Thread by @MattLawrenceArt

I met briefly met a white girl from Johannesburg, South Africa a while ago & asked her about living there.

The things she considers normal are so batshit crazy that it sounds like fiction. It's one of the most dystopian places I've ever heard of 🧵

I asked where her family lives. It's basically "prison as gated community" but you're keeping people out instead of in. Tall, thick concrete walls topped with barbed wire or electric fence with armed guards. Here's one in (according to her) a safe neighborhood:

I have no idea what you would do if you couldn't afford to live in a place like that.

Here's an example of a small electric fence surrounding a hotel/resort:

She told me when visitors come you need to meet them immediately when they arrive. Otherwise they risk robbery/carjacking while sitting there waiting in the car.

Robbery, rape, and home invasions are persistent threats. You need to carefully plan everything around this.

She told me a story about visiting her boyfriend's beach house in a different city. These doors are used to keep the place locked at all times and still get air flow.

They went to a convenience store & returned 15 minutes later, discovered they hadn't locked the back door.

They realized over the course of the next few days that in the 15 mins they were gone, they'd been professionally robbed, ninja-style.

Every single non-obvious item of value gone. An old watch from the BF's grandfather. Small electronic items.

Nearly every nook and cranny had been swept, but nothing big so it escaped immediate notice.

The first thing they noticed was an old iPhone went missing. It was still connected to the boyfriend's iCloud. Suddenly pictures of the thieves started showing up in his account.

They tracked down the thieves using the "Find My iPhone" feature. They paid the police to investigate it.

Cops don't care much about theft when they're dealing with things like machete dismemberment. However (if you pay them) apparently they'll at least go check it out.

She didn't say how much they paid, but I got the idea it was a significant amount.

The cops + boyfriend went to confront the thieves.

The cops just knocked on the door and that was it. Nobody answered despite clearly being inside.

The cops said "not much we can do" and that was the end of the "investigation." Probably some cop's cousin inside.

She told me "We should've hired mercenaries. They would've kicked down the door with automatic weapons and gotten our stuff back."

Holy shit! I asked if that's an option, why go with police?

"Mercenaries are quite a bit more expensive. After we wasted money on the police it wasn't worth the cost of the missing items to hire them too."

She wasn't even mad about it, just nonchalant. She talked about the event as a "hey that's South Africa for you!" moment, and said it wasn't even close to the first time something like this had happened.

Can you imagine living like this? You'd have to be armed to the teeth + combat training to take the fucking dog for a walk. Unreal how dystopian it sounds.

After hearing that (in her words, very minor) story, let's just say I crossed SA off of my travel itinerary forever