What’s your view: Tourist or Resident?

Recently our son came home from Church and mentioned a conversation he had with a young Lass from his Church, who had just returned from a holiday in South Africa.

As he had spent much of his youth there he asked her if she visited certain places that he was familiar with. Some Like Port Elizabeth he knew quite well having spent 3 years studying Architecture at the Technikon there. Then talk turned to Umtata and nearby Coffee Bay, a Back-packer’s retreat where she spent 2 days, before returning to Umtata and on To Durban.

When my son mentioned that it was Umtata where he spent the rest of his 11 years in Transkei/South Africa, she replied along the lines, "Oh, so you grew up in the country! “

Which just about floored our boy!

He said to me later something along the lines off, I guess her view is expected from someone who grew up in Melbourne with its 3.8 Million spread widely around could call Umtata “Country”, but it just isn’t true of Umtata. It is true that Umtata has some lovely rural views and once you go ten or so Kilometres from the Town center it is like traveling back in time some 30 years to the Round mud huts and cooking on open fires and a rural subsistence farming life with a lot of the ploughing and such, done by Ox or Donkeys.

However although Umtata does look a little rural and have livestock grazing on vacant land within 3 kms of the GPO, it also has a population of close to 2 Million people living within a 15km radius of the GPO. The fact that a lot of this population is crammed into small areas, hidden over the other sides of the hills adds to the rural view I guess.

My son’s experience reminded me of a similar experience in our first year there. I was bringing a guy in from a Church Conference in a remote area, about 15 kms to the nearest Bus stop, for him to get a ride the next 40 kms back to Umtata. Driving through the rugged, rocky, mountainous countryside, I remarked on how beautiful it looked, and his reply also grounded me when he said, “Not if you are trying to make a living off it”.

I too was looking at it with a tourist’s eyes. He, like my son recently, was looking at it as a long time resident and seeing the reality of life there.

What about you? While sometimes it is beneficial to see some things with Rose Coloured glasses, we also need to see the reality of life around us and be aware of our true surroundings.

Do you really know what is going on around you or are you still looking at things with Tourists eyes despite being a long time resident? Over to you: Walter