IT PAYS TO BE STREETWISE
Trip Start
Jul 14, 2007
1
9
12
Trip End
Ongoing
Johannesburg,
South Africa
Monday, November 19, 2007
"Streetwise two,regular mash and a soft twirl",for example....not so long ago the mind would have boggled at the interpretation of this conundrum.Now I have lived,post apartheid,among the free people,and indeed the Free State people of the former Boer Republics,I am instantly aware that this is merely the most popular order at the multiple chains of Kentucky Fried Chicken.Namely,two pieces of chicken and fries,mashed potatoe with gravy,and a vanilla ice cream cone.
Having been away from home for so long,it will be interesting to see if the mash is available on the British high street,and if the portions of chips have shrunk so low that they match the half dozen or so dished out in South Africa.Remarkably,they don't appear to have had any complaints.It doesn't matter how many outlets there are,the queues are nearly always immense.I waited for 30 minutes in Durban one evening.Heaven help us at the World Cup.Football fans will be in serious danger of starvation,not to mention rigor mortis,if the number of outlets doesn't increase.
At least KFC's usually have a civilising affect on the populace,and can be a relative haven from the tension of many city streets,where the paranoid fear of crime is almost everpresent.That is,except in Blomfontein,where an excessive amount of youths loiter at street corners,especially on a weekend,and the KFC is a regular spot for begging and scrounging by some.
Everybody in South Africa warns of the danger,especially of mugging.In Britain you take your valuables out with you for safety in case the house is broken into.In South Africa,you leave them under lock and key,or at least behind the fenced and gated entrance security of all establishments.Most of the time,people's advice seems exaggerated,and perhaps outdated by a few years as things have improved at least a bit since the immediate post apartheid turmoil.But vigilance is always necessary,and some places are virtual no go areas for white people after dark,especially in my experience,in central Joburg,and in Bloemfontein.I found it quite surprising just how few white South Africans there are,and how entrenched they must often feel in the midst of natives who rarely mix,and are a potential threat at any time.
South Africa certainly has a history,and has by far the greatest number,and most time consuming of museums on this continent.It also has the only really big cities since Cairo,and the most developed.Most shops are of the chain store variety,though and there is little diversity or charm in the city centre retail districts,or the malls that abound in the so called white suburbs.The latter suburbs are to all intents and purposes black,but at least you SEE some other white people,SOMETIMES! Most of them are driving past in their cars,or working in the shops.The majority of their customers are still black,except where they are clearly not welcome.
I found Kwazulu Natal to be the safest part of the country.Me and a new friend I met in Dundee(S Africa) backpackers were able to hire a car and tour the Zulu War and Boer War battlefields for a week,without too much fear of the kind of carjackings at gunpoint that are prevalent elsewhere.My friends biggest danger was not from crime,but from overeating,as while I came home from Africa with a smaller stomach and less appetite,after getting used to smaller portions,he wolfed down six pieces of chicken and four bags of chips on our last night,putting my usual Streetwise Two to shame hands down.I finished early and waited for him in the car!
It remains to be seen if the next World Cup will turn into a bloodbath.But if you want to know how bad crime is in S Africa,you only have to stay around long enough and you will see it for yourself.I was in Cape Town for three weeks,and witnessed several victims in that short time.
One day a bloodied American came up to me in the street asking for financial help to get his train,because he had been mugged for his wallet and wristwatch in a minibus in broad daylight,just coming back from the Table Mountain cable car.
A day or two later,I was taking a tour of Robben Island,when the guide got news that his cousin had just been shot dead in a carjacking.Perhaps the fact that South Africa has turned most of it's prisons into museums might have something to do with it.
Then,near the end of my stay,I and a couple behind me nearly fell victim to cashpoint fraud.The machines were out of order,but as I approached,one man said he had just withdrawn cash,and said it will work if you put the card in corrrectly.Then another,supposedly unconnected man came up,and appeared to withdraw some cash.
A third man in a yellow security coat watched all this from a safe distance,keeping quiet but smiling as if it were OK to trust this guy.I relented and gave him his chance.He held my card simultaneously with me and together we pushed it into the machine.Next thing,I was unsure if it had gone in.
I smelled a rat when the machine did not respond.I said to him "My card is up your sleeve".
He said "No,no",but seconds later the card reappeared in his hand.
He was very good at his con trick but I had been suspicious from the start,while still unsure enough,and impatient enough for cash,to ultimately accept his "assistance".
I got away with it,and walked off to find another machine,but as I glanced back,the bemused looking couple who had also wanted to make a withdrawal were now being engaged by the same charm that had almost caught me.I still hadn't quite got accustomed to the idea that the yellow coated man wasn't a security guard and I left them to it,assuming rightly or wrongly that he would let no harm come to them,despite my close shave.
Streetwise Two,Gangs of Three,gun crimes...
Later in the trip,I was in Bloemfontein.One night I almost got mugged just walking fifty yards after dark from the Backpackers to the nearby big hotel to use the computers.As I made my way,three youths who were walking in my direction converged from opposite sides of the street.The nearest one shouted something aggressive in his own language.I assumed the worst and,outnumbered,turned and ran.I did not see who,but at least one of them gave chase and punched my daysack in the back,breaking my camera filter.
KEN BATES WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS
I could only go back.Either side of me,electric fences prevented me from running onto other people's gardens,perhaps beating on their door for help.Luckily I ran heart burstingly fast,and escaped.Me and the hostel owner's assistant went back down the road with big sticks afterwards to frighten them off,but they had scarpered.
The next day I explained what had happened to an employee of the local corner shop.He told me that he had been mugged himself three times recently.
Walking around town that day,the male prostitutes who hang out on street corners seemed to have taken on a new menace.I winced at police cars roaring by,enjoying their shiny new motor car,maybe listening to some sounds on their stereo,head in the clouds,not wanting to spoil their day by arresting any of their old mates from the township.I thought of how the white police must have felt in Apartheid days,seeing crowds of rioters on street corners,and going out and shooting some of them.
Wrong as that was,for a short while,I could understand how they might have felt.Fearful and angry,thinking that these "up to no goods" were asking for it.
Places like this shame the new South Africa and only dilute the genuine injustice of the past.
I hope we are not counting football supporters home in bodybags with the shot count and the corner tally in 2010,but FIFA have certainly taken an almighty gamble coming here with the World's number one roadshow.
Earlier in my travels,in Kenya or Ethiopia,I met people who said "Don't go to southern Africa.They will kill you."
I took this with a pinch of salt.Things were indeed not that bad.I got home alive,didn't I?
But a few months later and it's on the news that in S African townships,natives are killing desperate Zimbabwean immigrants,justifying it by explaining how the incomers are taking their jobs.
Maybe the words I had heard were completely true in their experience.They wouldn't just "kill 'em",as we might say flippantly in Europe,meaning beating them up or something.
They really meant "KILL" them.
