The Traveling Duo

Living between the Classes

Finally: news from the Traveling Duo!! As planned, we’ve decided to take a break from the traveling-road and settled into a more normal life in Durban, South Africa. Since arriving, we’ve been able to indulge in the privileged luxuries of home: IMAX theaters, shopping malls, 3 meals a day, trendy restaurants/bars, a car, an apartment…We’ve settled down, bought more stuff, taken on jobs and begun a work out routine. While all of this may sound great, we’ve become a little disatisified.

Upon entering the country, I decided to read a book from premier South African author Nadine Gordimer, World of Strangers. In her novel, she eloquently raised the same issue we have been feeling since we’ve settled down in our middle class lifestyle:

I wonder why it is that the life of poverty is regarded as more real than any other life. In books and films, the slice of life traditionally is cut from the lower crust; in almost all of us with full bellies, whose personal struggles are above the sustenance level, there is nervous, even a respectful feeling that life may be elsewhere.

Perhaps its a matter of the “grass is greener” effect and that humans can’t help but view the other side of the class line with a hint of jealousy. Or perhaps, there is more to this phenomena.

Prior to South Africa, “traveling” for us was living in the lower-classes. Taking public buses, living in the poor/urban sections of town, eating street food, living with bugs and dirt in our room. In Egypt, we ate greasy, carb-centric street food with no nutritional value, got in fights with the local laundry man over a $1 price difference, whiled our time away by hanging out in small alleyways and chatting with the locals. In Israel, we walked next to bullet-riddled buildings listening to the desperation in the residents’ stories and stayed near Damascus gate, otherwise known as “the wrong side of town”. These experiences were new to us: we were learning about a completely different way of living.

When we’ve been privileged to experience life on the other side of the class line, often having the two classes juxtaposed next to each other, we saw a lifestyle similar to the one we experienced at home in the US. In Israel, we watched the wealthy shop at fashion boutiques as we indulged in sweets at the ice cream parlor. In Egypt, we were invited by our dear friend Medhat to spend the weekend with his family at their summer home. We went to shopping centers, had home-delivered pizza, drank beer and wine and talked about philosophy, university, and traveling.

In our experience, the cultural lines become blurred once wealth arrives and the upper/middle class begins to look the same no matter where you go. In any semi-developed country, life in the upper class revolves around similar Hollywood-influenced ideas of what life should look like - go to university and then work at an office job, shop at malls, eat at upscale restaurants, go to the cinema, learn English.

On the other hand, the poor seem to have been sheltered from these effects of globalization.  While every Egyptian aspires to wear designer jeans and drive a BMW, only the wealthier ones can afford to live out their dream.  The blue collar guy that mans the local shwarma remains stuck in his traditional robes, walking or hitching rides to work.  He simply doesn’t have the opportunity to experience the same lifestyle as you would living in Europe or the US. Now that we are living in the middle class life in South Africa, perhaps we need to go to the poor sections of town and learn what it really means to be South African.