So I had my first exciting encounter with African wildlife early this morning. A rather serene and peaceful beginning of the day by all normal standards, as I stepped out of the shower, I noticed something quite large and spindly situated in the space between the door and the wall. On closer inspection...JEEPERS!... a huge spider! (no really, like bigger than the palm of my hand...to me, this counts as big) After a quick moment of panic, I stealthily slipped around the door, armed myself with some denim, cotton, and plastic bags...and sent an SMS to Matt, asking if the thing was poisonous (knowledge is power, right?!) After twenty minutes of me checking my phone for a reassuring message and the position of the spider, I decided to suck it up and handle the situation myself, or else the thing was going to end up either in my bed or my drawer the next morning. I rigged up an impressive set of spider trap gear, I must say: plastic bag fashioned to a bent clothes-hanger for the capture basket, double plastic bags wrapped around my hands (no poisonous fangs could puncture two layers, for sure), and a cooking spatula from the sink, still with remains of last night's curry on it. I would have added a bag over my head for extra protection, but then there is that whole suffocation thing....
In any case, after only a few false starts and one itty-bitty scream, I managed to nudge the thing into my handy trap bag and promptly deliver him through the bars of my bathroom window. All those concerned with the spider's well being will be happy to know that he/she crawled off just fine into the bushes and will hopefully spread the word about my inhospitality.
Matt, gentleman that he is, came by about 45 minutes later to make sure that I was still alive and to offer the comfort that it was probably not a poisonous one. Great, I thought, at least I don't have to feel guilty for releasing him near your bedroom window.
The end. I guess as long as I don't come across any sting-rays, I'll be fine.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Lesotho Hike
Over the long weekend (Monday was a national holiday - Heritage Day) I went on a three day hike with the Wits Explorers/ Explorers Society of South Africa (ESSA) to Ts'ehlanyane Park in Lesotho, the country in the southeastern part of South Africa.
This is at the crest of our first summit on Saturday afternoon. It was quite warm during the day, but dipped below freezing at night.
We were a party of seven: Two Wits Students from the USA (myself included) and five ESSA members. Leaving for Lesotho from Jo-Burg late Friday afternoon and returning late Monday evening, we covered about 35 kilometers (~ 22 miles) of rugged uphills and downhills in three days.
This was my first overnight hike and I had an amazing time. We followed a really old route through the mountains, complete with stone path structures and cattle/donkey scat from who knows how long ago. On both Sunday and Monday, local Lesotho men joined us for lunch. These guys were incredible: one of them trekked up and back down the mountain every day for something (?) and the other walked up and back in a day to gather what looked like long reedy plant stalks for building materials. The trip leader guessed that we were the first Caucasian people to take our specific route: I don't know if that makes us crazy, arrogant, or ambitious- probably all three.
This is at the crest of our first summit on Saturday afternoon. It was quite warm during the day, but dipped below freezing at night.
At the crest of way point five on Sunday morning. From here, we continued up along a ridge a bit more and then made our way down into a steep valley to camp for the night. 
Sunrise in the valley on Monday morning, about 6:15am. Some of the foggy stuff is actually smoke from a veld fire that started the night before.
One of my favorite parts of the trip was actually heading back through Lesotho after we finished the hike late Monday afternoon --- not because we were done scrambling down 45 degree angles (okay, maybe I was a little glad to be done with that), but because we were driving along the roads just as all the schools let out for the day. We received, returned and initiated several enthusiastic waves from schoolkids and other people near the road. My favorite response was from a group of young boys playing alongside the road. One boy was particularly excited to wave:he was wearing what looked like a belt of soda cans strung together on a piece of string and was banging on them like drums while chasing the other two kids around with a little walking stick/pole. But once he saw us wave, he dropped the pole, bent his knees in the air in what I guess what a jump, threw up his hands above his head, and gave us one heck of a smile and a loud yell as we passed. I must have been smiling for at least three minutes afterwards.
