotions via a series of unambiguous icons, and keep your true feelings firmly locked inside. My real friends take the time to step beyond Facebook and know what those wretched status updates fail to show.

Mossy musings

Blogs are, by their very nature, pretty self-indulgent enterprises. I assume that in the majority of postings made by a few million people around the world every day, the purpose is primarily for the writer to figure something out – rather than to entertain or amuse the masses. I'm feeling in a particularly ruminative mood today and as such am going to allow myself to wander down memory lane. This lane specifically stretches over the last ten years, to a point back in the year 2000 when I left the UK to live abroad for the first time.

2000 – the day after my last A-level exam, I hopped on a bus up to Heathrow airport and caught a flight to Sydney, Australia. I had never had a job before, and never lived anywhere other than Home. Within weeks, I had acquired a well-paying secretarial job at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Coogee; a few months later, I moved into a house a few hundred yards from Bondi Beach. I went to cheer on Kathy Freeman and Michael Johnson at the Olympics, saw in the New Year at the Sydney Opera House, and discovered mangoes...

2001 – after a month messing around in Canada and a few months working as a cleaner in a ludicrously poncy hotel on St Martin's, the Isles of Scilly, I set off for university. I joined the rowing club and lost stupid amounts of weight by over-training and under-eating.

2002 – ah yes, the year of the weir, when the women's 1st VIII all nearly drowned one freezing morning in February. This was also the year I was, somewhat hilariously, accused of 'criminal assault and battery' – how I wish I'd kept that piece of paper as a memento. I spent some time in Washington DC and saw in the new year in Times Square, New York; there, I became part of the world's largest synchronised bell-ringing event... I think this must also be when I went to Romania for a month, just to see how depressed it is possible for a human being to get.

2003 – this was the year I discovered South America – I went to Peru, paddled around on Lake Titicaca, dragged myself along the Inca Trail, and flew up to Cuba for the carnival in Santiago de Cuba. I spent two weeks getting the best suntan of my life in Jamaica and went home via Miami. I bought a DKNY tshirt for USD5 and didn't know for the next two years that I actually owned a piece of 'designer clothing'. Horrifying realisation. After a few weeks in the Amazon rainforest, I went down to Buenos Aires for new year and for the first time fell in love with a city.

2004 – I wrote reviews for London hotels and apartments, and gained my 1st in English Lit, despite only doing about four hours of work over the previous three years. I think this must be the time when I returned to Buenos Aires, spent a month in Santiago de Chile establishing that the two places were not remotely comparable, and passed the new year in BA. (I spent a few months living in a hostel, the Portal del Sur, and just a few weeks ago bumped into someone who had worked there – he was visiting Swaziland. Blimey.)

2005 – at some point, I figured that perhaps I should do something 'sensible' with my life and subsequently applied for a Master's degree at Oxford University. I still don't know why, but I was accepted. To celebrate this, I obviously returned to Argentina and Peru, coming home via Mexico, Atlanta, DC and NY. A month over Christmas in Goa, India, was followed far too rapidly by a transition to Sweden for the new year – my body never did deal well with the cold...

2006 – a lot of rowing coaching, a lot of messing about in boats, a good deal of Pimm's and many drives in classic cars around the English countryside. A month in Swedish wilderness was followed up by a long drive down to Andalucia and installation in the most miniature of cottages; I saw in new year in Knysna, Spain. I think this must also have been the year I went to Morocco and returned with severe and somewhat terrifying food poisoning.

2007 – after a few months messing around doing some work or other in Oxford, I took a job in Hong Kong. Thank goodness for discovering Lamma Island there, or I may not have lasted the year. Hang on, this must also be the year I first went to the Philippines, did my PADI course, and fell in love with the underwater world. And I also found out the merits (and curses) of sea-rowing, outrigging, and dragon boating.

2008 – mostly spent in HK, with a trip to Thailand thrown in for good measure. I ended up on Palawan island seeing in the new year. A year is never complete without a couple of months of serious Philippines beach time, I've decided.

