The Hidden Fence

I don’t want this blog to become a diary, but the story of the last weekend must be told. It could have been the nice story of my first sight of giraffe and warthog (almost) in the wild, but things turned differently…

The weather was not so good the last days and as I haven’t really been out of the city for almost two weeks, it was time to do another trip to visit Nora (a Swiss working for three months in an orphanage in Mookgophong).

I should have seen the bad omen already on Friday evening: as it was very cold again, I turned on all three heaters in the pool house (my “apartment”). This was a bad idea as the fuse went off - and of course not the one in my apartment but the one in the main house and as my lessors are out for holidays I had to call some of their relatives to come here just to put the fuse back on.

Saturday morning I spent as usually cycling and enjoyed the fact that the temperature was not below 10°C during the whole ride. After the usual Saturday shopping was done, I finally left for Mookgophong. Shortly before arriving in that small town about 200 km from Jo’burg the engine of my car started overheating and exactly when entering the town it just stopped and I couldn’t start it anymore. Thankfully Nora came and helped me to get my luggage to the place she lives. After a short refreshment we went out to search a workshop, we found one with a very friendly mechanic who repaired the car over night so we could go out to the countryside on Sunday.

It was on that trip where I saw the first wild animals from a public dirt road inside a fenced game farm: giraffes and warthogs. The warthogs didn’t really like us and left very quick for the bush, but the giraffe posed well for us. Only a few hundred meters further we saw a big ~3m snake (probably a python) lying at the roadside.

After we were making another photo stop at a small lake, my car didn’t start up anymore. Fortunately a farmer from a nearby farm came to help us start the car and we drove on the shortest way back to Mookgophong.

I was quite anxious that the car wouldn’t start but it went well and after refuelling I left to head back to Jo’burg. On the way back it happened: my car started overheating again and after a few kilometers I had to stop on the emergency lane because smoke came out of the engine. As it had to happen, the engine didn’t start anymore afterwards and I was there standing on the emergency lane trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I phone back to the workshop in Mookgophong and they tried to get help for me.

Suddenly another car stopped by and a friendly black man came and asked me whether he could help me. As he was driving to Centurion (~40km from Jo’burg), I asked him if he could bring me back home. He accepted and so we loaded all my luggage (including my precious laptop and digital camera) into his small van. There were two other women already lying there, but the front seat was still free so I could sit beside the driver.

I must admit I was feeling quite uncomfortable leaving my luggage with the two women, but it turned out I was totally wrong, when we drove through Pretoria to drop off one of them: we drove to the SAPS (South African Police Service) police school area. After a long drive through Pretoria and Centurion and after changing the car (to a smaller one) we finally arrived at my home. I served my “driver” some Spaghetti and thanked him by giving him some money for him and his kids.

After a not very calm night (thinking of what happened to me this weekend) I woke up this morning just to find out that the lights were out in the whole suburb: to substations had collapsed this night, which lead to a big traffic chaos because of robots (traffic lights) not working and the police absolutely unable to control the situation.

So this weekend I learned much about South African friendliness, from a white farmer as well as black worker. It was an interesting experience, but I wouldn’t like to repeat it again - I will for sure soon buy a good car!