This is a shot from the road through Lesotho looking into the valley and mountains from where we just hiked.
An attempt to capture an amazing sunset heading back Monday evening on the N5.
Friday, September 22, 2006
what AM I doing here
I am living in a "cottage" next to the private residence of Denis and Gael Beckett. They have 
three children: Meave, Emma, and Matt. Denis is an author and journalist, Gael is a psychologist, and Matt (who still lives at home and attends University of Jo-Burg) is a semi-pro cyclist and sports trainer. Other members of the family include Billie (the handy-man), Stella (the house-keeper) and Jonah? (the gardener). There are also two white dogs, but I forget their names.
three children: Meave, Emma, and Matt. Denis is an author and journalist, Gael is a psychologist, and Matt (who still lives at home and attends University of Jo-Burg) is a semi-pro cyclist and sports trainer. Other members of the family include Billie (the handy-man), Stella (the house-keeper) and Jonah? (the gardener). There are also two white dogs, but I forget their names.Here are some pictures of my living area, kitchen, and bedroom:
Thursday, September 21, 2006
a hug
Yesterday afternoon, about 16:00, I went out for a stroll around
One of the most obvious changes that I have noticed in my thinking while I've been in
Since I have settled in my suburb of Jo-Burg, I continue to struggle daily with how my facial expressions, body language, and even the tone of my "hello" comes across to the African people I see daily on walks down the street, in the local Spar grocery store, and on the street corner outside the church. I think that really this worry has made me paranoid to the point of being less friendly: the harder I try to appear friendly, or more accurately, the harder I try to communicate my apology and some sort of acknowledgement that somehow I understand (which I will never fully be able to do), the less friendly, or whatever, I become.
With this worry and fear in mind, I must admit that I was startled about what to do when a small black African girl, a toddler of about two, ran over to the path where I was walking and gave me a hug. Walking hand-in-hand with her mother, a graceful lady in a denim jacket and dress pants, she had smiled at me with a huge-fearless grin and I graciously returned her smile and gave a little wave. But then she broke away with her mother and ran about 10 feet down the hill to where I was standing, I was worried that I had done something--wrong.
While I admit that I am not the most graceful with children, normally, if a young child approachs me in that way, I would immediately bend down and obligingly talk back to them in whatever little gaggle he or she happens to be speaking. However, when this girl ran towards me, I just sort of stood there and looked down at her. But, disarming my fears with her cute little hair-bows and still-glowing smile, I warily looked over at her mom, who was still standing the 10 feet away from me and not looking at me, and bent down to "talk" and smile. She immediately responded by grabbing my shoulder and babbling on. I must have stood there for about five minutes, intermittingly talking to the girl, looking over at her mom, standing back up, and then crouching back down again. Finally, I attempted to make gestures that she go back towards her mom, but it really tood her mother's call and eventual hand to convince her that she should go. Still smiling back at me, I waved goodbye and offered several compliments to her mother on her cuteness, etc. She smiled softly at me, and then proceeded to lead her daughter up the hill.
I stood there for a couple minutes more afterwards, thinking, with a bit of shame, about how my fear of how I would come across to this lady almost made me shun a small child just wanting a hug.
No wonder people so often say that their hope for the future is in children.
Tallulah
The signs tell me that I can rent almost anything around here. Rent-A-Painter! Rent-A-Realtor! Rent-An-Attorney! Rent-A-Dog!
I fell for the add that said Rent-A-Wreck, and that has made all the difference.
Rent-A-Wreck is a car-hire service specializing in cheaper rental cars – with the first 1000 Kilometers Free! Recommended to me by my landlord and neighbor Denis, the least I can say for the company is that there is no fear of me renting-an-attorney and suing for false advertising.
I called the place about four days after my arrival in Jo-Burg. Crippled by my lack of standard shift driving skills, I had to shame my little female American self into asking specifically for an automatic car. For all of the other car-hire services, this (I’m assuming the automatic) immediately made the price go up almost double.
