Cynthia Schwertsik

Downtown Johannesburg

what a crowded place – I only got to take some photographs in the rather open spaces… & from the -top of Africa- in the carltoncentre – the highest house in africa – like the view- though the wind really howls around it

we walked around, in all the noise – everybody is beeping their horns constantly, police cars howl & there is no respect for pedestrians – we did’nt see a white person in the open – our host, from europe, she uses the public space, but all others told us in what kind of danger we are, but we met quite friendly & the usual – urban stressed people – most of them loved our littleones dragontail – (his basic accessoire – in one of the fotos)

then we went to see the suburbs – the american dream – or who’s dream is it – house with a garden, like Adelaide? The only difference is there is serious fencing around, and guards sitting on the street, what a strange feeling that is to drive through that street, imagining all the people in their little protected wellfare home – what are they doing in there, what do they have to go through to go out? & what does the poor guy (black of course) think, he who is stitting outside to defend the tranquility? It seems scary to me to sit in a cage and shut the world out, so we went back to downtown, locked in the car & through a couple of security codes out of the city to our town-ship – suburb (that is what we could call this school) we live next to the town-ship in a fenced of property.

So back to painting the sky & such – ignoring the fences for a while…