Sharing South Africa

Most of the blogs I read are written by women who live in Europe or America.  No one lives in Africa. Perhaps I'm not looking in the right place - not that it's an issue at all.

I know that there are a lot of misguided views about Africa, and even South Africa. People think we live in huts and ride elephants to school (seriously - friends of mine have been asked this while overseas) and it always makes me laugh. Even living in South Africa, some of my friends have asked where we got our food in Zimbabwe, or if white people live there (from the shops, and yes they do). During the FIFA World Cup 2010, many foreigners did not want to visit South Africa because of the high crime rate and everyone thought we could not do it - we could not host a successful world cup. Guess what? That month was one of the best months of my life. After the month ended, everyone took back their previous comments and congratulated us on an outstanding effort.

If you've never visited Africa, or South Africa, before, you won't truly understand how beautiful it is. There is no place like home. Whenever I am in Europe, I miss Africa. I miss the openness. I miss home. I have friends who aren't from South Africa but have lived here for a number of years, and moving back to Europe, they always talk about how much they miss South Africa, and I don't blame them.

I now turn to you and ask - what is it that you wonder about South Africa? What do you want to know? If you had to visit my country (for the first time or even the sixth time) - which cities would you visit? What sites would you see? What stories have you heard about my country - perhaps ones that seem misguided? When you think of South Africa, what stands out for you? What sites would you see? What would you try out? What can you do here that you can't do anywhere else in the world? Even if you are from South Africa, what things do you wish you did more of? I know that living here, I don't take as much advantage of this country as I could. When said European friends visit South Africa, we always do so much more with them and see so much more of this country than we ever do on our own. It's terrible.

I'd love to hear your thoughts in order for me to show you what a beautiful country I live in. I'd love to show it off and at the same time, give you what you want. There is so much to know about the world and doing my part by providing that much more knowledge on South Africa would be a pleasure.

P.S. My photo's are taking way too long to download, so that's all I'll be putting up for now. Also, I know both are from Cape Town but do you know what it's like to be in love with a city?