“____ (rental car service) Yes, how can we help you?”. The voice is usually male, with some mixture of a British, Sesotho, or Zulu English accent.
“Yes, I wanted to get some monthly quotes on a rental car.”
“Okay, we have a nice car here for only R 595 per month. It comes with insurance, power windows, power steering…”
“Sorry, is it an automatic?”
“Ahhh, no ma’am,” drawing the hhh steadily higher until it finally drops into the no. You need an automatic car, hey?”
“Yes,” I grumble, sheepishly, silently admonishing myself for never having learned to drive one of my father’s numerous standard-shift vehicles.
“Okay ma’am. An automatic car gonna cost you R 950 per month.”
“Oh. All right, thank you anyway.”
“Ja, So you want the car, ma’am?”
“No, thank you.”
“Allllrrright…..”
Rent-a-Wreck, my last resort, was much more egalitarian in its pricing and service.
“Allo… Rent-a-Wreck.”
“Yes….Hello??....”
(an unmuffled pause, during which I can hear a metal clanging like a dozen wrenches have just been dropped on a concrete floor, and some incomprehensible shouting).
After about three seconds, the clanging stops.
“Hello?” I try again, a bit louder and more British, as if that would help.
“Yeess, Rent-A-Wreck,” answers a high, nasally voice. “Can I help you?”
Eventually, the guy tells me that they have a white automatic car coming back the next morning. He reassures me that he will give me a call when it comes in, and if not, to call him.
“Okay, great. Thank you.”
“Pleasure….”
Three phone calls and two-and-a half days later, a reddish car arrives at 9 Westcliff Drive. I paid R 100 extra to have it delivered to my residence, and as it rolls through the gate down the drive, I wonder if the fee was actually to drive it or push it.
The car is a shiny orange red, 1983 Mazda, hatch-back automatic. It looks like it has had its fair share of bumps and bruises along the way: the rear bumper is twisted up on the right-hand side into a sort of demure half-grimace; the lower edge of the body is not exactly straight, or solid; and as I was signing the forms on the hood of the car (promising that I’ll pay the R 3000 if the car is stolen, noted twice, so “sign here, too”), my hip found a rather accommodating dent along the right side of the front hood.
“Great,” I said, finally finished signing my name to all the blank spaces in the Terms of Contract. “Anything else?”
The middle-aged guy (I forget his name) grins, and the caps and fillings along the front of his mouth briefly catch the glare of the late afternoon sun. “No, no, ma’am,” he chuckles. “But now, I teach you about the car, okay?”
He folds my signed forms, passport copy, and other various forms of documentation with a crooked crease and stuffs the pile in a yellowing scrapbook alongside another stapled stack with a passport photo showing a guy with a beard and a turban. Well, at least I’m in good company, I think to myself, as he slams us together in his book.
Sitting in the driver’s seat, the guy proceeds to explain how to start the car, set and release the handbrake, lock and unlock the gears, and something to do with the alarm. When he finishes, I lift my head up which he takes to be understanding, though I’m really still trying to figure out how plugging something called The Immobilizer into the right side of the dash actually turns the car on. Nonetheless, I reassure him that I understand, and yes, I see the after-hours phone number.
Right before he goes, he points again to the license plate and registration number on my yellow copy of the form.
“Make sure you tell them this number if you are in an accident, a fender-bender, whatever,” he grins.
“Okay, right, I think I have it,” I reassure him and shake his hand, African style, to seal the deal. As he walks away with the scrapbook under his arm, I cannot get rid of the feeling that I’ve somehow been had. So I return his cap-and-gap grin with a toothy smile and shut the gate behind him.