2009 – a few months working as a writer and editor, and flapping about teaching English in Oxford, before rather randomly taking up a post in Swaziland, Southern Africa. I barely knew this place existed before coming here. A long trip to South Africa, and I discovered Kruger, the Garden Route, and incredible Cape Town – a decent place to see in the new year.

'A rolling stone gathers no moss'... Well, after those ten years galloping around the globe I am most decidedly without moss. Maybe a bit of moss would do me good. I wonder.

“A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” (George Moore)

Some Peculiarities of Swazi-Ville

There is a custom in Swaziland that requires you greet every person in a room when you enter, and those greetings must be appropriately acknowledged in response. Considering there are over fifty members of staff here and a good portion of those hang around in the staff room in the mornings before lessons begin, it can be something of a tedious and lengthy undertaking to enquire after the health of multiple people you have seen probably a mere twelve hours before. The only exchange I have with the majority of colleagues consists of, 'Good morning! And how are you?' 'Good morning! I'm fine, thank you. And you?' 'Oh, good, good. Cold at the moment, isn't it?' I then usually signal an end to such banalities by slotting in my headphones and staring firmly at my computer screen.

Now, there are two possible reactions to this. Or probably more, but I'm going to consider two. Some of you will immediately respond that it is nice and polite to greet everyone, and since I'm living in Swaziland I should logically adopt their customs. But those of you who are anti-social sods such as myself, and indeed advocates of people being remotely genuine in their behaviour, will appreciate the issue I have with this whole pointless scenario.

I'm also tired of standing in shopping queues and having someone pressed against me. Without putting too fine a point on it, I'm not entirely sure that deodorant has reached all corners of the globe and certainly not this one; I'm not overly keen on spending the rest of the day with the smell of somebody else's stale sweat embedded into my clothes.

And I'm not that wild about the fact any time I am required to have a conversation with someone whose job description falls under the broad umbrella of Customer Service Assistant, I am forced to wait while they finish personal calls, file their fingernails, wander off to do – well, God knows what. But they always wander off in the middle of conversations and, after a few minutes of absence, you are forced to ask one of their co-workers, 'Er, do you think they'll be coming back??'

A few months ago I was required to rent a car for a period of five days. I phoned around all the local car rental companies and came to the depressing realisation that the cost of renting a car in Swaziland for five days is the equivalent of buying and insuring an old banger in the UK. I went with my friend into the chosen company's offices, and spent maybe forty minutes filling in documents and looking over the car. Five days later we returned as arranged, to the exact same people in the office looking at us completely blankly. 'Erm... we're here to return the car' we eventually explained; the three Customer Service Assistants exchanged startled looks which clearly meant, 'Heck, we rented a car out? Really? Do you remember this?!' Paperwork finally confirmed that we had indeed hired a vehicle from them and, before the price went up even further for a Late Return, we'd very much appreciate if they would take the wretched thing back.

The odd encounter like this might be classified as entertaining, but such events on a daily basis can eventually take their toll on a person. Through my teaching and such mindless interactions, I'm learning to have the patience of a saint: you now won't see me angrily tapping my watch when a train is two minutes behind schedule, as would the majority of Brits lined up on a platform. Stay over here for a while and you'll soon learn to appreciate the arrival of any train at all, late or otherwise. And be glad of the fact that, as a female travelling alone, it is possible to board that train after dark and not be embarking on a suicide mission.

I have never been so aware of my safety as I am forced to be over here. It is unsettling; constantly looking over your shoulder is surely no way to live a life. And I have never been so aware of the fact I'm white – and the implications that seem naturally to come with that fact. I live in a country that is unquestionably one of the most beautiful I've seen, but which is also a complete social disaster with no apparent hope of the issues being resolved. When I stop seeing the beauty, I guess that will be time to leave.

Erm... why am I teaching??

