I have just spent two weeks in South Africa – and somehow the good and the bad has been starker this visit.
The main ‘bad’ is the almost daily load-shedding – or, to give it its real name, power cuts.
Load-shedding is a cynically sanitised word that implies some sort of visionary tactic.
On the contrary; Eskom must be the only company in the world that penalises people for using its product.
My two sons, who are now pukka Brits, were stunned that you have to pay for something that you don’t necessarily get.
Secondly, banking. I don’t know how business is done in SA, but to get a simple cash card is a nightmare; from standing in queues for hours with people who seem to be there solely for the easy chairs, to discovering that five working days actually means six.
I still haven’t got the card, although the bank did graciously provide a temporary one so I wouldn’t be destitute. Thanks.
Ah, but the good. That makes up for everything.
It starts with the warm familiarity that blankets you as you step off the plane and continues with a customs man who asks where you are going.
When you say KwaZulu-Natal, he beams and says he once had a girlfriend there.
Then he sees you have a wife with you, and he again beams and says he too is a family man. At what other international airport do you have such weird and wonderful banter?
Then, of course, there’s Zululand where people you haven’t seen for two years chat like you bumped into them yesterday. It’s impossible not to feel right back at home.
But perhaps the most entertaining thing for me was watching my two brats, who are now almost 20, experience some serious Zululand fun time.
We were down for management’s nephew’s wedding and had barely arrived when the brats were whisked off for a two days Bulls party on golf courses down the South Coast.
The brats are used to English courses, most of which are nine holes in urban areas. To play on an 18-hole course with views of the ocean and swaying palm trees was for them paradise.
Spot fine
I was happy to see the brats also held their own in the rough bachelor party banter. Indeed, one – swaggering with the buying power of British pounds – flashed a note and asked how many beers this rhino (the logo on the note) could buy. He was ‘fined’ on the spot.
They kept a low profile for two days after the Bulls bash and basically only truly woke up when the wedding contingent arrived in Zululand later that week.
It was going to be a bush ceremony in Heatonville and everything from ferrying guests along rocky ravines to the logistics of organisation in the wild was an exotic experience that they will probably never have again.
One of their duties was to look after the potjie that was being cooked the night before the big day to feed throngs of friends, groomsmen, bridesmaids and families that were sleeping in the bush lodge.
To put two Poms in charge of a potjie fire is not a pretty sight. The fact that the meal was not only served vaguely on time, but absolutely delicious, is due to good old South African luck (and local culinary skill from their cousin).
At one stage the fire almost went out completely as they were too busy fishing for Tilapia in the dam 20 metres away and next to a young basking croc just 10 metres away.
That too blew the brats’ minds, and no doubt some cellphone photos giving them killer reptilian street cred are doing the rounds among their mates.
Then the wedding itself; from the bride being led up a bumpy 4×4 track with pounding tom toms and Zulu dancers, to vows being exchanged in front of a stone cottage overlooking a wilderness of tamboti and acacia trees, and raucous midnight toasts with shots of Tequila and Jägermeister.
What were the toasts to?
Simple … the beauty of just being alive.
