Wednesday, 16 July 1986: Road Trip to Transkei & Hanging with the Richies

At 6:50AM, just as I’m starting to wake up and am considering strangling the python, I hear my door open.  I’m in the little daughter’s room who was moved to another room in the house for the night.  The intruder is a fucking fat maid who proceeds to go through the little girl’s dresser drawers to get clothes for her for school.  I mean, she could have knocked, fer chrissake.  I look up in amazement, then bury my face in the pillow mumbling something like, “Shit, can’t I ever have any privacy in this goddamn country?”  It’s not the first time something like this has happened to me in southern Africa.  White people here seem so oblivious to servants that they probably think nothing of a maid sweeping the bedroom floor while the master and madam are screwing.

A few minutes later, I’m in the can draining the dragon when someone opens the bathroom door part way before I manage to push it shut.  By now, I’m really pissed off.  It’s no time to make a bloody scene over this stuff as Billy and I have to run off to meet one of his salesmen.  I’m going to ride along with a guy who is taking a car over to sell in Umtata, capital of the Transkei “independent homeland.” 

I meet Francois and we leave for Umtata.  It’s a sunny day holding promise for good photos of the countryside.   We pass Mooiplaas Township on the way to the border.  There’s been trouble here recently according to Francois.  We drive on a paved two-lane highway through rolling tree-covered hills on the way to the Great Kei River crossing.  The area on either side of the Kei is called the Kei Cuttings.  It’s sharply dissected terrain with deep gorges leading down to the Kei.  We cross the railroad several times which snakes its way all over hell to get through the cuttings.  It would make a great site for an excursion steam train. 

The “border” is a joke.  I show my passport to the South African border guys.  They don’t even stamp it, and tell me to get a visa on the Transkei side of the bridge.  Francois whisks us through without me even showing my passport to the Transkei border guards.  He says it would take too long for me to get a visa.  As far as I’m concerned, it’s his ass if I get caught without a visa.  Suppose he knows there is little chance of any problems.

As we climb out of the Kei Cuttings and continue heading northeast, I note serious erosion problems and terraced hillsides on the Transkei side.  There are very few trees.  Despite this the countryside is quite attractive.  Francois says the blacks have cut down all the trees for firewood as they have no electric power or other fuel sources in the villages.  They screw up the soil because they don’t rotate crops:  maize, maize, maize, every year.  They should rotate with beans, pumpkin squash, etc.  The villages consist of groups of rondovals which tend to be on the broad hilltops and not in the valleys.  Francois says I should be here during a summer storm, and I’d understand why people don’t live in the valleys. 

Kai Cuttings:  Note terraces and severe erosion gullies.

 

I notice numerous abandoned cars on the roadside and many of the ones running on the highway don’t look all that great.  Francois is bringing this late model Toyota Cressida over to show to a Transkei Army sergeant major who called in response to one of Billy’s newspaper adverts.  “Why doesn’t he buy a car in Umtata?” I ask.  Francois replies that cars in the Transkei get trashed out within a year or two because of the poor roads and the way people drive here.

As we approach Umtata, Francois points out the government ministers’ compound with large, elegant homes.  On the other side of the highway is the University of Transkei, a modern campus which has experienced student strikes recently. 

I have lunch, visit a small museum with displays of native costumes and beadwork, and walk around Umtata shooting a few photos.  Francois is off meeting the sergeant major and trying to make a sale.  Umtata is a good-sized city of probably around 100,000.  During the lunch hour there are large numbers of blacks on the streets but almost no whites.  Other than that, the city looks much like any other South African city of comparable size.

Downtown Umtata, Transkei at noon 

 

As I’m walking around, I contemplate the insanity of the South Africans giving away this rather scenic piece of their country to form an independent “homeland.”  Shit, we fought a civil war to keep our country together.  I also think about the insanity of creating all these homeland governments with armies and other services that are duplicating those of the South African government.  All this to justify taking away the vote – excuse me – never having to give the vote to black South Africans.  Ag, man – the complicated, gerrymandered idiocy of Hendrik Verwoerd and his fellow masters of “Grand Apartheid.”  And what will happen when majority rule comes to South Africa someday?  These Bantustan rulers aren’t going to give up their fiefdoms so South Africa will have to fight a civil war to get them back.  No other country will come to the aid of the bantustans, because no other country recognizes them and would consider the civil war an “internal matter.”

