Saturday, 17 May 1986: Just What Country Are We In Anyway?

3:00 PM, east of Bloemfontein on Highway 8.

I am returning from a trip east with Woofie and Irene.  We left Bloem around 11:00 and stopped in Thaba Nchu, a large town in one of the seven separate sections of the Bophuthatswana black homeland or bantustan which became nominally independent in 1977.  The black homelands were created by the South African government as an excuse to avoid giving black South Africans the vote, the right to own property in white South Africa, and other basic human rights.  That’s how I see it although some whites here would disagree. 

The scattered parts of Bophuthatswana (in orange), one of South Africa’s quasi-independent black homelands.  Thaba Nchu, which I visited with Woolfie and Irene, is near the bottom of the map.

Source:  https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Bop_77.jpg

 

Thaba Nchu, as well as the rest of “Bop” survives largely on legal gambling revenues from vice-hungry South Africans.  Gambling is illegal in “Calvinist” South Africa.  When you drive into Bop along the well-maintained two-lane highway from Bloem, you don’t even know you are in a different country.  There is no border post nor even a sign welcoming you to Bophuthatswana. 

Woolfie has an explanation for why this piece of Bop was created here, a couple hundred miles from the other sections of the quasi-country.  He says that the Tswana people have their roots here and asked to have it be a part of Bop.  You never know how much of this stuff to believe.  Woolfie is a nice guy and seems to have a genuine humanitarian spirit.  Nonetheless, like so many white South Africans, he often goes to great lengths to justify the way things are done here.  As a result, I have difficulty deciding what pieces of information to accept and what to label as pure bullshit.  For example, I pointed out that the new black township of Botshabelo, a few miles west of Thaba Nchu is not even on the map issued by the tourist board (SATOUR).  This despite the fact that the map was updated this year and Botshabelo has a population estimated at 200-400,000 making it one of the largest cities in South Africa.  I also mentioned that Soweto which has a population comparable to Johannesburg is shown on the same map but the type size of the name “Soweto” indicates that it is a small town.  Woolfie didn’t try to defend these cartographic irregularities.  Nor did he admit that this was obviously deceptive.  Instead, he talked about his visit to a museum in Indiana which had a map showing the tiny nation of Lesotho to be bigger than its larger neighbor, South Africa.  Change the subject or talk about how we Americans have mistreated our “Red Indians” (as they call Native Americans here) – this seems to be a common ploy.

We were visiting Thaba Nchu on a Saturday morning around noon and hundreds of blacks were on the streets and in the shops.  We went into a clothing store and were the only whites there (out of maybe 50 customers) except for the white proprietors.  There seemed to be few, if any, whites in the other stores we walked past although whites from Bloem often shop here for big ticket items because there is no sales tax.  A big savings for them as South Africa has a nasty 12% national sales tax on just about everything, including groceries!

Store in Thaba Nchu on a busy Saturday morning

Irene pointed out the muti in some of the store windows.  These are various herbs which are used by blacks to hopefully cure whatever ails them.  Woolfie also pointed out trash laying in a side street.  The Tswana people are dirty, he said, while the Zulu are different.  The latter have more pride. 

Later, Woolfie offered to take me to the Thaba Nchu Sun, a hotel-casino complex.  I begged off having had lunch at the Lesotho Sun a couple days ago.  To paraphrase Ronald Reagan, if you’ve seen one Sun Hotel, you’ve seen them all.  (Of course, Reagan was talking about redwood trees.)  Woolfie and Irene are most gracious hosts although sometimes it’s gets to be a bit much – especially when they are trying to get me to eat, eat, eat.  I have to keep reminding myself that they are both, in a sense, good Jewish mothers!