Driving
After my friend from Rent-A-Wreck leaves, I inspect the car a bit further and determine that its most redeeming quality are the black plastic slip-closures, the kind that might be used to hold shoes together in a store, that secure the hub-caps to the wheel. I then open the car and sit in the driver’s seat, pretending that just sitting in the seat and looking around at the mirrors looks like I’m doing something semi-constructive towards the process of driving. After exhausting all possible angles with which to view the car from the driver’s seat, I take a deep breath, insert the key, and turn it to on position. Click. Click. Click. Nothing.
Oh, right, The Immobilizer, I remember, and plug the little chip into the dash and try again. After a deep pneumonic shudder, the car turns on and I brace myself for drive position, only to find that I cannot put the car into drive. Oh, right, I remember, the gear-lock. Sucking in another gulp of air, I cautiously undo The Immobilizer, turn the key again to off, unlock the gear-lock and start again. Looking behind me, I put the car into what I think is reverse, give it some gas, and move… nowhere. Wonderful. Not wanting to plow the car – and the house post – that are both about four feet from my back bumper (or to fry my nerves any more), I relinquish the idea attempting to drive (after all, there is always tomorrow!) put the car in park, turn the key to OFF, take out The Immobilizer, and step out of the car. A bit shaky from the whole nervous ordeal, I am still trying to regain my composure when:
Brrrr!! Brrrr!!! Brrrrrr!! Brrr!!!! Brrrr!!! Brrrr!! Brrrr!!!
Looking quickly to the door of the house, to the gate, to the electric fence, and then to the sky for good measure, I finally realize that the sound is coming from my car. Oh right, I remember, The Alarm. Turning dizzily on my heels, I stumble back to open the car (which is, of course, locked), turn the key to START, plug in The Immobilizer, and finally turn off The Alarm.
As I am surveying, once again, the view from the right side of the car, Matt Beckett (the son of Denis and Gael) emerges out of the house and asks incredulously, “Everything okay here?”
As I jump out of the car and excitedly explained me sitting in the car, trying to reverse, The Immobilizer, the parking and gear thing, the proximity of the house-post, etc., he calmly asks if I would like him to back up the car – and does so without trouble. Right, I think, feeling a little sheepish. No problem.
“Good luck driving, okay?” says Matt, standing a safe distance away as I put the car in drive and inch toward the gate.
“Thanks!” I attempt to say in my most courageous voice, but it comes out instead a muddled “Spanks” like I am chewing food or something. As I pull out of the gate and gas the car into a right-hand turn, I taste the saltiness of blood and realize that I must have bitten my tongue.
The Great Trek
So my first adventure on the left side of the road began at about 15:45 the afternoon my car arrived. Assured that I had plenty of daylight still left for the spring day, I bravely gassed the little red bugger out onto the great wide world of Westcliff Drive. The first thing that I noticed was a) “gassing” the car equals maybe accelerating at 20 k/hour – downhill b) power steering must not have been standard when this thing was put through the production line. In any case, I only backed up traffic just a bit until I arrived at a Traffic Circle. A traffic circle, to my knowledge, was supposed to work something like a stop sign only you didn’t have to stop depending on who has the right-of-way and which direction everyone is going…the exact rules are a bit fuzzy to me. In any case, the reality is that whoever is the boldest car seems to declare the right-of-way, even if you were there at the same time and it seems like you are supposed to go first. The result for me, was, of course, I went last, because neither was I bold, nor could I out-gas (out-petrol?) the BMWs and Mercedes facing me around the circle. So I waited patiently and swung around the circle, straining my back and coming clear off the seat with the effort of steering the thing 180 degrees. Thankfully, I recovered quickly and remarkably ended up still on the correct side of the street. Bravo! I congratulated myself and flashed anyone who would have been paying attention a big smile (hey, I needed all the self-confidence I could get).
The plan was only to go around the block making as many left-hand turns as possible, but of course, between me muttering to myself left, left, left I’m driving on the LEFT side of the road and keeping a keen eye out for pedestrians, dogs, and sudden kombie stops, I inevitably got myself turned around somewhere around Westmeath and ended up facing a great string of rush-hour traffic – in the right turn lane - along Jan Smuts (the main highway next to my neighborhood, named after a famous Afrikaner General and government official).
