Dispatch from the Dark Continent: Working in South Africa
MBToolBox loves hearing from its readers around the country. Today, writer Margaret O’Connor tells us about her experiences in South Africa. Stumbling down the stained red carpet sprawled across the tarmac at Joburg International Airport, I wondered if my husband Jonathan had tipped off South African Airways that I was a reluctant expatriate (establishing a pan-African merchant banking for Barclays had earned him Platinum frequent flyer status 6 months after arriving in the country). The brigade of anorexic women in ostrich skin boots and horrendous platinum bouffants scrumming in the airport arrivals hall validated my first-impression of the place: Johannesburg was the Dallas of the Dark Continent. Still in a stupor after two consecutive overnight flights, I stopped to gape when the cowgirls broke into a rendition of “YMCA” accompanied by a chorus line of gay men in overalls and parrot yellow construction helmets. I scanned the melee for a hidden camera. “Always creating a scene…” Jonathan teased me before admitting that the Village People had arrived on the same flight as I had.
It was my first clue about the local populations’ obsession for all things American. Eight years after the first democratic elections, South Africa was still a little tyke striving to establish its own identity. The barrage of Hollywood films, New York rap, and American television that flooded the country after it lost its pariah status had eroded urban South Africans’ sense of self. A native New Yorker and survivor of the then-recent 9-11 terrorist attacks (the Pickford moving van arrived at my East Village sublet thirty seconds before the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center), I was plied with questions about the mess in Manhattan and my prognosis for America.
With no formal employment to fill my days (it was my turn to be the trailing spouse), I started calling friends of journalist friends. My Palm Pilot was full of such contacts after 15 years of pimping for a global television news distribution company, The NewsMarket, MasterCard International, and a pair of politicians. Lunching with the media was one skill I had polished after a decade-and-a-half in PR. Over countless bottles of eminently quaffable sauvignon blanc (living in the city with the world’s highest murder rate wasn’t conducive to denying oneself life’s simple pleasures), the South African editors and reporters I met wanted to know why someone with a good job would ever choose to leave New York and what I missed most about the place. One such discussion eventually translated into my first-ever freelance magazine assignment: a New York travel piece for the fluffiest glossy in the country.
It was a welcome relief from the tedious isolation of working on the first draft of my first novel. Shortly after touching down in New York, I realized I had succumbed to the post 9-11 Baby Boom. In the sick throws of early pregnancy, I returned to my favorite NOLITA boutiques, restaurants, and nighttime haunts with a photographer friend and a notebook. It was my first tentative step towards becoming a paid interpreter of American lifestyles, trends, and destinations for South African publications.
My next foray into freelance came when I decided to translate my nascent interest in sailing into a “how-to” piece for the South African edition of Shape. I liked their style (prompt and professional). And they liked mine well enough to commission stories on the painful art of compromise (the trailing spouse routine was harder than I expected!), alternative healing therapies, and the like.
Armed with some decent clips, I pitched South African GQ with a story about South Africa’s colorful attempt to break into The America’s Cup with a locally designed yacht. My former sailing instructor, now the South African America’s Cup skipper, fed me story ideas for a range of publications. With two more years to go until the America’s Cup finals in Valencia, Spain, I have established a nice niche for local and foreign publications. It’s also great fun to sail around on a world-class boat surrounded by seventeen hunky gentleman.
Uncovering the dark secrets of the wine world in the rural Western Cape is my other key beat. I’ve spent the better part of this past year learning how to hand-press Pinot grapes and pumping trade secrets out of the country’s best bubbly makers. I plan to repackage this research for my second novel for American travel and wine publications.
Although I’m lucky enough to have a holiday home in the Cape-and valid work reasons to frequent it and New York sublets, Johannesburg is the current anchor in my three-city lifestyle.
Johannesburg is the commercial capitol of African. In addition to hearing all 11 of South Africa’s official languages on its teeming streets, you hear animated chatter in every African dialect from Angola to Zimbabwe. But English is the language of business and money and the majority of media types speak a variation of the Queen’s English. In addition to having my British husband proof-read stories for South African publications, I’ve changed my spellchecker to British English.
The City of Gold is no place to strike it rich as a freelancer. National magazines pay newcomers an average of US $500 (ZAR 3000) for a 1,500-word feature. The good news is that editors tend not to demand many copy changes for this modest fee and you can dine out for the better part of a month on the after-tax portion of one such commission.
The South African media community is a tightly knit clan. Editors take press junkets together, booze together, and sleep together. They’re generous about making introductions and publicly humiliating those who break their trust. (it’s happened twice in my three-year-tenure here)
They’re also open to e-mail queries and there’s a wide-range of outlets for writers who want to break into new sectors or recycle existing material. South African editions of international men’s and women’s titles (Cosmo, Elle, Glamour, GQ, Marie Claire, Men’s Health, and O); local lifestyle (Food & Home, House & Leisure, Style, Visi, Wine); home-grown sports (Bicycle, Dive, Golf, and South African Sailing) local travel (Country Life, Getaway, and Sawubona-the SAA in-flight magazine); and wildlife (Africa Geographic and Bird Life).
Protections for freelancers are minimal. I’ve yet to receive a written contract from a local publication detailing rights, pay, or agreements about kill fees. This can work to your advantage if you’re savvy about drumming up reprint opportunities on foreign shores.
Most members of the Johannesburg Foreign Correspondents Club use the city as an R&R station between covering Mugabe madness, strife in the Sudan, and AIDS everywhere on the continent. That leaves a lot of room for those of us more interested (or qualified) to hustle stories on magic mud massages, sculptresses who started out as sangomas, and American actresses acting out on African soil.
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