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HUNTEDvsINVIS · Post by **HUNTEDvsINVIS** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 11:37 pm

Our president is apparently building a R90 000 000 wall around his home in Cape Town, South Africa. I think that would be about 15 000 000 dollars worth of wall. But also note that our minister of defence claimed that crime is "exaggerated" in SA. Ridiculous. Police men even use their vans to transport and sell meat every once in a while...You name it, Africa has it...

Katy · Post by **Katy** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 11:58 pm

HUNTEDvsINVIS wrote:Our president is apparently building a R90 000 000 wall around his home in Cape Town, South Africa. I think that would be about 15 000 000 dollars worth of wall. But also note that our minister of defence claimed that crime is "exaggerated" in SA. Ridiculous. Police men even use their vans to transport and sell meat every once in a while...You name it, Africa has it...

I liked South Africa but it did seem they were quite paranoid. The dean of students gave us so many warnings about not travelling alone and crap and that was the safest I felt on the whole trip. Anyway, 15 000 000 worth of wall is a little extreme... how big is his home!?!

HUNTEDvsINVIS · Post by **HUNTEDvsINVIS** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 12:30 am

nah, the crime is quite bad here. Just the other day there was an armed robbery around the corner from where i live at a diamond store. Apparently the stupid locals saw ten guys standing outside the shop a week before the event happened, and they heard them talking on their cellphones and planning to rob the place. The locals didn't even contact the police or anything. I was nearly killed 3 times, just the other day people threatened 7 year old outside their school with knives, and in the "black" suburb downtown, two guys just walked down the road and stabbed two other people to death because they wouldn't give them cigarettes. The stories go on and on. It's really bad.

Elizabeth Isabelle · Post by **Elizabeth Isabelle** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:45 pm

Doesn't sound any worse than much of America. In the city where I used to live, someone smashed open my car window to steal some chewing gum. One day during final exams, at school someone smashed the windows out of the car in front of mine, to the left of mine, and to the right of mine, and a bunch of other cars, and stole whatever they could find. I hadn't had time to wash my car in awhile, so it was really covered in bird droppings (appearantly the best security system is a natural one). That night at home, someone again smashed out the windows of the car to the left of mine and over a half dozen other cars in the parking lot - and again they left my do-do covered car alone. :)

I live in a much safer city now, but there is still at least one shooting every day. When I was a little kid, I lived in a very safe small town, and yet I was at knifepoint on my way home from school in the 3rd grade. What you're describing sounds normal to me.

Shahrazad · Post by **Shahrazad** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 2:01 pm

That night at home, someone again smashed out the windows of the car to the left of mine and over a half dozen other cars in the parking lot - and again they left my do-do covered car alone. :)

Cool. After that, it must have taken you a long time to wash your car again.

Katy · Post by **Katy** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 4:12 pm

Well, I'd rather have my car broken into than be stabbed or shot. At any rate, I'm more than willing to walk around NYC late at night by myself, and that's notoriously one of the worst in this country. Though admittedly I walked around Cape Town alone at night, too without any problems. I'm more afraid here in the middle-of-nowhere than I am in any city (save, apparently, Chennai, India, go figure) but that's more a fear of "things" jumping out and getting me and not based in any form of reality.

I did get robbed in Saigon, so maybe I shouldn't have been out after dark by myself. Then again, maybe I just got unlucky...

HUNTEDvsINVIS · Post by **HUNTEDvsINVIS** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 9:02 pm

Well, SA has been ranked second for assault and murder per capita as well as for rapes per capita. Anyway, my town is probably one of the safest and beautiful ones you will find here. Johannesburg is Death itself. And you don't want to know the stuff that goes on in the townships... ... ...

Elizabeth Isabelle · Post by **Elizabeth Isabelle** » Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:14 pm

Katy wrote:Well, I'd rather have my car broken into than be stabbed or shot.

In that town, I was also shot at coming out of a park one day, shootings were common and regular, especially on Saturday nights, stabbings were so regular even in high school that we had to wait nearly a week for the school resource officer to have enough time to come talk to our class (meanwhile he would just stop by and explain basically what happened which was why he couldn't lecture that day - and yes, there was enough criminal activity to keep a full-time cop busy entirly at the high school). I just didn't go into the whole list (and actually there isn't enough time or space for the whole list).

Since a number of members (including you) previously voiced a distaste for the harsher realities being posted on the board, I toned it down. I gave you a bit more this time, but I still kept it toned down for fragile ears like yours Katy - at your and others' request. Don't push it.

Katy · Post by **Katy** » Thu Feb 22, 2007 11:53 am

HUNTEDvsINVIS wrote:Well, SA has been ranked second for assault and murder per capita as well as for rapes per capita. Anyway, my town is probably one of the safest and beautiful ones you will find here. Johannesburg is Death itself. And you don't want to know the stuff that goes on in the townships... ... ...

Yeah, but I wonder how much the rates of assault and murder are affected by the townships and if the cities themselves are really much worse than other places.

I suspect that is primarily due to a folk belief that having sex with a virgin will cure one of AIDS. I would be curious to see rates for the cities, and other countries.

I've been to the townships - when I was there I was doing a volunteer project where we were weighing children and comparing their weights to those of kids outside of the townships. I made the mistake of getting separated from the other 3 people I was working with there and haven't been that scared at any point since. But the city I had no problem with. It might have been that I was coming out of a lot of developing nations and Cape Town was the most familiar thing I'd seen in 2 months, though.

EI - certainly you can see the difference between saying "it had a high rape and murder rate" and giving detailed personal experiences?

GENIUS FORUMS

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