What is life like in Joberg?

My girlfriend is from SA and used to live in Joburg and she has some frightening stories. She was a street away from a murder and even heard the gunshot!!! She did used to live in quite poor areas though, they tend to be crime ridden in every big city, no matter where you are in the world.
 
Nearly every house has bars on the windows, these are proper bars as well, often screwed in to the brick work. Doors and windows are always locked when you leave the house, same as here realy. If you go in to the wrong area and walk around there is a high chance they will rob you down to your boxers, happened to my friends once, had to go back on a taxi for 10km in their boxers on new years day.

I lived in cape town for 13 years and was never mugged, but had garden chairs nicked from back garden a few times, had bike stolen from front of house a few times. Basically opportunistic undesirables walk around and take what they can get it. You do get some types of organised crime and that can be common. Hijackings, happened to my dad on two occasions, both times he was dropping off workers at the shanti town and he got a gun to his head. Home invasions, new a friend that was invaded with 5 people tied up the family, put smokes out on the children and raped the wife, cleaned the house out. But i think this was premeditated as the father apparently ripped someone off or he said he thought he knew them.

You can't leave anything in public anywhere because it will go in mins. Left a jacket or bag around at college and that was gone within a few mins. You don't get many pick pockets and most of the time there is zero trouble. I used to walk around the city center in the early hours of the night, hitch hiking back and forth from city to suburbs. I was hitch hiking at 13 to the beach and never had problems.

I knew many people that got murdered or raped and robbed but often because they mixed with the wrong people and drug culture. If you just go to work and live a average life, the biggest risk is hijacking and home invasion.

Joberg i heard is 10 times worse.
 
groen said:
Nearly every house has bars on the windows, these are proper bars as well, often screwed in to the brick work. Doors and windows are always locked when you leave the house, same as here realy. If you go in to the wrong area and walk around there is a high chance they will rob you down to your boxers, happened to my friends once, had to go back on a taxi for 10km in their boxers on new years day.

I lived in cape town for 13 years and was never mugged, but had garden chairs nicked from back garden a few times, had bike stolen from front of house a few times. Basically opportunistic undesirables walk around and take what they can get it. You do get some types of organised crime and that can be common. Hijackings, happened to my dad on two occasions, both times he was dropping off workers at the shanti town and he got a gun to his head. Home invasions, new a friend that was invaded with 5 people tied up the family, put smokes out on the children and raped the wife, cleaned the house out. But i think this was premeditated as the father apparently ripped someone off or he said he thought he knew them.

You can't leave anything in public anywhere because it will go in mins. Left a jacket or bag around at college and that was gone within a few mins. You don't get many pick pockets and most of the time there is zero trouble. I used to walk around the city center in the early hours of the night, hitch hiking back and forth from city to suburbs. I was hitch hiking at 13 to the beach and never had problems.

I knew many people that got murdered or raped and robbed but often because they mixed with the wrong people and drug culture. If you just go to work and live a average life, the biggest risk is hijacking and home invasion.

Joberg i heard is 10 times worse.
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Jesus. That is horrible :(
 
I have been recently advising people that have assets in SA to be cautious because mandela is about to die, which creates an unknown. As well as the recent mining riots and the wine producer strikes, government corruption and black empowerment employment legislation on the rise. All contributing to create an environment that I would try to stay clear of, at least until mandela dies and can see what happens if anything. Hopefully they have a political revolution as well, i think that would beneficial because currently even the africans are getting fed up with the government. The africans have voted for anc since 1994 because they would rather have that party than any white party. But the anc is not delivering and is corrupt so hopefully the africans start voting with more thought on things and not just due to the past.
 
It is not that bad, it sounds worse when you only hear the worst stories. If someone picked all the worse stories from the uk they could make uk sound like that. The difference is that there are far more desperate people in poverty than uk, so that is just taken in to consideration in your daily life. After a while you don't even see the bars any more.

Amongst the people that you would probably associate with, there would most likely be less violence than in the uk, ie when you go to a club or a nice area for food or similar. You are less likely to see aggression than in the uk.
 
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I hope so. I'm not staying anyway - just landing in Joburg then driving about 300 miles to the lodge where we are staying. I'm certainly not passing up the opportunity to visit South Africa and go on safari for the sake of passing through a dangerous city.
 
I went there for two days on a business trip. I loved it but there was certainly an underlying feeling of potential violence. Some parts seem very poor and driving back to the airport we went through some not great areas (had the taxi broken down then I would not have liked to get out and walk in those areas while in my suit!. But sticking to the tourist areas seemed fine. I've worked with a few South Africans and heard some pretty bad stories though.
 
groen said:
It is not that bad, it sounds worse when you only hear the worst stories. If someone picked all the worse stories from the uk they could make uk sound like that. The difference is that there are far more desperate people in poverty than uk, so that is just taken in to consideration in your daily life. After a while you don't even see the bars any more.
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Agreed! I was going to edit my post as it seems ''harsh'' what I said about the country I was born in however I think sometimes you become ''unemotional'' to what happens as it happens more often. I think its possibly a shock to people who have not lived in that type of environment, growing up in it and moving to it are two different things.

One thing I would say is I would not bring up a child in that place, its just not safe in my opinion, neither is it here by all means but the risk ratio is much higher there.

I possibly lived in not the nicest areas and my youth was hard and full of danger and I can only remember the bad things as they have stuck in my head. The other town I grew up in was ''brakpan''...translated I think it means dogs dish...kinda summed it up nicely!

My grand parents are in their 70's and they are perfectly happy in Springs and dont live anywhere special, i would say in a worse area but they just live and let live and that seems to work, yes they been mugged at cashpoints etc but they just carry on.
 
groen said:
It is not that bad, it sounds worse when you only hear the worst stories. If someone picked all the worse stories from the uk they could make uk sound like that. The difference is that there are far more desperate people in poverty than uk, so that is just taken in to consideration in your daily life. After a while you don't even see the bars any more.

Amongst the people that you would probably associate with, there would most likely be less violence than in the uk, ie when you go to a club or a nice area for food or similar. You are less likely to see aggression than in the uk.
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Yusis bru, when did you start talking sense :P
 
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