Safety, Power, Reading

I don’t think I’ve mentioned much about safety and security here, but it is a huge issue. We live in a gated complex with electric wire fencing on top of 6ft high walls and we have a 24/7 security patrol. Public transport is strictly “no-go”, as is walking anywhere except the local shops. Although we have not personally felt in any danger, I have heard a few stories recently that make me stop and think. Firstly, let me explain that to call someone “black” here is neither racist nor derogatory, it is a statement of fact and quite acceptable. I spoke to Gloria, a black worker at the library where I have been volunteering; she had been off work for a few days and I asked how she was doing. Her daughter had gone missing without a trace and no one seemed very interested in finding her. Gloria now has to look after her two grandchildren, so she had moved into their home. Home is a tin shack. On the third night, having arranged other care for them, she went home to her own house (also a tin shack) where she lives alone. She woke in the middle of the night to realise that her home was in the process of being stolen…not burgled, stolen…lifted right up and moved whilst she was asleep inside! She was dropped back down when she screamed; obviously the perpetrators knew of her situation and assumed she was still at her daughter’s house.
Then Les came home to tell me that one of his workers had not turned up for work. Repeated calls to his mobile were eventually answered by the police who were investigating his murder. He had been shot right through the arm, sideways through the chest and out the other side by someone walking close beside him. Nothing had been stolen. Police think he knew his killer and assume it is a family or tribal row.
Among our white and Indian friends though, no one has been attacked or anything. I call it the “Head and Shoulders” no dandruff scenario…”Have you ever been robbed?” “No, but that’s because I have a good security system” However the newspapers are full of tales of shootings, hold ups at gunpoint, knife attacks, etc. These tend to be in Johannesburg, not out in our neck of hicksville. Mind you, the bank at a shopping centre I often use, about ten minutes drive from here, was held up at gunpoint at lunchtime one day. I am now writing this on battery power as we have another power cut. They tend to last for about 2 hours, so we should have power again by 5.30pm. But then everyone will want to cook dinner, so there will be a surge of use, the grid will be under threat and it may well go off again! Eskom, the national electricity suppliers, are unable to provide enough power because they underestimated future use in the 1990s and decommissioned a number of power stations. It is a huge problem, not just an inconvenience; I heard in the news today that shares in gold and diamond mining have fallen to a new low as investors move to other options due to uncertainty about profit since mining stops when the power goes off. A local baker is suing Eskom because he lost a days production at his bread factory and had to throw away the whole lot!

Power back on, dinner successfully cooked and eaten! Now on the evening news, I see that there was a huge tribal incident in the Drakensberg at the weekend. 47 arrests were made, rival tribes fighting over land ownership. So that explains the lads with spears, then! It seems a hotel very near where we were staying has cancelled all Easter weekend bookings due to the potential danger to tourists. To think we drove for miles along these very roads and didn’t have a clue about the “potential danger to tourists”
We are going away for the Easter weekend, but to a different area, this time to a small town in the Free State. Nearby is Bloemfontein, which has an unusual and to me very surprising claim to fame… JRR Tolkien was born there! I didn’t know he was born in South Africa. Imagine that! However, he left when he was three.
I forgot to say that the Eoin Colfer lunch was great, he is a very funny guy…must read some of his books now and see why the kids think he is so good! I got a couple of signed copies of his latest book, one for GHS and one for the library where I do my volunteer work. They were much cheaper than in the UK.
The volunteering goes well, I helped with class visits from a local primary school and with a nursery school visit. They sang “The wheels on the bus” so not much different there (except most of them had no shoes…) After Easter, I will be going along to the school two mornings a week to help with the “poor readers”.
As far as my own reading goes, I have been trying to buy books by South African writers, both fiction and non fiction.Currently, I am reading "After the dance" a travelogue about attitudes in various parts of the country after the end of apartheid. Fiction wise, I am reading "Blood sisters" which is actually set in 1960's Kenya after the end of British rule, but is very similar to what is happening here right now. It is a good old story but strangely written; it's authors are two sisters, one living in Kenya, the other in France. I seem to remember seeing them interviewed on TV in Scotland a couple of years ago.