Whizzing shantytowns

As I type this on the bus, I’m looking out at an enormous shantytown. You get used to this kind of thing after a while, the highways are lined with squatter camps full of one-room, tin-roofed shacks. Many of them have no electricity or water. I’ve been told the squatter camps are full of not only South Africans, but also other blacks who come here from Zimbabwe (which is collapsing), Zambia, and other African countries.

It’s an eye-opener for me to see such intense poverty. These tiny houses are literally made out of tin sheets, plywood, all types of scrap. If I could I’d stop and go walk around inside one, but that opportunity hasn’t come up yet. So, I sit here in the bus, gazing at them as they pass by, looking at the people walking around, the children, the dogs, the trash, the putrid streams of water. I’m struck by their uniformity, everywhere you go in South Africa, the shantytowns look the same—tiny dwellings arranged in square grids, lining pathways of red dirt. During apartheid, the police would just bulldoze the settlements, but now the government is trying to help the people who live here. There’s a sense of real caring in this country, I detect it in everyone I speak to. People realize they have to deal with this poverty, or it will overwhelm the country and everything will fall apart.

I don't have pictures of the shantytowns because we fly by them with the bus windows closed. But tomorrow I'm heading into one with a guy who works for a company called Cell-Life, whose developing information technology systems to track medication use among people with HIV. So, I'll be able to post a few then. So for now, I've included other pictures--our gorgeous hotel in a town called Stallenbosch, where the best South African wines are grown. Try one called Thelima, if you can get it, particularly the savignon blanc. We also went to the innauguration of the biggest telescope in the southern hemisphere. President Mbeki gave a talk there, so I've included a picture of him. Just before the innauguration, a friend and I walked through the local town where I snapped my favorite picture yet, of a woman with her dog. And finally there's a photo taken from a helicopter trip over Capetown..what you see there is the very tip of the Cape of Good Hope. My first time on a helicopter and it was fun but nervewracking, there was an electrical storm going on and lightening strikes were all around us.

Mponeng Gold Mine

Today I had one of the most incredible experiences of my life. At around 9 o’clock in the morning, I was on my hands and knees, crawling 2 miles underground in a tunnel in South Africa’s deepest goldmine. Called Mponeng, which means “look at me,” in Zulu, the mine produces about a ton and a half of gold every month. If that sounds like a lot, consider that these miners have to haul out 3.5 tons of rock to generate just one ounce of that gold.

We arrived at 7:30 in the morning, got a short briefing from the director, suited up in overalls, hardhat, and boots, and then plunged downwards in an elevator they call “the cage.” As we traveled, the air got hotter and wetter, and condensation began to drip from the edges of the cage, collecting in little pools on the floor. When the door finally opened at the bottom, we walked out into the intense heat. The rocks down here are hot—more than 120 degrees. The mine itself is cooled by an enormous ice-making plant that pipes cool air down here to sustain life. Just when the heat would seem unbearable, we’d walk into a cool breeze and get some relief. At a certain point, we reached a tunnel that we literally had to crawl into. There was a rope along the wall face that allowed us to pull ourselves into this narrow, underground orifice, where the roof is held up by pilings and stacked pallets. The ground was wet, the air was thick, and I felt this incredible sense that I had to keep it together, that if I had gotten myself into this place then I had to also get out of it. The mine is pretty safe, even though it kills a few people every year; two last week, in fact. Mining accidents don’t kill neatly, either. People get crushed, or they explode when seismic blasts caused by mining-induced earthquakes hit them like bombs. You don’t take dead miners out whole, you scrape them off the walls and carry out the parts.

The mine director, an enormous guy with a booming South African accent stressed that “Mponeng is about people.” It was a typical corporate PR pitch, but you get the sense that the company does try to treat its people well. Most of the folks we saw down there were smiling and courteous. The people who work here come from all over the continent. They speak so many dialects that an actual mining language called Fanigalone (not sure about that spelling) was created out of necessity.

The mining technology is astounding. Down at the mine face, the tunnels seem fairly well organized, even though they’re hot, humid, and claustrophic. Up above, it’s all computers, geologic models, and scientists trying to figure out how they can follow the gold reef down towards the abysmal depths. How far can they go? That all depends on the global price for gold, which is now around 400 bucks an ounce. If the price doubled, then money to follow it even deeper, to three or four miles might be available. But going that far poses huge technical challenges, especially cooling.

