The day started at 5 AM, **cough** let me try this again 5:00 AM! There. My mom woke up excited for the market, which woke me up and it just happened to be 5:00 AM (we need to be up at 6:30 AM...just saying). So now that I am awake I can't go back to sleep and I go online. I talk to my best friend because you know you can talk to your best friend even when it's 12 AM for her (Hi Jen <3 ).
We leave the house around 7 and head to....duh duh duh daaaa duh daaaa THE MARKET. Okay the market has to be one of our favourite things in Pretoria. This is our third time going to the market. We do our final shopping and know exactly what we need and where it is (bread, cheese, coffee, breakfast, samosas) (The Bread Gypsy, Kamilla's Farm, That OCD cafe, good food stand, and heaven). We leave that market at around 8:40 and head home.
When we got home everyone slept but me. Instead I played with a little boy called Acorn. His parents come every Saturday to clean the house, and this week they brought him. We coloured, I made him a friendship bracelet, piggy back rides were had, tickle fights were fought, and we built a fort So yeah I basically had the best morning in the history of mornings.
Tinta came around 12. We were going to take the train to Johannesburg. We started off walking to were the taxis where. It was about a 15 minute walk, not far. We took a taxi all together to Hatfeild, where the train stations are. We had to walk a little further to get to the train station. During the walk we passed the Canadian High Commission. It was a short walk and soon enough we were on the train. The train passed through country side heading to the other big city.
The train is one of the first steps the government is taking to connect Johannesburg and Pretoria into one big city. Mainly because The two names of the cities are Africaun names. Africauns are originally Dutch people, and their language sounds like a mixture between Dutch and German. 16 years ago Africauns ruled everything in South Africa and Native African people were still considered slaves. The road names are all changing as well. A big change might happen to South Africa in May, when the election is taking place. A party that is famous for white discrimination is running in the election. They are promising to swipe out all Africaun people if they get elected.
We get to Johannesburg in about 20 minutes. When we get there we start walking to Nelson Mandela Square. Johannesburg seems to have a lot of money. New skyscrapers are being built, and every other car is a golden bugatti.
We walk to the mall and sit down at the first restaurant we come to called Europa. I ordered a mint-coffee milkshake, and a pesto dish. After we ate we walked around the mall. In doing so I found the most beautiful flowy dress ever. I had seen a picture of a dress just like it months before and had fallen in love with it. Now it sat right there and I wanted it. It was 550 rend which is 55 dollars Canadian. We walked away, but I knew if I remembered it in and hour and still wanted it we would probably go back (as horrible as that sounds).
We walked through the mall out onto a square where a Nelson Mandela statue was being photographed by tourists after tourists. I went and sat on the steps and people watched. I examined their clothes, how they acted, who they were with. I noticed something, I noticed a gap. That if you walked, 5 minutes away there would be someone lying on the street dying from hunger. But they don't see it, the rich don't see the poor. They choose not to. Their Gucci glasses are near sighted, they are so consumed in what they have in who they are that they can't see the poor, and they choose this. They choose to be consumed. But the poor see the rich, the poor are not consumed in themselves, nor what they have. They see the gap placed by money, not by how far away they are physically. Physically they are right there, by their feet. But do the rich look down? No. Never.
We were about to go when I mentioned the dress again. So we walked back the whole time I am jumping and getting very very excited for this dress. We get to the store, I get in the change room, I put it on. The world stops. It snaps, the string in my head snaps. I can see now, I can see it all now. I can see how little my dress is worth. I feel sick, completely sick in this dress. That I thought for so long that material items made me happy, that I could slip the dress on and I would be happy for eternity. News Flash Katie material items hold evaporating wealth. In a couple days the worth of that dress to me would mean nothing. While the people around me mean everything, and that isn't an evaporating wealth, that is golden, not like the golden bugattis not like that, no. Not like the skyscrapers, or fancy glasses, never. No a different kind of golden, the kind that people die for. The kind sane people risk their lives for, that kind of golden.
I walked out of the store. I walked out without the dress, like I had realised I had no phone. But this time I did not cry, this time the evaporating wealth didn't cause condensation. Done. I was done with wealth, I was done with shopping, I was done with tears, and I was done with my Gucci Glasses.
We got the train back to Pretoria, and Paul drove us home from the train station. I crashed once we got home.
-Z
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