[The following night I bring up this subject with some coloured friends in East London.  They say that the Bantustan governments are totally dependent on South Africa for finances, so if South Africa were to decide to cut them off, they would collapse.  I think it will be a nasty mess, for sure.  I could see the Transkei as a state in the sense of an American state, but independence for this place was grand stupidity.]

Transkei landscape north of Idutywa, July 16, 1986.

 

I find Francois in a good mood when we meet to head back to East London.  He sold the Toyota at a couple grand profit.  We’re taking the car back as it won’t actually be delivered until financing is approved and all that.  Francois willingly makes a number of stops on the return trip so that I may take photos.  He’s very helpful and even points out locations for some good shots.  He takes me on a side trip through Msobomare Township outside of Butterworth.  Since the Group Areas Act doesn’t apply in the Transkei, the more well-off blacks live in Butterworth which was originally a white area.  The layout of housing in Msobomare looks much like that in Mdantsane (outside of East London) only on a smaller scale.  I comment to Francois that many poor people in Mexico would love to have these crummy but adequate homes.  People in Msobomare don’t seem to be starving and have a roof over their heads.

Francois asks me why black people smell.  Answer:  So that blind people can hate them too.  I don’t laugh very much at his little joke, and he’s quick to point out that he’s no racialist.  Says he does lots of business with blacks.  It wouldn’t bother him if a black family lived next door to him if they could afford to buy there.  Francois shows a certain apologetic attitude for being an Afrikaner.  When I ask if he is of French Huguenot background given his name, he says, “Oh, we’re all just bloody Dutchmen.”  In South Africa, the term “Dutchman” is a somewhat derogatory term for an Afrikaner.

Later I comment that it’s good for the Afrikaners to preserve their culture and language.  He says the Afrikaner is stupid.  Ninety percent will tell you they vote Nat (National Party) but can’t tell you why other than because their father did.  He thinks the current South African government is out to lunch and the AWB (the neo-fascist Afrikaner organization) is full of crazies.  So Francois makes kaffir jokes but is quick to acknowledge the bad aspects of the system.  He’s married to a white ex-Rhodesian, by the way, and his family are English speakers now.  I get the impression that Francois feels this has improved his social status.   

 

Black workers, Butterworth

 

This time as we cross the Kei, I get all the way through the border without even showing my passport.  Francois knows the old Afrikaner who runs the South African border post after so many trips to the Transkei.  Francois says South Africa is actually thinking of doing away with this border post (presumably Transkei would follow suit).  It’s one of the only border posts into a homeland and is a waste of money.  Francois says they don’t have a post at the Natal border on the east side of Transkei or at the border crossing north of here either.

We stop at a watering hole a few kms into South Africa for ciggies and a couple of cold ones.  Two young white South African Police guys sit down at the bar next to us.  They are Afrikaners from the Transvaal and have been sent here because of the trouble in Mooiplaas Twp.  They are camping in tents.  Francois recommends they speak personally to a butcher friend of his in East London get pre-cooked beef, etc.  They seem like decent enough guys.  They don’t make racist remarks, but maybe that’s because the bartender is black.  I don’t join in the conversation figuring they’ll be more open if they don’t know I’m an American.  Part of the conversation is in Afrikaans anyway.  Later Francois says that the SAP (South African Police) patrols townships like Mooiplaas just to make its presence felt.

According to my arrangements with Rotary Club, I am to stay with the club president, Jonathan, and his wife Ethne tonight, so Francois takes me over to their mansion.  These are fucking filthy rich Jewish people.  We enter the property through a gate and make our way up the long driveway to the visitors’ parking in front of the house.  As we enter the huge house, I note ultra-modern glass furniture, modern art, and displays of beautiful seashells which I learn came from the Indian Ocean isle of Mauritius.  Jon is pudgy, 40s.  Ethne is younger; an attractive, blonde JSAP with heavy make-up.  They are having friends in for drinks; an older couple, the older couple’s daughter, and a bearded New Zealand bloke.  The daughter and Kiwi are interesting because they have travelled all over the world including Iceland.  But they soon leave and so does Francois – I imagine he feels outclassed by this lot. 

