The Dissector Travel Channel: From Deutschland In Winter to Sunny South Africa

October 25th, 2009 - by: danny

LEAVING GERMANY, ARRIVING SOUTH AFRICA
FROM FREEZING TO SWEATING
BAG MISSING: THE TREK GOES ON

The Joys of Travel.

You arrive early for your flight to Frankfurt from Berlin. You have a connection to make to South Africa. It’s an hour on line to get the boarding pass. You go through security. Beep Beep. Damm, forgot the phone. Soon there is an announcement in German. People aroumd you start to move out of the lounge.

What are they saying? Where Are They Going? You ask. You finally find someone who speaks English.

A passenger tells you your flight has just been canceled. Everyone is running now, from gate l0 to gate 8.

Another Security check. You are in. You wait in line. No announcement. You start to board but you have the old boarding pass. Nein!

Back through security to another line to get another pass.

It’s meltdown time. You start to think of the night ahead in a Frankfurt airport hotel and a whole day waiting for the next flight on a South African Airways plane.

You revert to form, becoming the theAmerican pushy macho man. You can take the boy out of the Bronx but not the Bronx Out of the boy…. They hear you. They give you the pass to get rid of you.

Back through security, round three. They seem to know you now. My Mac is getting used to this. Hooray, you make the flight, It is jammed. You squeeze into a middle seat. You know its gonna take a long time to get off the sucker.

We are off. No announcement when we start circling. This is not good. We are late.

I am groaning. What can you do? These are the joys of air travel. Bitch, Bitch, moan, moan.

Everyone else is deep in their third newspaper of the day.

Finally land at 8 PM, just as the flight to South Africa starts boarding. I am of course at A 24 when I need to be at B 42. I think of the Afrikaner’s long trek.

If you have ever been to the Frankfurt airport, you know how humongas it is. There are none of those transports you see at American airports and no one to complain too.

You are now fatalistic, walking as fast as you can.

Now I am in a long tunnel with blue lights, something out of a horror movie, and then though a passport check. It’s another half mile to the promised land of Gate 42.

Finally, I am there. The plane has boarded, but I can get on. However, my bag has not made it.

They will send it on the next flight.

They don’t. I hope to finally pick it up today Sunday. My clothes give new meaning to the word funky.

The flight was jammed. I feel like I am squeezed in steerage. Fortunately, I was seated next to an articulate young guy named Guy. It turns out he is a doctor and researcher working on an AIDS vaccine. Fascinating stories, but I wish the prognosis is better.

He thinks it may take another 20 years. They just had a big set back in a trial. Its discouraging. So many still dying. He is very impressive returning from a Vaccinne conference in Paris. He’s upset because he lost his credit card and couldn’t get gifts for his kids.

It’s always the small things.

I immediatly went from Johanneburg to Durban for the weekend. It was like going from Fall to Summer. I was on a new discount airtline. Slogan: “More Nice, A Better Price.”

Durban is their Miami Beach, a major tourist destination, as diverse a community as you can find – a big Indian population, a large Zulu population, whites, Muslims, Jews, You name it. It’s hot but of course my swimming trunks are swimming in that bag somewhere in the system, swimming its way to me.

The news in South Africa seems to have three themes, corruption trials, militant and disruotive protests against “service failures” in poor communities with the Communists being blamed, and the coming World Cup in 2010.

For a hysterical take on the news, their Daily Show is the work of a great outspoken Cartoonist Zapiro of the Mail and Guardian. He and colleagues produce ZA NEWS, a new animated feature that has the whole country in stitches as it satires newsmakers along with Archbishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela. The technique is brilliant. You need to know more about the situation here to get it fully but it is worth looking at for how this country laughs at itself.

Check this out

WORLD CUP COMING

From my window at the lovely number 19 bread and breakfast, I can see a mammoth new stadium built near a giant casino where I showed my film IN DEBT WE TRUST when I was here last for the Durban International Film Festival. Talk about contradictions.

The coming World Cup created a big construction boom but it is ending soon, And then what?

Those jobs will not come back. The billions spent to provide infrastructure for a giant sporting event will not provide real economic development. If the experience of other countries is any guide, South Africa will loose money in the end. The massive poverty and unemployment will be with it after the games are gone, but for now football fever is everywhere even thought most of the people probably cannot afford tickets which are being sold over the internet by lottery.

For the real story, check out a new film, Fahrenheit 2010 that cuts through the hype and shows what this means for a country that seems to be undeveloping with lowering life expectancy not to mention an AIDS pandemic and millions living in shacks with no access to water See their trailer on You Tube or at www.levitationfilms.com The film was made by Craig Tanner with my old friend Michael Cross who very kindly tells me I inspired him to take on serious subjects like this. This is an important film.

Will it get seen? See Why it should.

Later today I will meet other participants in the Power of Reporting conference that I have come to attend at Wits University. I will also be showing my almost finished film, PLUNDER: THE CRIME OF OUR TIME.

More on all that later. As I have more to do, I will have more to say.

Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

New Book/Film site in construction at http://www.plunderthecrimeofourtime.com

The News Dissector