65. South Africa: Zimbabwe border to Johannesburg

We had finally arrived.  When we were first planning this trip, one of the goals was to visit South Africa. If you were on a US university campus at the time, Apartheid was one of the major issues, along with US involvement in the wars in Central America.  It was not an easy place to visit.  At the time there were many countries around the world (including all of the previous 16 African countries on our trip) that would not give you a visa if you had a South African visa in the passport. Before we left the US we had to apply for a second passport, which actually said “for use only in South Africa and Israel”. With these we applied in the US for visas to South Africa, as there would be no SA consulates in the rest of the continent.  We had these parallel passports, with the prohibited visas, in the deepest recesses of our document pouches and feared that they might be found at every border we crossed.  Fortunately, the only body search I can recall that we had was in Spanish Sahara, and they did not find them.

We pass through Venda on this stretch.  It was one of the infamous homelands at the time.  As had been done in Southwest Africa (later Namibia), and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) productive land had been assigned one way or another to White farmers, some land had been set aside as national parks and other marginal areas as indigenous homelands.  In the case of South Africa they had taken this a step further and declared some of them independent countries.  Some subsistence farming and grazing went on in these homelands, but they were economically completely dependent on the surrounding “South Africa”.  As we were to observe, Black people had to sleep in these areas, and then bus to work every day in the White zones of South Africa.  They were essentially larger versions of the townships that we will visit in later posts.

Map of the homelands some of which were "Officially Independent" at the time we traveled through, from www.planetware.com

On a completely different subject, Dan has 6 mango trees around his house in Bolivia, so has made many batches of mango chutney through the years, but tried it for the first time on this hitching ride.

Zimbabwe border - Johannesburg, SA, July 4, 1983

(DAN) One of the first things that meets your eye as you walk toward the border post are the bathroom signs “Non-Whites” and farther on “Whites Only.” We have finally arrived.

All of the border officials were white and wore blindingly white uniforms with shorts. We didn’t have any trouble as we had our onward ticket, sufficient funds, and the visa. We are on our “other passports” now. When we got to customs he did not even look at our bags. “Do you have anything to declare? Biltong (jerky)? Firearms?” Stamp. I almost forgot that before they stamped anything, they looked our names up in a thick book with a computer printout of names. They let us in so I guess the Kansas State University Coalition for Human Rights has not yet made their blacklist.

We walked out beyond the gates 100 m to wait for a lift. Our first sight of SA was of a lot of litter. While we sat there a group of SA soldiers came trotting by and then came back again. A couple seemed really fit, but a couple more were no longer young or svelte. All white males are subject to yearly service.

We waited there perhaps 45 minutes when a big semi (“articulated lorry”) came into sight. We have had very little luck with truckers so we did not even stand up. The truck slowed and the driver lifted his arms as if to say, do you want a ride or not? He could take us to Messina (12 km) or he could take us to Pretoria (500 km) if we didn’t mind arriving about midnight. We flung our packs into the completely empty trailer and climbed in the cab. (It was an International assembled here in South Africa, Nat and Price.) There was already a passenger and just one seat, so Helena perched on the hump above the motor and I was tucked away into the space behind the seats. This time, however, it was set up something like a bed, so I could recline on the pillows and see out over the passenger’s head.

The two people were extremely friendly, so we decided to go on with them at least to Louis Trichardt. After a while we realized we were in the presence of “coloreds”, not just any colored, but “Cape Coloured” since they were from the Cape. Through the hours it surfaced that they were Muslims and, though they did not come out and say it, we surmise they are descended from the Malays on the Cape. In appearance, they could have been mis­taken for American Indians, as they had thick, straight black hair and not too dark a com­plexion.

They were among our most generous hosts and before long they made an interesting proposition. The driver, James, said he had a flat rented in Jo’burg that he does not use. It is not furnished, but we could use our sleeping bags and the shower. Since they were going all the way to Jo’burg we were welcome to go that far, use his flat, and then take the short train ride to Pretoria in the morning. (The alternative was to stop soon and then face a whole day of hitching tomorrow.) Now, Helena was more suspicious than I, not least because of our bad experience in Morocco, but after a while we accepted and settled in for a long ride.

