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Murphy’s law, Cell Phones and Dick part 2 |
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We lived in Central Jo'burg in the Yeoville area. Yeoville was once considered a sort of South African "Greenwich Village", but has suffered in recent years from "White Flight" (as we call it in the USA). Crime in the neighbouring Hillbrow-Berea is very high. From our house on Kenmere Rd we heard multiple gunshots every single night from Hillbrow-Berea, so people moving out to the suburbs is easily justified. Depends on how you feel about gunfire, I suppose. At any rate, when Dick came to pick us up, he was understandably a bit uneasy about leaving his bakkie (pickup truck) parked out on the street for too long. When he arrived, we quickly threw our gear into the back, hopped in and were on our way. It is a long way, by European standards, to Sodwana Bay. It was a good way to get to know Dick better. Along the way we stopped a couple times to buy freshly steamed "mealies" (sweet corn on the cob) from Zulus who sold them at roadside. Delicious, or as Dick would say "Lekker!". This was 1998 and in Europe, having a cell phone was just really becoming a fad. At that time in Germany, I still thought it looked pretty stupid to see someone walking down the street talking on a cell phone. But in South Africa, practically everyone had one and this was still a culture shock kind of thing for us. We often discussed how we overheard this or that person using a cell phone in a toilet cubicle etc. The reason to note this is, that it seemed very funny to the two of us that every half hour or so Dick would need to pull over and get out of the bakkie in order to get a better signal. Our trip to Sodwana Bay was punctuated by a good handful of these "phone breaks" but it was nice. It gave us a chance to stretch our legs while Dick was bantering away in Afrikaans with a business contact or friend. Since we didn't own a cell phone (and still don't) we never gave a second thought to how much battery power all these conversations needed. |
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Part 1| Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Conclusion |
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