Welcome to my blog!

Hello, my name is Johan Mellström and I am 24 year old Swedish student being here, in Langa, to do a four month long internship at Project Playground. This internship will be part of my Masters Degree in Political Science and Development Studies at Uppsala University, from where I already have a Bachelors Degree. During this whole stay I’m going to run this blog where I will tell about my daily experiences in Langa and at Project Playground. But first, I would like to tell about my way down to Cape Town that was everything else than straight.

One of my biggest passions in life is to travel and get introduced to new people and cultures, and therefore I decided to turn my way to Cape Town into a real adventure. Instead of flying into Cape Town like most people do, I flew into Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, approximately 7000 km away from Langa. This big and polluted town which mostly serves as a hub for people going to either Zanzibar or to Arusha didn’t win my heart and I quickly decided to travel south across the country until arriving at the Malawian border where I entered the country they call “Africa’s heart”.

Malawi is a fascinating place filled with beautiful nature, lovely people, traditional culture and bad minibuses. Every single trip – no matter distance – can take more than a day to travel. Most buses don’t run after dark, which in Malawi means six o clock, and what at first glance on a map looks like hundred comfortable kilometres, can in fact put you on the side of the road in the end of the evening. Flexibility is essential. I stayed one week at Nkhata Bay, right by the Lake Malawi, which is the most beautiful and picturesque lake, I ever seen in my life. I couldn’t stop looking, and I didn’t want to leave. However, I had already decided that I wanted to climb Malawi’s highest mountain, Mount Mulanje, and therefore I had to say goodbye against my will. I threw a stone in the water and prayed to return one sunny day in the future.

The stunning beauty of Lake Malawi

Mount Mulanje, also nicked “the island in sky”, measures 3002 meter above sea level and in order to climb it I was in need of some warm clothes. I went to the flea market in Blantyre (where they ironically mostly sold old Swedish sport shirts) and found a purple ski jacket with gold details from the 90´s. Classy. I was ready and took a minibus to the small village by the foot of the mountain where I had to find myself a guide that could show me the way to the summit since climbing it alone is forbidden. The expedition took two days and was tougher than I had expected, and afterwards I needed one day in order to recover and gain strength for my next mission - a 18-hour bus ride from to Vilkankulos, Mozambique.

Mozambique’s modern history is very different from the one of Malawi – a country often referred as pacifistic. Mozambique that is a former Portuguese colony didn’t receive independence until 1975, and shortly after this the country fell into a destructive civil war that lasted until 1992. Even a backpacking tourist like me could feel that the wounds from this weren’t yet healed, and that Mozambique still is a very divided country. In some moments I felt like being trapped in a police state. As a tourist you always have to carry around your passport, and the underpaid policemen are more than happy to double-check that the required visa still is valid - especially in the capital city of Maputo where bribes has to be counted into the daily travel budget. This is extremely frustrating and something that harms Mozambique’s tourism a great deal. 

The country’s biggest tourist attractions are its sandy beaches and turquoise water that are filled with humpback whales, giant rays and whale sharks. I spend some beautiful days along the coastline and enjoyed all the delicious seafood that the local fishermen sell for a reasonable amount of meticais. Unfortunately is my Portuguese vocabulary limited to “bom dia” (good day) and “obrigado” (thank you) and I noticed in an early stage how much connection I lost towards the local community when I no longer could communicate with the locals. On top, only a tiny percentage of the people understand any English, and this made the language barrier so thick that body language sometimes was the only way to order a meal on a restaurant. This is both charming and exhausting. After two weeks I decided to continue my trip and crossed the boarder into the Kingdom of Swaziland, the smallest country in the region of Southern Africa.

Swaziland is the last absolute monarchy in the world and King Mswati III is taking all the political decisions in the country. Travelling around here is easy since the Swazi roads are of good quality and distances always are short. I stayed no longer than two nights but experienced some amazing wildlife and got the chance to see elephants, rhinos, giraffes and ONE deeply sleeping lion. Way to go, king of the jungle! I also visited Lobamba, the country’s traditional and legislative capital, where I went to the national museum and learned about the Swazi traditions.

One of Swaziland's many elephants 

The day after it was raining and I went to the minibus station at eight o clock in the morning and found a half full bus going to Durban. At this stage I was aware of the fill-up system that dominates public transportation and rules out any kind of time schedule, and in Malawi and Mozambique I was sometimes unlucky enough to sit up to one hour waiting for the driver to start the engine. This time was however different. Hour after hour passed and people had breakfast (fried chicken with fries) and lunch (fried chicken with fries). The rain stopped, and started again. Still the bus didn’t move a single centimetre and no one, no one except me, seemed to care about getting to Durban before the end of the month. At eleven o clock there was just one seat free in the bus and I started to feel hope. One more. Common. How could people be so utterly relaxed and regardless when we were so close? I had no idea. Some guys went out to buy some more food for the trip (fried chicken with fries) and came back again. Had time stopped for real? Never in my life had I felt that bored. And then, at half past one - after five and half hours in the bus - the driver decided to ash his cigarette, put his cap on and crawl into the bus. I felt euphoria. I felt both excitement and relief. I felt like celebrating with a high-five or some kind of funky dance move, but no one else was in. I didn’t care, because I was on my way to South Africa.

I arrived late at the central station without any money and the guy sitting next to me in the bus told me to absolutely not walk around in downtown at that hour. I told him that I needed an ATM but he said that even that was a bad idea. He searched in his pocket and found fifty rand that he handed over saying; “if I ever get to your country, if that ever happens, then I expect to be treated in the same way.” I nodded my head and felt like giving him a big hug. He said it was fine and walked in the other direction. I grabbed a taxi and jumped in. My eyes were glowing of amazement – what a fantastic thing to do!

I stayed one night in Durban and didn’t have time to see much of the city. I wanted to go to Coffee Bay, a small fishing village in Eastern Cape, and the morning after I was back on the road on a SA Roadlink bus to Mthatha. At this time I was reading  “long walk to freedom” and I felt privileged of having the scenery of Nelson Mandela’s childhood around me when doing so. Green hills and colourful rondavelas; the beauty of Madiba´s homeland wasn’t exaggerated. It was magical.

I had four magnificent days in Coffee Bay and got introduced to the Xhosa culture for the first time in my life. I was invited to visit the home of Samkelo, a man that sometimes worked at the hostel, and he showed me around in his village and told me about his family’s rituals and traditions. He told me that he once worked in the mining industry close to Johannesburg but that he now decided to return and live the same life as his father did before him. He was now without both water and electricity but close to family and nature. I asked about his opinion regarding the mining strikes but he said he didn’t care. Politics wasn’t for him he said, even less now than before.

Samkelos wife was happy that he decided to come back to Coffee Bay

I left Coffee Bay and continued down the coast towards the famous Garden Route. Here, the nature was even more stunning and dramatic with a landscape somewhere in between Twin Peaks and Lord of the Rings, a terrible idea for a movie, but a beautiful mixture of nature. I stayed some days in Storms River and one night in Knysna before I jumped on the night bus to Cape Town. The Mother City was calling on me and I couldn’t resist her anymore.