I looked to my left, traffic. I looked to my right. More traffic. There was no turning back, no way out. Trying to plan out both my exit strategy and my exiting prayer, I sucked in as much of the veracity of Smuts as I could, looked right, looked left, and looked right again, and in light of all the voortrekers before me, floored the puppy in a right-hand-turn up a hill. When I finally recovered the sense to notice my bearings, I realized that I was not only still alive, but accelerating up the hill at a blazing 40 k/hour. With all the obstacles confronting me (um… a right-hand turn?), I thought the fact that only two busses passed me and one car honked in my direction to be signs of a fairly well-managed escape route. Even better, the radio had suddenly risen out of static-land and was blaring some gospel-sounding music in an African language. I chimed in with the one word I could understand: “Hallelujah, Hallelujah!”
Needless to say, my route home was a bit more of a challenge. After about five more wrong, right-hand turns and several chances to practice driving in reverse when roads suddenly turned into private driveways with scary gates, dogs, and large warnings in Afrikaans, I was once again back on Westcliff drive. Making it successfully through both gates, I managed to put the car about where it was supposed to be, park it, de-mobilize The Immobilizer, turn the key to LOCK, and lock the gear shift. Feeling a bit smug about still being alive, I stepped out to see Denis stiffing the air with a humorous, but concerned look on his face.
Ambling around the back of the car, he stated matter-of-factly, “Smells a bit like oil, doesn’t it?”
Yes, I agreed that it smelled like something was something burning. But at that point, as long as it wasn’t me, I didn’t really care.
When I asked Matt, who owns an ancient Ford Truck named Billie (that still takes leaded petrol), what to name my car, he referenced the following scene from Cool Runnings:
Sanka - So what should we call her?
Junior - How about Tallulah.
Sanka - Tallulah, sounds like (something cheap). Where did you come up with that?
Junior - It's my mother's name.
Tallulah it is.
Afterword (or Foreword?)
So after my first driving experience with Tallulah, the others have been progressively more...interesting. Mastering the route to and from Wits University with the fewest tours of private drives and fewest friendly greetings from kombie drivers and other people in a hurry has taken about a week -- not bad, considering.
It is when the thing is parked that it turns into a bad comedy show, with me as the unlikely (and unwilling) emcee.
It goes something like this:
(the comforting sounds of spring - auto traffic and numerous squawking hadedas - blanket the serene spring afternoon at Westcliff drive. Rachel, the American student, has just arrived back from school)
The gates open, one, then two, and the little red car, Tallulah, barrels down the brick lane with enough clanking and gurgling to assume that everything is okay. The car is placed in park, the key turned to LOCK, The Immobilizer out, the gear shift locked, and the car door shut. Ahhh...quiet descends on the lovely front garden and tucks it neatly away...
For about 15 seconds.
Then:
Brrr!!! Brrr!! Brrr!!!
Oh right, the alarm. It has gone off so many times, no matter which combination of LOCK, The Immobilizer -out, shut, walk; The Immobilizer-out, LOCK, shut, walk away; Walk away, Brrr!! Brrr!!, ON-OFF-LOCK, The Immobilizer-out, shut, run away, Brr!!! Brrr!!; ON-OFF, The Immobilizer -out, crawl through the window, and run, Brr!! Brr!!; that I'm beginning to wonder if it is (friendly) reminder from the car that I should not be driving.
More important than the car's concerns for me, of course, is the relative sanity of everyone else around the neighborhood. Since the alarm sound comes from INSIDE the electric fence-guard-dog-ADT-Armed-Response-System-double-gated-walls, I'm just waiting for 1)everyone to switch their systems 2)some guy in a black armored suit and a gas mask to pop over the fence and shoot me (well, I guess at least I have the dogs on my side).