I'm working as a teacher in Swaziland – a job which came as a considerable surprise to me, too. I've generally been an advocate of the 'those who can, do; those who can't, teach' philosophy, and consider the concept of an 'intelligent teacher' to be the finest definition of oxymoron going. Thus, somewhat out of character, I try to muster enthusiasm for course guidelines, exam regulations, and the restrictions imposed by the endless reams of instructions examining bodies are capable of producing. I remind myself regularly that the likes of DH Lawrence and Robert Frost worked as teachers.

In addition to brandishing my own endless reams of Browning and Shakespeare and Blake handouts at students, I am also required to teach the most ridiculous of courses: the ToK element of the IB diploma. ToK stands for the somewhat pretentiously named Theory of Knowledge aspect of the programme the students here follow. At first glance, those of you who have managed to avoid become embroiled in this wretched course may enthusiastically consider that it could be a sort of beginner's guide to philosophy. Why yes, it could! But it isn't. It is something that involves extremely loosely defined 'knowledge issues' and for individuals to be able to consider the various 'areas of knowledge' via the 'four ways of knowing' (language, reason, emotion, and perception – for those of you remotely interested).

It is a course that currently clogs up four periods a week on my timetable, and sees me standing in front of a class flailing vaguely in the direction of the ill-defined syllabus. Today's session at least created an interesting debate, although not that which I'd intended upon when entering the classroom. Via a series of leaps and bounds the students ended up discussing why they get educated at all: half were convinced it was so they could get a job with more money in the future, most of the rest 'abstained' (they couldn't care less, they just knew they were told to go to school and did so), and a couple of others seemed to be edging towards what I believe is the real purpose.

More accurately, what I believed. I now don't know. If even the pupils don't think it is to stretch their minds and make them more inspired, more interesting individuals with greater potential for understanding the problems the universe still daily throws at us, then I'm not sure it is for teachers to define it in such a way...

This goes some way to explaining, however, why none of my supposedly intelligent students saw any comedy in Kafka's, 'Metamorphosis'. Why they still insist on calling Levi's, 'If This is a Man' a mere story. Why the existential angst of Camus' protagonist in, 'The Outsider' will inevitably be lost on them.

Ignorance is never blissful – I will always be the curious fool who opens Pandora's box and goes dramatically into battle with the consequences. I can't understand these students who see the process of education as the great curse of their youth and as a mere means to a financially beneficial end. Imagine being granted the opportunity to spend the rest of your life researching anything that came to mind that morning when you woke up, following whichever path your brain desired until it found a new avenue to explore. And to experience everything this world has to offer: never mind just reading about the tribes in Papua New Guinea, but getting to go live with them and see for yourself. Don't just know that the Great Wall of China can be seen from space (I'm not even sure that is true, come to that) but go and see the dratted thing for yourself, snakes and all. Not just hear of the unrivalled majesty of the clouds lifting over Macchu Picchu as the sun rises between the mountains, but go and watch for yourself as the lost city is unveiled.

So many people wrongly accuse me of being 'angry with the world', and it becomes ever more tedious with each rendition of the tired phrase. I am angry with people who don't know and who don't want to know; who are content in their small corner of the globe to limit their experiences to a distinct safe sphere; who look scornfully at my erratic and seemingly unstable version of existence.

I think the trick with life is to realise when something is no longer engaging your interest and to be able to step away from that situation and head off to find new pastures, while fending off feelings of being jaded or discouraged. Some people think there is merit in 'sticking it out' and plodding wearily on when they are no longer content, that you can learn and – to use a painful Americanism – 'grow' from such experiences. I'm not so sure there is any great quality in learning to handle your increasing misery when you know how to exchange that state for a happier one.

'May you live all the days of your life'. (Jonathan Swift)

Coming back to blogging...