As we pulled ourselves out of that narrow orifice back out into one of the main tunnels, I had this huge sense of relief. All I wanted was some water, I felt lighter than air as we walked the quarter mile or so back to our little gathering station, 2 miles underground. We were all red-faced and completely covered in sweat. We then headed back up the cage for a shower, some of that awful finger food that all the scientists give us for lunch, and a tour of the ice making plant.

After lunch, we went off to the Mintek laboratory to talk with scientists trying to expand markets for South African gold. Of the world’s total production, 83% is used for jewelry, 9% is used for electronics, and 8 percent is used for other stuff. The guys we talked to are into using gold for medical applications and catalysts in hydrogen fuel cells.

Back to the Michael Angelo for some more high class glory. We were supposed to go out for dinner and a jazz show, but everyone was totally wiped out. There was a bottle of champagne and a fruit bowl waiting for me in my room. A pair of slippers were placed next to my bed and there was a chocolate on my pillow.

Soweto Aids Clinic

Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head and went to Soweto on tuesday to speak with with AIDs researchers at the local Baragwanath Hospital. I had no idea what to expect, Soweto has in my mind always been associated with violence. For those of you who have never heard of the place, it’s South Africa’s largest and most famous black township, the birthplace of a major uprising that eventually produced the overthrow of the white ruling Nationalist Party, which created the apartheid system in 1948. During the most violent years, a practice called “necklacing” was apparently fairly commonplace there. This was a black-on-black torture that involved draping a burning tire over someone’s neck, usually suspected informants who were thought to be tipping off police about resistance activities.

But, Soweto wasn’t burning as I was driven through it in my taxi, sent to collect me by the hospital staff, and there weren’t any people rioting in the streets. What I saw was an ordinary town with ordinary streetlights, gas stations, bus stops, and people going about ordinary lives. There’s a picture of it here, taken from the 12^th story of the hospital. I never thought to photograph Soweto from the car, I was too busy prepping for interviews with hospital sources.

We, that is myself and Cheryl Pellerin, another junket journalist, were met by Efthia Vardas, a young doctor who runs clinical trials for AIDs vaccines. She sat with us for an hour in a conference room talking about the challenges of making a vaccine for HIV, which infects an estimated 15 percent of South Africa’s population, roughly 6.5 million cases. Soweto residents flock here to sign up for clinical trials, which they see as the “last hope” for dealing with HIV, Vardas said, but unfortunately most of them don’t think to change their sexual behavior, which involves un-protected liaisons with lots and lots of people—the average male has two regular partners and the number can range up to six or more.

High infection rates make Soweto a good place to run clinical trials, Vardas said. All the vaccines tested here so far are made by foreign companies, though. Only two AIDs vaccines have been produced in South Africa, but the country doesn’t have the capacity to manufacture them, so they haven’t been tested yet, and possibly never will be, in part because more advanced vaccines are now being developed elsewhere.

After our meeting with Vardas, we were shown around the clinic by Matilda Mogale, a Zulu nurse, around 60 years old. She knew all the employees by name, spoke all their languages and everyone we met smiled and laughed when she came around. These people have to support each other as best they can. Half the people who come here asking to be tested turn out to be HIV positive.

Michael Angelo hotel

Johannesburg, November 1, 2005. I’m here on a science journalism junket, sponsored by the South African International Marketing Council. The invitation came out of the blue and now after weeks of planning and an 18 hour flight I find myself at the Michael Angelo hotel in Sandton, one of J’Bergs richest suburbs. The IMC didn’t spare any creature comforts, I flew here first class and to say this hotel is top-shelf would be an understatement.

Haven’t had much time yet to look around the city. My sponsors arranged to have me picked up at the airport, where I was met by Charles Bronson, as he called himself, a funny black driver who spoke in that lilting accent that can be so hard to understand if you’re not used to it—a strong emphasis on the “i” as in “sit.” So, South Africa becomes “South Ifrica,” and so on.

My impressions so far are limited the opulence of this place. The Michael Angelo sits in the middle of a massive mall complex called Nelson Mandela square. I spent my first day here in a sleep-deprived, jet-lagged haze, surrounded by high-end clothing stores and excellent restaurants. An enormous statue of Nelson Mandela towers over the square and presides over hoards of diners sitting in outdoor cafes; a scene you might find in any major city in the western world. South Africa’s wealth and poverty are at opposite extremes, but so far, I’ve seen only glimpses of the latter: despondent street folk, hanging around listlessly, eyes to the ground. But around here, these ragged people are few in number. This afternoon, though, things will be different. I’m headed to Soweto to interview sources working at an AIDs clinic.