Being a Journalist

Or rather assistant journalist. Oh, alright, we just tagged along for the ride. Anyway, as part of our focus on hanging around with our mates instead of being mere tourists, we were taken by a friend to a shady back alley residence to see him interview a couple of Somalian guys about their experiences as asylum seekers in South Africa.

They had some pretty harrowing stories, although nothing really that different to what you would hear from a Somali asylum seeker in London. They were bullied (sometimes with violence) for trying to earn a keep and blamed for taking away money and jobs from the locality when all they were doing was working harder than the locals. They were seen as foreigners who clearly had a home to go back to.

In short: different country, same stuff. Even though I nodded off for a bit (hey! We had travelled half way across the world the day before), it was an eye opening experience, one that added yet another dimension to the general issue of race relations in South Africa.