Through a glass window darkly

13 hour drive from Port Elizabeth to Durban via the Translux 1st Class bus. My first real chance to catch images of rural South Africa.

I can't stop looking out my window. I am addicted to it. I always have been, ever since the days of riding in the backseat on camping trips, with the constant impulse to look for wildlife. This time I spot a few antelopes but I am not sure exactly what type they were. Probably some Elands and a few bush boks.

Soon enough I don't notice the wildlife anymore. Once you get far enough outside of the city it begins to feel like you've gone back in time. White people are no longer seen. Only the faces of people that fight everyday for the most meager life.

Run down huts hardly provide shelter. It is a cold windy day on the "sunshine coast" and old women wrap themselves in rugs and blankets as they stood in line for bread and fruit. Children huddle around a fire in the lawn.

Driving through this, or rather past this, I realize that I can never truly empathize with these people. And thankfully so. In the saddest way possible I feel very lucky.

I look out at a man through the glass of the bus. Like everyone else so far, he spots me right away. I stick out as the only white passenger on the bus. And everyone that spots me pauses for a moment to watch me pass by for just a few seconds.

Looking at me wandering the same things that I am. How did I get this lot in life? And what must life be like on the other side of the glass? Every person that spots me stares and then gives this same stare, thinking this same thing. For just a few seconds and then I am gone.

I came to Africa knowing that this is what life is like for some. But looking through the glass is eerie. It's indescribable, and I apologize if this seems poetic or bombastic. I don't mean it to be but I'm writing this as I ride along.

And then there is this look of shame and guilt, from both of us. From them for the condition of their town, their clothes, their bodies. They look at me like life is just a habit that they can't seem to kick. For me the shame anyone would feel when you look at another human being like this through the window of a first class bus. You feel guilty for being so lucky.

For me I can't stop looking out my window. But there is still 500 miles of this ahead. And thousands more eyes to catch mine, from the other side of the glass.

Footnotes: Tomorrow I will be more upbeat and write a happier blog. We are in Durban and safe. I take back everything I said about South African's knowing how to cook Mexican food. We both smell pretty poor, most of the time. My beard is getting long and sexy. New Photos are up!