Around sunset, we passed through the edge of Venda, one of the “independent countries” within SA that was formerly Bantustan. Though the drought is as bad or worse down here, the land appeared to be in better shape than the homelands in Zimbabwe. We stopped for an hour at the compound of an Indian trader. Our two companions were good friends with him and disappeared into his house while the truck was being fueled. Indians are also “coloured” here.

Once on the road again, we did not get far into the mountains before we stopped for a bite of supper. Now Helena and I had already supped on bread and cheese, but they absolutely insisted we join them for bread, pilchards and mango chutney. We were stopped at an unusual “lay-by” that is placed between two consecutive long tunnels. Quite secluded.

As we ate in the light of the parking lights, the conversation turned strongly to the subject of apartheid. The younger man was especially bitter and decried the injustices, especially to the blacks. James gave the example of the empty buses we saw going in our direction. “Those are the buses from Venda which transport workers to Louis Trichardt (approximately 30 km). They will run until 2300 tonight because there are not enough to transport everybody. Tomorrow they will start heading back to the white township at 0300. The workers all work from 800 to 1700, but they have to start getting rides at 0300 so as not to be late to work. If they are late for work, they will be fired, and there are 200 more men waiting for that job. They continually have that threat hanging over their heads. The Vendans of course cannot sleep in Louis Trichardt.”

In other words, the people theoretically could get as little as four hours at home each day. That would be for eating and sleeping. Likely they spend as much time waiting for a ride as working or at home.

The younger one, Kaseem, said to us, “If you ever decide to emigrate here to SA, be civilized and not like these other people that have come.” This is not the first time we have heard that some of the most racist people are the ones just emigrated and enjoying the structural superiority.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Kaseem talked at one time of going with us on the train to Pretoria in the morning. “But you realize I can’t ride in the same car with you? There are train cars reserved for whites and you have to ride there.”

James (the driver) talked a lot about apartheid, but the couple of times we saw him talk with blacks, he kind of treated them like children. He also talked about “how lazy they were, and how they wouldn’t get any work done under black supervision. But put a white over them and they will work like crazy. They’ve been taught to fear white voices,” etc.

On another tangent, we talked to Kaseem about their Muslim beliefs (we were eating crackers and bananas, and on our second Coke). He said one reason they were aiding us is this is Ramadan, and they should be fasting. However while you are traveling, the Koran allows you to eat during the day. However, you must make up for it by being kind to fellow travelers. Wow! He also had some vague remarks about how he was into “mysticism” and how this had led him to see more of the Truth. He also claimed the Koran gives the woman as many rights as the man and they are completely equal (right!).

We did not talk constantly as James has a fancy tape deck set up. Part of the time we tooled down the highway to the sound of Engelbert Humperdink’s greatest hits. As it got later, he happened on a tape of ABBA. Helena, who by now had changed places with me, lay back on the bed and just purred at the sound.

The highways are Al grade all of the way, and an hour north of Pretoria the road becomes “interstate” with four lanes and no direct access. We passed right through Pretoria, but who can see anything at night and from an expressway.

We finally officially arrived in Jo’burg at 0130. (There are pretty steady lights all the way from Pretoria.) However James took us to the trucking company depot to leave the truck. He had a pickup there ready to take us, but first we went into the very fancy office --complete with telex and multiple phones-- for a leisurely cup of coffee.

The most memorable subject discussed there was Van Riebeck, a Dutch convict, who was the official first White settler and a national hero. He came up because his face is on all the currency (they changed $20 US for us). It is well known he lived with a Hottentot woman all along, however the new, revised history books claim he came out with a European wife.

Finally we piled into James’ Peugeot pickup and headed for his flat. It is pretty close to downtown Jo’burg, so even that took a long time. The flat turned out to be a freshly painted one-room job with a sink and shower, but no loo. We talked a while longer with the men, getting directions for going to Pretoria, and other advice. We were dead tired but they continued to talk in the door of the building until after we went to sleep. They had been driving for 26 hours.

James’ trucking company is a large firm with 80 or so rigs covering SA, Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi. Recently, they have been completely hired out by Anglo-American for running things up to Kitwe, in the Zambian copper belt. This is the first time I’ve heard that Zambia, the radical “front-line” country, gets most of its income from a mine owned by Anglo-American!!