It has been over a year since I posted on here. There are multiple reasons for this, but the primary cause for the last nine months has been an essential inability to get decent internet access. I'm now living in Swaziland and every day experience something beyond blog-worthy; I finally went into battle with blogspot this evening determined to succeed and, gosh darn it, I've emerged victorious. Welcome back to my rants! I think throwing some of my anger at the world on here will help to moderate the building up frustrations I have.
And heck, maybe somebody will learn something by reading this witterage... Stranger things have happened.
I actually wrote the following nearly two months ago for no reason other than I suddenly felt the need to document the experience. And I'm too tired this evening to come up with anything creative or entertaining, so this will have to do. An insight into the real South Africa that isn't being seen on your television screens as you peer into the country hosting the World Cup.
(As an aside, the picture is totally disconnected to the story below. They're the African Penguins at Boulders Beach in Cape Town. Awesome little creatures.)

I decided that the day shift had slightly more amenable hours – 7am to 7pm seemed somehow more feasible than a twelve hour shift in the cold and dark. I hadn't quite factored in the 5am start, allowing time to get across Johannesburg in the morning and check all necessary kit was in stock before the day started. (Notably, all necessary kit wasn't in stock, and indeed it never is. The paramedics are hopelessly underfunded and the supplies system is unnecessarily complex; it is often the case that the guys working will buy the required gear themselves. It saves time and frustration.)

At 0701, the first call of the day comes through: the radio crackles into life and gives the briefest of details. A female at such and such an address. We're in Hillbrow, one of the most notorious districts of any city in the world: once where upper class European immigrants vied to have an apartment, and now a place teeming with drug dealers, prostitutes, rapists and murderers. White visitors to the city are ill-advised to step foot into the area, and the only reason I would remain relatively safe was by merit of the fact I with the two paramedics; they're respected in the community. Most of the time.

The address is logged into a SatNav and we speed off from the station – the new Audi performs well as we screech around corners and leap through red lights. When arriving at the destination, I cautiously emerge from the car, keeping close to the two guys: the neighbourhood is full of watching eyes, crumbling houses, broken barbed wire fences, and flea-ridden, mangy dogs. We push through a fence and go round the back of the house to see a 20-something black woman, probably from Zimbabwe, lying on the ground. She's surrounded by worried looking relatives who we usher into the house so the paramedics can do their job: in this case, that is merely confirming that yes, she has died. Her three week old baby cries in the arms of his young aunt. They establish that death was not caused by a drug overdose, hear that she'd had a few breathing difficulties since giving birth, and recommend that the family call a funeral parlour.

There will be no post mortem, no autopsy. There aren't the resources, and nobody really cares. Life moves on rapidly in this part of the world. A guy comes in from next door and asks if we can bob by and see his wife – she's been feeling sick for the past few days and he figures that while there's a medical man around he should take advantage of the fact. We traipse into a small and dark room that stinks of stale sweat and food rotting on plates in the sink; the examination is brief and perfunctory, merely informing the woman that she is quite probably pregnant. She groans and rolls her eyes. I guess that another child to add to her extensive brood wasn't exactly planned.

Just as we're pulling away, a van with 'Flair Funerals' written on the side turns up. The dead woman barely fits in the back and is slotted in without care or delicacy; her sister climbs in alongside and they set off. Meanwhile, the rest of the family has arrived – all dressed in black, they've just come from another funeral.

I have some free time for the images to sink in as we head off to a local garage where the two guys get themselves strong coffee and settle onto the plastic stools. They tell me about some of the things they've seen and experienced, the Johannesburg paramedics known and respected throughout the medical world as being very much on the front lines. If you need someone who knows about stabbings and multiple gunshot wounds, about brutal slayings and horrific traffic accidents, ask these guys. They see it all. Daily. A shift without a few dead guys, violently killed, is a rarity.

We're called to an RTA – a Road Traffic Accident – shortly after the rain starts. One of the combis, the local taxis, has crashed into a wall and two women are complaining that their shins hurt. This is the kind of call the paramedics really hate: the women are clearly fine, they possibly have a few bruises, but protocol demands that they stay until the ambulance they are requesting has arrived. Waiting for the ambulance means other calls will go unanswered, and there isn't anybody else to respond to them. There is one car per district. The car for Hillbrow is parked up on a side-street, the paramedics sucking in cigarettes and exchanging jokes to pass the time. We're stuck there for nearly 90 minutes waiting for the ambulance, by which time we've missed countless calls. The guys aren't exactly subtle and don't bother to hide their frustration.

