Friday, 20 February 1987: Life in Zeerust = Death from Boredom

Transvaal (men’s) Bar, Zeerust, South Africa, 6:30 PM.

We have a one-week mid-semester holiday, so I’m back in South Africa one more time before expiration of my visa in another month.  I’ve applied for another one-year visa, and there’s no logical reason why I wouldn’t get it.  Still, in this insane country, you never know.  I might have said something to the wrong person indicating that I didn’t have South Africa’s best interests at heart.  Perhaps that person was an informant.  Of perhaps they really do open the mail here and have read some of the nasty things I’ve written about the government.  Or perhaps the tourist board which got me the visa is pissed off at me for not publishing any nice articles encouraging American tourists to spend some dollars here.  Or maybe they are unhappy with me for taking a job in Botswana.  So just in case they don’t give me another visa, I’m going to make a quick visit to Durban and Natal Province.  That way, I will have travelled in all four provinces and all the major cities (well, at least, all the white ones).  If they do renew my visa, I will continue to hold off publishing anything about South Africa and continue with these letters chronicling my experiences as a witness to history in the making.  And as fast as events seem to be moving here, my observations might mean something – especially if “legitimate” reporters are thrown out of the country in droves.

Three days ago, I decided to throw myself a 41^st birthday party.  The event was held at one of my favorite local watering holes and turned out to be a fairly decent piss-up.  Total attendance was 22 including 8 nationalities:  1 Motswana, 1 Zimbabwean, 1 Malawian, 1 South African, 1 Namibian, 3 Yanks, 4 Frenchies, 4 Hollanders, and 6 Brits.  It wasn’t as good a party as my 40^th last year (no stripper or girlfriends this time) but not bad in terms of international harmony.

So, regarding my current trip:  Normally on Friday afternoons, I have a practical session from 3:00 to 5:00 PM for my quantitative methods course.  But since my horde of chattering freshmen were going to be leaving on holiday this afternoon, I figured I could cancel the session in order to catch a ride down here to Zeerust with my drinking buddy, David, who makes the trip to the Johannesburg area every weekend to see his wife and kids.  The cancellation proved to be a good move since a sizeable portion of the student body was leaving after lunch for a sports competition with the University of Lesotho.  Besides, David wanted to be on the road by 3:30 to beat the Friday afternoon crowd.  We got to the border about 3:50, after getting through a BDF (Botswana Defense Force) road block with no problems.  Fortunately, David was able to overtake a busload of University of Botswana students just before our arrival at the Tlokweng border post or we would have been sitting in his car waiting to clear customs for at least a half an hour.  As it was, we didn’t get through the border fast enough for David who bitched about the inefficiency of the Batswana border officials.  Serves him right for making the tiring 3½ hour drive to Johannesburg and back every weekend.  David’s family lives out in the northwest suburbs.  Since I want to be in downtown tomorrow morning to catch a train or bus to Durban, it seemed to make sense for him to dump me here in Zeerust, 100 kms south of the border.  That way I can catch an overnight train from here to Jo’burg tonight at 10:40.  The train doesn’t get in until 5:00 AM, but I may get a private compartment in 2^nd class and a chance to get some good z’s all for the price of a train ticket (only R14.50 – I think the sexy Afrikaner ticket agent at the station made a mistake and under charged me, but who am I to argue with the Suid Afrikanse Spoorwee (South African Railways)?

I went by car from Gaborone to Zeerust, by train from there to Johannesburg, and finally by express bus to Durban.

 

Zeerust is a typical nothing town out in the high veld.  Who in Dog’s name would want to live in a dorp like this unless they were forced to at gunpoint?

After David dropped me off at the station, I purchased my ticket and checked my bags.  With five hours remaining until the Johannesburg-bound train arrived from Mafeking, I decided to walk a few blocks to the main street of downtown, which here like in most other South African towns is called Kerk Straat (Church Street).  On the way, I noticed a number of drab white or beige stucco one-story houses with red corrugated metal roofs.  The streets bore names like Piet Retief and Garret Maritz, two Boer heroes of 19^th Century.  There was a monument to some Potgeiter chap, apparently a local hero from the last century.

Zeerust probably has a couple thousand white inhabitants and who knows how many blacks living in surrounding “locations” if the pattern here reflects similar towns in the South African bundu.  It was interesting to note that there were more blacks than whites on Kerk St., evidence of the importance of blacks to the local economy and a repudiation of former President Verwoerd’s “Grand Apartheid” scheme.  When “Mr. Apartheid” conceived of the homelands policy back in the 1950s, he predicted that the trend of blacks travelling to white areas in search of employment would be reversed by around 1970.  So even though one enclave of the Bophuthatswana homeland is close by, its black residents are still flocking here for shopping, services and presumably for jobs as well.

The Marico Theater was showing some teen-oriented movie in Afrikaans tonight.  The posters showed some shirtless, hairy-chested young hunk with a blonde’s head on his shoulder.  I considered attending since I haven’t seen any Afrikaans films but figured the subject matter as well as the language barrier would have quickly put me to sleep.

So instead, I walked down to the Marico Bar (the Groot, or Great, Marico is a local, small river which flows into the Limpopo. Further downstream, the intermittent Limpopo forms the boundary between South Africa and Botswana as well as South Africa and Zimbabwe.  In South Africa, “north of the Limpopo” refers to black Africa. 

Three young scruffy-looking Afrikaners wearing shorts and/or safari shirts were seated at the bar as well as a balding, bespectacled old duffer.  The bartender looked like a Teamster reject with shaggy hair and mutton chop sideburns.  I ordered “een Castle, assablief” (a Castle, please).  The five gents pretty much ignored me and I did the same opting to ogle the magazine photos of bare-breasted young women who adorned the walls of the place.  The walls were a close as any of them would ever get to the Marico Bar as it is a men’s bar, a ubiquitous institution in South Africa.  Apartheid seems to dictate that even white men and white women should be separated.  God forbid that fine Christian South African women should be exposed to the course humor of South African male pub patrons or the naked photos on the bar walls.  They can keep their male bastions – I’ll opt for female company where I drink.  Luckily Botswana bars are totally co-ed.

I didn’t feel much inspiration to write in the Marico Bar, so I moved down the street to the Transvaal Hotel Bar which was scarcely a notch better.  A few of the bar patrons took an interest in my Brother typewriter, but I didn’t get much in the way of conversation.  Not that I aggressively tried, but you’d think someone in one of these places would hear my accent and at least ask where I’m from out of curiosity. 

The bars may have been bad but the restaurant was even worse.  I had a chicken sandwich.  The waitress forgot to bring my chips (French fries).  A dull-looking South African couple with two blonde kids were seated at one table.  A few tired-looking middle-aged people were at other tables.  It seemed to be the only sit-down restaurant in town, and it wasn’t even licensed (to sell alcohol).

 

Later, at the Zeerust train station.

Actually, the train station may be the most interesting attraction in town.  A cement train just pulled in headed by five big Class 34 diesel-electric locos.  That’s about the most action you can find in Zeerust on a Friday night.  Unless of course, you’ve got a hot sexual partner that you met in church.

Suppose I shouldn’t be so critical of towns like Zeerust, but small towns are really a drag, especially when one is alone.  Come to think of it, cities aren’t much better for the solo traveler.  My train just pulled in, so I need to put away my typewriter and find my compartment.