Also, with Gael running a psychological consulting business right next to where my car is parked, I'm fearful that somehow my car alarm is going to go off right in the middle of someone's life epiphany and sent them through the roof for good. On the more positive side, however, I could be bringing in more business.
A Jump-Start to a New Beginning
So, after a series of about ten alarms in a row, I finally called Rent-a-Wreck to ask them how to get the alarm to turn off on a regular basis. Their advice: switch a knob on the overhead dome light to the middle position: ON-OFF, The Immobilizer-out, shut. Okay, I said...I'll try...
The trick succeeded in shutting off the alarm, but of course, the dome light came on - and stayed on. Faced with the choice between dome light and insanity, I let the light shine.
The result was that the next day ON = click, click, click. Nothing. Luckily Billie, who helps with odd jobs around the house, was around that morning to push his own worn down bakkie over to my car to jump it. Tallulah lives again!
Today, however, was the last straw. All had been going fairly well, really: the night before, the light was off, the alarm was off, and the window was even rolled all the way up.
But this morning: Key -ON-The Immobilizer -in - START- nothing. No nothing. Not even a whimper. The gardener could barely contain his amusement - and he is here to see the show only once a week.
Needless to say, Rent-A-Wreck has taken away Tallulah. May she (and Denis, and Gael, and Matt, and Rachel, and the rest of Westcliff Drive) rest in peace.
Now all that remains is--what to name this white wreck of a car....
I fell for the add that said Rent-A-Wreck, and that has made all the difference.
Rent-A-Wreck is a car-hire service specializing in cheaper rental cars – with the first 1000 Kilometers Free! Recommended to me by my landlord and neighbor Denis, the least I can say for the company is that there is no fear of me renting-an-attorney and suing for false advertising.
I called the place about four days after my arrival in Jo-Burg. Crippled by my lack of standard shift driving skills, I had to shame my little female American self into asking specifically for an automatic car. For all of the other car-hire services, this (I’m assuming the automatic) immediately made the price go up almost double.
“____ (rental car service) Yes, how can we help you?”. The voice is usually male, with some mixture of a British, Sesotho, or Zulu English accent.
“Yes, I wanted to get some monthly quotes on a rental car.”
“Okay, we have a nice car here for only R 595 per month. It comes with insurance, power windows, power steering…”
“Sorry, is it an automatic?”
“Ahhh, no ma’am,” drawing the hhh steadily higher until it finally drops into the no. You need an automatic car, hey?”
“Yes,” I grumble, sheepishly, silently admonishing myself for never having learned to drive one of my father’s numerous standard-shift vehicles.
“Okay ma’am. An automatic car gonna cost you R 950 per month.”
“Oh. All right, thank you anyway.”
“Ja, So you want the car, ma’am?”
“No, thank you.”
“Allllrrright…..”
Rent-a-Wreck, my last resort, was much more egalitarian in its pricing and service.
“Allo… Rent-a-Wreck.”
“Yes….Hello??....”
(an unmuffled pause, during which I can hear a metal clanging like a dozen wrenches have just been dropped on a concrete floor, and some incomprehensible shouting).
After about three seconds, the clanging stops.
“Hello?” I try again, a bit louder and more British, as if that would help.
“Yeess, Rent-A-Wreck,” answers a high, nasally voice. “Can I help you?”
Eventually, the guy tells me that they have a white automatic car coming back the next morning. He reassures me that he will give me a call when it comes in, and if not, to call him.
“Okay, great. Thank you.”
“Pleasure….”
Three phone calls and two-and-a half days later, a reddish car arrives at 9 Westcliff Drive. I paid R 100 extra to have it delivered to my residence, and as it rolls through the gate down the drive, I wonder if the fee was actually to drive it or push it.
