Thursday we arrived in Johannesburg and were met by Dad's childhood friend, Ian, and his wife Jackie.

Quick digression for a key story about the next few days -

Dad was born in 1949 in Eshowe, Natal province to Luther & Lillian Reinertsen, Lutheran missionaries that lived in South Africa from 1946. By the time Dad was about 7 his family had moved to a town called Welkom in the gold fields of the Orange Free State. They lived here until Luther & Lillian were killed in a car accident 4 June 1959.

In Welkom Dad was close friends with Ian. With in a day or two after the car acicident and funeral, however, he was moved with his brother and sister to Hlabisa in the heart of kwaZulu-Natal (then called Zululand) to live with family friends - and never saw Ian again.

Ian had been searching for dad for the last 50 years and only found him online through a church registry back in December 2008. Though Ian now lives in London he and his wife Jackie were planning a trip to South Africa - at the same time that mom & dad were mulling the concept over. Thus, the concept of this trip began and Dad is returning to South Africa for the first time in nearly 50 years.

Back to present day

Arriving in Jo'burg is a confronting thing. We were picked up in a transfer van from the tour company (which had 'wake me up before you go go!' and several lions and leopards painted on the side with the tourist co logo...excellent) and proceeded to wind through suburban streets filled with people walking everywhere. Newspaper sellers and window washers approach you at each intersection, and with reports of carjackings and daylight muggings through any tourist information you can't help but feel a bit uneasy (even if they do have today's broadsheet in hand). This discomfort is magnified by modest middle class houses being barricaded by razor wire, 6-8 strands of electric fencing atop concrete walls and signs notifying of armed response and guard dogs.

In stark contrast to what's on the outside of the fence, the hotel is a lovely colonial era estate on a cliff side overlooking the zoo and gardens nearby and, once you're inside the guarded gate, is all very idyllic and posh and old fashioned. We met Ian and Jackie in the 'Polo Lounge' if that gives you any indication. The next day we planned to drive to Welkom to see my grandparents' gravesite and one of dad's boyhood homes. It was at this point that Ian warned us that he had hired a guard to take us to the cemetery and that, if it was 'not safe,' we may not be able to go. Raised eyebrows all around from the Reinertsens.

That night I had a horrible time sleeping and decided to pick up the autobiography 'Kaffir Boy' about a boy who grew up in the Alexandra ghetto outside Jo'burg during the 60s and 70s. I probably should have read it sooner and felt a bit ashamed that I hadn't had a chance to learn that much about apartheid before arriving. I remember hearing bits and pieces about it throughout the 80s and of course when Mandela was freed from jail. When I was at Wellesley I heard there were a number of protests and boycotts (of Coke? Or was it Pepsi?) during the 80s. But beyond that...my knowledge was very limited.

Kaffir Boy was an excellent introduction to what it meant in practical terms for day to day life in South Africa. 15 years on and you can see Jo'burg still reeling from the effects and you have to wonder how the country will ever pull itself out of it. It's so upsetting to see and you feel so helpless at the magnitude of the problem. And yet can you blame the (predominantly, let's face it) whites from living behind the fences if at every moment they actually do face some sort of threat, be it violent or opportunistic. At first exposure, you see a country well and truly divided by race, with an electric fence in between.

Anyway safe to say it's very upsetting to see first hand (and I haven't even scratched the surface).