My blog attracts viewers from Russia and Romania – the
bulk is however from the USA. I would appreciate it if you guys from Russia and
Romania as well as the land where Trump is up to his shenanigans and old Biden
whose ancestors hail from Ireland, lives, will get in touch with me. I have no idea
whatsoever why people from Russia or for that matter Romania, will look at my
blog! I say to you: WELCOME and please continue and to write me a story. Once
again: WELCOME
How do people migrate? It is a phenomenon since
creation of mankind. People migrate. How? This morning on my way to a friend of
mine, I see people migrating: always on the go to live somewhere else.
I heard my refugee-clients telling me how they fled the
atrocities of their countries, fleeing to the land of milk and honey: South
Africa. How? Walking [a better description is probably: fighting their way thru
the bush] thru thick bushes. Escaping lions. Swimming rivers and the lucky ones
got thru; the unlucky ones are devoured by crocodiles. Or their fellow country
men killing them with machetes – by the thousands in 100 days.
Others were hiding under tarpaulins on the trailers
behind the big trucks that are on our roads. Still, others, approaching border
posts, were hiding from customs and excise personnel; fortunately, some of
these customs officers can become blind instantly – especially when enough
money is exchanged. Some are so intoxicated of some weird and dangerous concoction
that they lie under these tarpaulins unable to move or even to call out! Yet,
they register what is going on and that they have to keep quiet, yet they do so
involuntary because of the diabolical workings of the concoctions.
On the national highway between Capetown and
Johannesburg these trucks are coming fast and furious from the opposite
direction either going to Egoli or on its way to the quay in Capetown. And then
I remember when I was very young, practicing the subtle and noble art of
hitch-hiking, I was picked up many a time by a trucker. Sometimes the driver
was kind and let me sit in the front with him. Mostly, you sat at the back of
the truck – have you ever sat on the back of a heavy-duty trailer facing
“backwards” so to speak, in other words not facing the way you are travelling?
Well – I won’t forget.
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When the moon is shining from above and you are
freezing on that trailer, charging thru the Bo-Karoo you have the wonderful
opportunity to watch faster going vehicles approaching and then overtaking your
benefactor and disappearing in the dark night. And you know you are somewhere
in Africa and that somewhere is South Africa. And more exactly, you know for
sure you are travelling on a trailer with your back to somewhere and you are
going somewhere. It is a physical and spiritual awareness on that heavy-duty
trailer facing backwards on a moonlit night in the Karoo.
And now, now that I am an older man, I am travelling
in my own vehicle and I do remember those days. And my wife is with me and we
celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary on the road to Capetown
because she is a botanical artist and she is exhibiting two of her paintings at
Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. Here is the link to that exhibition with her
paintings amongst 63 other botanical artists of South Africa.
ESKOM pylons in the veld of the Bo-Karoo, near Middelburg
I remember how many years ago, unmarried and travelling
from the Caprivi Zipfel to my love waiting for me in Roodepoort. I got a hitch
from the heart of the Caprivi Zipfel in a real old British army Land Rover who
dropped me slapdash in the middle of the wild Southern Africa bush of Botswana.
I remember clearly, he told me that he was going to turn right at a specific
bush going due south thru Botswana. Then all of a sudden, he tells me: “Do you
see that big one right in front of us? Yes, that huge tree on the right! I will
drop you there. OK?”
And it was OK with me because I was going straight, if
you can call it straight thru the bush to Rhodesia. And there I was standing
with my luggage on a wide gravel road in Botswana in the wilderness: waiting
for another lift. I was standing in the bush and it was far from quiet: I heard
the Landrover engine fading away leaving me to listen to the bush.
My motto was: if there is a road, there will be a
vehicle and that driver will stop and take me with.
There I was, standing in the blazing hot Botswana sun
waiting and looking at elephants having a big ball of a party in the Zambezi
River not far from me. They were splattering and cajoling in the river not too
far from me and I was watching them. That was more or less 1971. Some time,
heh?
Over the tree tops, I saw something akin to dust or
smoke rising – can it be my next hitch? Or what is it? What is that smoke?
Coley Hall-trucks were all over the place and it was one of those; he stopped
and I hopped on. Off we were going like mad thru the African bush fast
approaching the Rhodesian border – not the Zimbabwean border because Zim was
only a living concept in the terrorists’ minds. Zimbabwe. You remember the
Zimbabwean Ruins? Well, now it is something else. I see it is called THE GREAT
ZIMBABWEAN RUINS. No, I was not going to see those ruins, I was on my way to
South Africa hitching trucks and anything else that will pick me up.
Sitting in the front of that Coley Hall truck, I had a
very good outlook over these trees of Botswana, Zambia and Rhodesia: those
greens were fascinating. All different shades or green with shocking blue skies
that you get in Africa. And then I saw smoke rising in the distance. Surely the
bush is on fire! And that is dangerous. My driver/guide was so gentle with me,
obviously unskilled in the ways of the foreign bush. “No,” he said to me “It is
not smoke. It is moise-a-tunya!” And he waited for my next question: “What on
earth is moise-a-tunya?” “Oh.” He said. “It is the smoke that thunders.” And he
kept quiet.
Looking back now to that conversation, I realise what
a masterful story-teller he was. A simple truckdriver? A skilled
conversationalist and master craftsman of stories of the bush of Africa. He was
also a master teacher to re-interpret history. He explained: “That is what you
whiteys refer to as Victoria Falls.” Of course, he was spot on; it is a
European construct: Victoria Falls. It was to honour a queen sitting somewhere
in a place called the United Kingdom. We grew up with the “scientific
knowledge” that the great explorer David Livingstone have “discovered” it. Not
so! Not so by far. The indigenous peoples of that land knew it even before
David was an excited speck in his father’s eyeballs. That was way back when I learned
this history lesson.
The heading refers to Middelburg in the Eastern Cape
and my short video clip is of trucks on the national highway north and south bound.
My wife and I were on our way back home in Rivonia, Johannesburg, Gauteng from
a round trip of more than 3300 kilometers. It was my 73rd birthday
and our 50th wedding anniversary. And to celebrate her first botanical
art exhibition at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens of South Africa. This is a
story for another blog post – I got distracted and ended up reminiscing my road
trip thru the southern part of southern Africa using my thumb to bum lifts from
all and sundry.
Please write me your story: neelscoertse@wirelessza.co.za