After the visitors leave, we have to go next door to welcome new neighbors to the block.  I feel like a slob after bundu-bashing for photos in the Transkei this afternoon.  This new couple are English-speaking WASPS and well-bred types.  Theirs is another swank pad full of art.  Both Jon and the other guy are in coat and tie.  Like Jon, the other guy is also a company president.  The conversation is very trite and boring.  I can’t hear most of the woman-talk, but the guys discuss the Jacuzzi filter systems Jon manufactures and other nuts and bolts shit.  God, why can’t I be with those good-time coloured guys I met yesterday?!

The two couples discuss their kids’ private schools.  The new people have their kids at boarding schools.  To inject some life into the conversation, I comment that I’m glad I didn’t have to go to boarding school as it’s too tough to be dragged from your parents when you’re a young teenager.  The new neighbor disagrees.  He says teenagers need to be kept busy all the time and this is what boarding school does.  It teaches them good habits.  Jesus, what a regimented corporate tight-ass.   I stifle myself from saying that, yes, boarding school probably would have kept me too busy to beat my meat as much as I did as a teenager.  Instead I contemplate the value of having a system of “good” habits forced upon a kid as opposed to a kid struggling to develop his/her own sense of self-responsibility like I did.  Jon and the other guy allude to a drug problem in S.A. government (public) schools.  When I probe them for more information about the extent of the problem, they essentially deny it exists.

The hostess has brought out several plates of yummy-looking hors d’oeuvres.  I sit wondering when they will be offered.  Normally, I’d grab but I decide I’ll see how long it takes for the hostess to pass them.  Besides, I must maintain some of my dignity with these snobs.  The stuff is finally passed after about ½ hour.  I laugh to myself when the women spill a piece of gourmet pizza while passing the tray.

I express a positive interest in the paintings on the walls to the hostess.  My comment dies.  I suppose the art is all for show and investment.  The hostess probably has nothing intelligent to say about it so keeps her mouth shut for fear that I might know something about art.

The guys get into talking politics.  Their line is generally pseudo-liberal PFP shit.  I say “pseudo” because apartheid hurts their business interests.  They can afford a few more scraps being thrown to the black masses as long as profits improve too.  Guys like this will always figure out a way to make a buck.  Jon says he is looking for an American firm to go into partnership with for his filter systems.  He admits he wants their name so sanctions won’t affect him.  Maybe he thinks I have contacts with an appropriate firm?  Fat chance – I’m one of the little people, after all.

The new neighbor tells a story about trying to buy beer in the empty black side of a bottle store because the white side was full.  They refused to serve him, so he walked out mad.  He says people should boycott businesses that still enforce the separate facilities regulations.  They’ve been ignoring me, so I jump in with my story of how I wasn’t allowed to buy fried fish on the train because it was only for the black people.   They get defensive which goes along with a theory I’ve developed about white South Africans:  It’s okay for them to criticize the system but it’s not okay for an outsider to do it.  Boycott a bottle store – shit –there are so many more important things big shots like these guys could be doing. 

How can these people sit smugly in their swank pads eating hors d’oeuvres while their country is falling apart?  Then again, I suppose they’re no worse than richies all over the world.  I’ve never understood what makes richies tick (other than the obvious:  greed) and probably never will.  I can tell that when they ask me a question about myself, it’s not because they really care about my answer, but just because it’s the socially-polite thing to do.  They have no interest I me.  I’m just some weird eccentric that doesn’t fit into a comfortable pigeon hole for them.

Eventually, we go back to Jon and Ethne’s for din din.  Jonathan shows me their huge swimming pool complex with fountain, sauna, and jacuzzi.  After dinner, they drive me by Mercedes to Jon’s office and past the private school where Jon’s father, Jon, and Jon’s son attended/attend school.  It’s all very impressive.  I suppose they are liberals because their son has an autographed picture of Bill Cosby in his room.  I am reminded of the old quote from Eldridge Cleaver: 

“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

Photo source: 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-black-panther-who-fell-for-reagan