While waiting for the next call they take me down to the local market, the one where the witch doctors sell their wares. In some parts of Africa, up to 95% of people will use witch doctors in preference to western medicine; they're a huge part of life out here. They're identified by the white beads in their hair, and I see two looking into the back of a hearse that has pulled up. The potions they make often incorporate human body parts, and these two are buying direct from the funeral parlour – in broad daylight.

And then I'm rushed to the scene of another incident: a guy was trying to cut through cable with a simple saw, desperate to acquire the copper inside. Unfortunately, he chose a main power cable. Beyond a high fence topped with razor wire we can see him sitting there in a daze – barely alive. 50,000 volts have shot through him and his skin is hanging off in shreds. The worst part is, we can't get at him. The security guard is there but he gets locked into the site for the day to ensure he stays and does his job, and we are forced to wait for the company owners to arrive and let us in, the paramedics beside themselves with rage at the situation. Eventually they're allowed access and head towards the burn victim, and I figure it is wise to hang back at the car. Hang back with the gathering crowd who are jeering and pointing and taking photos with their mobile phones.

When the ambulance arrives, the man has essentially been mummified with wet bandages, a drip has been inserted and oxygen administered. One of the paramedics rides with him to the hospital because they don't trust the ambulance staff to actually take care of him on the thirty minute journey. He has 95% coverage of third degree burns to his body, and a pretty low chance of survival. A black guy has been turned white in a split second.

I'm getting a mere glimpse into the lives of these Hillbrow paramedics, and I'm not sure I can hack the rest of the day. They do it day in, day out, for months on end, and they're paid next to nothing for what they do despite working in one of the most dangerous cities in the world and in the most violent communities. Most of them are divorced or in disastrous sham marriages, with strings of broken relationships. Turning off emotions is essential in this job, and it is hard to turn those on again once you head back home; priorities are somewhat altered when you see dismembered bodies and the bloody results of brutal killings as par for the course.

At one point in the afternoon, a guy who is high as a kite on 'ganja' (the local term for a particularly strong type of marijuana) deliberately jumps into the side of our car. The way the two guys leap out to pursue him, I'm convinced they're going to beat the living daylights out of him: a broken wing mirror equates to a car that cannot be driven, and a car that cannot be driven means they're sitting around twiddling their thumbs while it is fixed – and while people die. Fixing a car out here can take months. I know. Mine was smashed into a wall by a mechanic who was driving it, and five weeks later I still don't have so much as a courtesy car and some stranger doesn't have a wall to his lounge.

The police eventually arrive but don't bother to leave their vehicle; they survey the scene, listening vaguely to both sides of the story. At some point the man we apparently 'drove into' makes note of the fact he's not actually being watched and slinks off around a corner, unobserved. No chase is given – not by the police, the two paramedics head after him but he's lost in the maze of buildings within moments. Nothing is done. And heaven only knows what is happening to the person we were on call to.

A man comes up to us and says he can cut us a new wing mirror, and since we have to hang around for an official Accident Investigator to appear we say go on, give it a shot. Fifty Rand if you can do it. He takes an old, blunt scalpel from a plastic bag, a bathroom mirror, and a sheet of newspaper. Slowly but surely, he cuts us a new mirror; he pops into a hardware shop to buy glue and sticks it on, his hands full of splinters of glass by this point. We give him a hundred because we're so impressed by his ingenuity, and are extremely grateful for making the car legal once more.

A brief visit to Hillbrow Police Station to report the incident is enough to illustrate to me why the crime levels are so high in this area: the police simply don't care. Half the time, it seems, they don't even enter the buildings where crimes have taken place because they're too scared. There is no law here. The underworld, the corrupt, they are in charge and rule by fear.

By the end of the day I am physically and emotionally drained. But I'm lucky: I get to wash my clothes, have a shower, leave behind the grime and the smells of Hillbrow, and wake up the next morning knowing I never need to go back there again if I don't want.