TIA: This Is Africa.

Just as I was getting comfortable here, and starting to let my guard down, I was suddenly reminded that I am in fact in a developing country with a high crime rate and if I want to stay safe, I am going to have to be a little more careful. This realization came to me last Friday as I stood in front of an abandoned rent-a-car office in a small town that I had travelled two hours by taxi (minibus) to get to and incidentally in the hottest, slowest taxi ever. As I made angry and desperate calls to try to remedy my situation, it was starting to get late and as far as I knew there was no other rental car in the small rural town in which I found myself. I was now quite far away from Jo’burg (where I was heading) and couldn’t go back to Groblersdal as the family I am staying with had also left for the weekend and I didn’t have the keys. Despite my ease with travelling alone and in places others consider dangerous I generally take reasonable precautions. I hadn’t really done that this time and South Africa is not the kind of place you want to wander around alone, on foot and in the dark with no place to go.

At first I was livid. I looked down at my printed voucher – the location was confirmed and I had even had a map. I had called the office earlier but the number had been busy. When I called head office they had confirmed the address and the phone number. It took several more angry calls from a street corner of Middleburg (the town that I was now in for the first time) to get someone at the travel place to finally admit that they had made a mistake. Luckily I found a garage nearby where the man was very nice and helpful as he listened to my situation. He said that there was a rental place in a town about 30 minutes away and he called them to see if they had cars. By some small miracle they did and I arranged with the booking place to cover the drop off fees for the car. Finally, about 4 hours after I was supposed to have been on my way, I got into the car with much relief (if I hadn’t been able to get the car, I honestly don’t know what I would have done. A bit of fool’s luck as it were). It was a good reminder to me, and next time I am going to be a lot more careful.

I now had a second challenge to face however. I had been in Johannesburg twice before, but each time in only very specific areas and I had never driven around the city at night (well I had been “driven” around in a semi-coherent state but I could hardly recall the streets I saw in my post-party blur). I had a few printed Google maps but it is a huge city and also one of the most dangerous in the world at night (Mom, if you’re reading: it’s not that bad. Really.). I had expected to come into the city early in the afternoon so that I could drive around at leisure and afford myself the luxury of getting lost. But now it was pitch dark and I was a woman, travelling alone. Thankfully for me, I don’t panic easily in such situations – I have seen enough in my life that for the most part it is incredibly hard to scare me (though large spiders seem to be one of the few things that still do the trick, but more on that later).

Also thankfully, I am good with maps and have a fairly decent sense of direction. With the exception of one major wrong turn which almost took me into the most dangerous part of town, I arrived reasonably close to where I needed to be and Fleur came to meet me at a gas station so we could go to her friend’s place nearby. I was pretty proud of myself, when all was said and done.

In any case, I was in town for Fleur’s birthday and so that night the festivities started with the usual pre-party followed by going to some random club that seemed to be playing all the hits from my high school days. Red bull became my best friend, as did some weird Turkish guy, his brother and his possibly mail-order bride girlfriend, when Fleur and company temporarily disappeared elsewhere. Or perhaps I had abandoned them at some point? Not really clear on the chronological sequence of events. The night is mostly a blur but it was a nice change from my little town life. The next morning I couldn’t sleep much, and it seemed that no one else could either so we decided to start the day off with some mimosas and rugby. A winning combination.

Most of the day was spent in the Jo’burg botanical gardens with Fleur’s friends making the rounds to wish her all the best. All together it was an interesting mix of people but I was starting to feel rather rough from the night before and spent most of the time chillin in the sun (aka, trying not to throw up). Luckily by late afternoon I was starting to bounce back. Right in time for a pool-side braaii, more red bull, and some absinthe (which will forever remind me of one Ms. Lori Stuckless: a good friend who, despite being famous for wearing country-club type debutant outfits as a matter of course, can and will get down and throw her posh body over a pile of suitcases at a dodgy British airport because she thinks shadows are after her underwear. That also is a story for another day.). There was however, no jumping into a pool this time. It’s now too warm to make it a crazy thing to do and so has temporarily lost its appeal to me as a party trick. In any case, I knew the next day would have lots of swimming in store.

On the Sunday I got to hang out with Fleur and family and eat the best meal I have had in a while. Of course, after stuffing yourself silly there is nothing like stripping into a bikini and jumping into the chilly pool to remind you why you wake up at 6 am to go jogging just to keep the lovehandles at bay. I have to stop eating the damn starch in this country! I miss my vegetarianism but damnit, the animals in South Africa just taste too good. Also to my fellow Croatians, you’ll be happy to know that there is yet another country that still revels in the goodness of MSG. It seems to be a key ingredient in half the sauces and seasonings here. Heading towards a slow painful death may just be worth the tasty ride though. Ah, MSG.
In any case, there is still no news in the job department though I am constantly pursuing opportunities and networking my ass off. IOMBA would be proud. I am also trying to accept the fact that there are some things I cannot control and I will have to deal with whatever happens in the end. At least I will have the comfort of knowing that I tried my damnedest to escape once again the icy clutches of Canadian winter. Seriously. I actually started to look for posts in Afghanistan to try to avoid the eventuality. In the end I know I will make the best of whatever happens though. Which is amazing. It means I’ve actually started to become an adult in there somewhere.

Incidentally, it is now full blown summer here in Groblersdal. For some reason it seems to be the hottest place around, and driving 20km in any direction means a drop in temperature of about 10 degrees. It’s not a bad thing but it makes me miss the sea. Walking through sand and palm trees in 30 degrees seems odd when there is no swimming at the end of it. It also means that the bugs have started to come out. Sadly I have already encountered two quite large spiders. Not as big as what I saw in Japan but still, enough to scare the crap out of me. I hate spiders. Luckily the family I live with doesn’t share my fear and the spiders were quickly dispatched via shoe bludgeoning as I stood by blubbering. They didn’t understand why I was scared, since as Ruth pointed out, “they are not poisonous ones”. Arachnophobia really is an inconvenience when one loves to travel to warm countries like I do.

As a non-sequitur I have now also seen most of north-eastern South Africa. For work I had to drive across Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces extensively and went as far up as the Zimbabwe border. It just confirmed what a beautiful country this is as I drove through endless African vistas, with various animals running alongside the car at times. Sometimes I feel I am in one of those nature shows living here. Nature gets me a little too excited at times. In trying to guess what all the animals are I at one point spotted something smallish, orange and cat-like to a friend who was with me, and asked her excitedly if it was possibly a baby tiger or something. She looked at me flatly as she responded “Lana. It’s a cat. A regular cat.”. I have to remind myself to keep my childish excitement at seeing animals in check lest I start looking like a complete tool.