May 24th 2009: Journal Entry 4- Reflections on thoughts on flight over and expectations

As I look back on what I wrote on my flight over I can see that I was a bit unsure of how journalism works in South Africa. I was also not confident of what to expect of seeing South Africa because of the idea of “impoverished Africa” that most people commonly hold. It has been more than two weeks since I have been here in Cape Town and in my internship. While some of initial concerns have been eased there are some thoughts that have been confirmed.

In terms of my experience moving around Cape Town and going to places I have fortunately not had any threatening or dangerous encounters with anyone. While I remain alert and confident I don’t walk feeling anxious anymore like I did for the first two to three days. I have learnt how one is supposed to talk and walk when in the city.

Another thing that I was extremely impressed by was the level of awareness around HIV/AIDS and the kind of grassroots movements that are taking place. Almost every single day at my internship, Bush Radio there are some activities and programs related to improving the community or spreading the word about something. So far it seems that most people in South Africa, as cliché as this might sound, are geared in being involved and social upliftment. The number of organizations, events and fundraisers that are occurring daily are proof of that.

Cape Town is a really vibrant city in terms of people. I initially thought in many ways that it would remind me of how Dubai is. In this case it would seem I was right except for a few things. The people living here are so completely different from each other racially, culturally and even on language terms. In Dubai most of the population are made up of expatriates and very few are of Arab nationality. In Cape Town while the native blacks are the majority, there are still many more communities like Malay, Indian, white and Coloured. In terms of interactions, in Dubai most people stick to and grow up in their own community groups and now and then interact with people of different ethnicities, but not consciously. Here in Cape Town interactions seem pretty varied, but again this is based on my experience. But even though the country in general is still recovering from the wounds of apartheid, I find that communication and contact with people not only racially different but speaking very different languages is quite common.

I seemed to have also been worried about how well I would adjust to the workplace atmosphere in our internships. The concept of orientation or adjustment is clearly not a necessity. As soon as we were shown around the studio we were thrown into work. The work culture seemed much more casual than what I am used to and maybe a bit less structured. There was this one time during my first few days when I arranged for an interview for one of the shows but I had no idea that I was required to get a landline for that and 15 minutes before we went on air someone informed me and I immediately scrambled. Had I known about this policy I would have definitely done it, but I was simply not told and I just had to find out for myself. The kind of sink or swim mentality here is a bit surprising but at the same time a nice challenge.