A Moment of Vanity Can Be a Dangerous Thing
I am in a foreign country that is on the brink of civil war and oddly enough that is not my biggest concern.
I arrived here on October 17 with my ex-landlord’s friend (Dave)—a man who owns a bar and restaurant in the diving town on the border of South Africa. The trip from the border of the Eastern Cape, for me, meant sitting in the back of a canvas-covered safari truck packed with bric-a-brac.
I cannot complain because the trip was free. What I did find strange was that Dave, a fifty-year-old Afrikaner from South Africa, avoided conversation with me altogether. We only exchanged minimal communication before he returned to the front seat next to his daughter, leaving me in the back, sealed off from them.
While I told myself I had no right to expect more, it did not stop me from feeling awkward the entire journey. I tried to avoid this eventuality by setting up a meeting with the guy before we left so that he could see who he would be having on his truck with him for eight hours. This was waived by my landlord, Hank, who said that Dave was nice and I would get along with him.
Dave’s avoidance of me was particularly noticeable when we made our overnight stop in Hluhluwe.
When we got out of the vehicle he said goodnight and disappeared into his quarters at an inexplicable speed.
The next morning yielded more of the same thing. Fortunately, it was only a short drive to the border. There, a lot of wheeling-and-dealing and golden handshakes transpired before all his second-hand goods, which included a trailer that he said could get someone locked up, and the ancient Land Rover it was carrying were allowed through.
I stood to one side and when I caught his eye, gave him a sheepish grin to which he responded: “Bribery and corruption.”
After an hour of haggling, we left the facility and its amoral staff and were soon at his home and place of business where I would spend the next month.
Hank, who in retrospect seemed eager to be rid of me despite two weeks remaining on my rental lease, assured me I’d be able to arrange accommodation with Dave until I found something more permanent. So I approached Dave and asked if Hank told him anything about me.
I asked the question to gauge whether Hank had informed him of the situation, particularly regarding accommodation.
His response was: “Hank told me fuck all about you–only that you would be catching a lift with me and that’s that.”
“Fucking Hank…” I said out loud and asked if he could accommodate me for the next month. We discussed the price and he said yes then asked for two hours to sort it out.
Four hours later, the man who had driven me up and agreed to accommodate me was nowhere to be found. My bags remained outside and I was wilting in the unforgiving heat.
I felt abandoned. So I started talking to the bar staff about potential accommodation in the area.
Later, I met Dave’s partner who was also a South African and he asked me what I did for a living. In a moment of vanity, I typed my name into Google and it spat out my profession: journalist. I spun the device around so that he could see.
Later, Dave showed up and told me that Room 6 was mine. Accommodation it was, but it did nothing for my feeling of abandonment. So, after a nap, I went out to the shanty market, failed to get rid of the feeling, and got trashed. I slept at a stranger’s house, went back to the market for breakfast, and by 12h00, I had a beer in my hand again.
That night I stumbled back home with a strange woman and slept off my stupor in the repulsive, mosquito-infested, ventilation-deprived quarters that Dave assigned to me.
I spent the entire weekend barely functioning. I was depressed and hungover, and when I did eventually pull myself together, I sought refuge in my writing. For the next three weeks, I sustained a strict schedule of journaling, running on the beach, going to the market for my meals, and sleeping.
I avoided Dave’s bar and restaurant like the plague and used the property’s back gate. Then one day I saw him wandering around the backyard and called out a greeting. He half scolded me in response. “Where have you been?” and then before I could answer: “Where do you eat?”
“I will come to support you,” I said, to which he responded: “Good!” and then “Fucking hell!”
“We're going to be busy this weekend,” he added as an afterthought.
I went to “support” him by buying a meal and then a beer the next week but did not plan on making a staple of his establishment since even by South African standards, he was expensive.
Then one day the cleaning lady came and asked me for my passport. “Why?” I asked. “So that we can take a photo of it.” Seeing my confusion she added, “You can come with me.” And so I did.
Not wanting to seem distrustful of her or the establishment and assuming it was by order of her employer, Dave, I gave it to her and waited at the bar impatiently.
When my passport returned ten minutes later, it was intact and accompanied by Tanya, Dave’s favored and senior staff member.
“Tell me again why you needed my passport,” I asked with a bit of a barbed tone.
According to Tanya, the establishment was supposed to take a photo of it earlier in my stay and send it to the border as a measure of immigration control or in her words “so that the people can see that there are no people living here [on the property] illegally.”
I left the bar with my mind in overdrive. There was one thing I had been paranoid about: broadcasting my profession in a country in the grip of civil unrest.
That information could be forwarded to the officials on the South African side and the Mozambican side. They both had their hands dirty and Dave knows I know he bribed them.
Given our less-than-amicable relationship, he could have sent that passport copy to the border with a warning that I’m a journalist aware of the bribes exchanged under the table.
The border officials would then have a vested interest in getting their mitts on me since if I were to call foul down the right channels, they stood the chance of being not only fired but charged with a criminal offense.
It has been two months since Dave’s people asked for a photo of my passport—a period during which I suffered no harassment from the authorities. I used this time prudently, asking people if it was protocol for that to happen around here. And the answer has always been a frown and a negative response.
“No,” some said. “It is the first time I hear of such a thing.” Others marveled at my gullibility in allowing them to take a photo of my passport—even before they learned I’d let it out of my sight briefly.
I do not wish to sensationalize this issue. Still, for those cops on the border, if it is as I fear it is, there would be few other effective ways to deal with a perceived threat like me other than silencing me—permanently, and this is what’s making me dread leaving the country.