The car is a shiny orange red, 1983 Mazda, hatch-back automatic. It looks like it has had its fair share of bumps and bruises along the way: the rear bumper is twisted up on the right-hand side into a sort of demure half-grimace; the lower edge of the body is not exactly straight, or solid; and as I was signing the forms on the hood of the car (promising that I’ll pay the R 3000 if the car is stolen, noted twice, so “sign here, too”), my hip found a rather accommodating dent along the right side of the front hood.
“Great,” I said, finally finished signing my name to all the blank spaces in the Terms of Contract. “Anything else?”
The middle-aged guy (I forget his name) grins, and the caps and fillings along the front of his mouth briefly catch the glare of the late afternoon sun. “No, no, ma’am,” he chuckles. “But now, I teach you about the car, okay?”
He folds my signed forms, passport copy, and other various forms of documentation with a crooked crease and stuffs the pile in a yellowing scrapbook alongside another stapled stack with a passport photo showing a guy with a beard and a turban. Well, at least I’m in good company, I think to myself, as he slams us together in his book.
Sitting in the driver’s seat, the guy proceeds to explain how to start the car, set and release the handbrake, lock and unlock the gears, and something to do with the alarm. When he finishes, I lift my head up which he takes to be understanding, though I’m really still trying to figure out how plugging something called The Immobilizer into the right side of the dash actually turns the car on. Nonetheless, I reassure him that I understand, and yes, I see the after-hours phone number.
Right before he goes, he points again to the license plate and registration number on my yellow copy of the form.
“Make sure you tell them this number if you are in an accident, a fender-bender, whatever,” he grins.
“Okay, right, I think I have it,” I reassure him and shake his hand, African style, to seal the deal. As he walks away with the scrapbook under his arm, I cannot get rid of the feeling that I’ve somehow been had. So I return his cap-and-gap grin with a toothy smile and shut the gate behind him.
Driving
After my friend from Rent-A-Wreck leaves, I inspect the car a bit further and determine that its most redeeming quality are the black plastic slip-closures, the kind that might be used to hold shoes together in a store, that secure the hub-caps to the wheel. I then open the car and sit in the driver’s seat, pretending that just sitting in the seat and looking around at the mirrors looks like I’m doing something semi-constructive towards the process of driving. After exhausting all possible angles with which to view the car from the driver’s seat, I take a deep breath, insert the key, and turn it to on position. Click. Click. Click. Nothing.
Oh, right, The Immobilizer, I remember, and plug the little chip into the dash and try again. After a deep pneumonic shudder, the car turns on and I brace myself for drive position, only to find that I cannot put the car into drive. Oh, right, I remember, the gear-lock. Sucking in another gulp of air, I cautiously undo The Immobilizer, turn the key again to off, unlock the gear-lock and start again. Looking behind me, I put the car into what I think is reverse, give it some gas, and move… nowhere. Wonderful. Not wanting to plow the car – and the house post – that are both about four feet from my back bumper (or to fry my nerves any more), I relinquish the idea attempting to drive (after all, there is always tomorrow!) put the car in park, turn the key to OFF, take out The Immobilizer, and step out of the car. A bit shaky from the whole nervous ordeal, I am still trying to regain my composure when:
Brrrr!! Brrrr!!! Brrrrrr!! Brrr!!!! Brrrr!!! Brrrr!! Brrrr!!!
Looking quickly to the door of the house, to the gate, to the electric fence, and then to the sky for good measure, I finally realize that the sound is coming from my car. Oh right, I remember, The Alarm. Turning dizzily on my heels, I stumble back to open the car (which is, of course, locked), turn the key to START, plug in The Immobilizer, and finally turn off The Alarm.
As I am surveying, once again, the view from the right side of the car, Matt Beckett (the son of Denis and Gael) emerges out of the house and asks incredulously, “Everything okay here?”
As I jump out of the car and excitedly explained me sitting in the car, trying to reverse, The Immobilizer, the parking and gear thing, the proximity of the house-post, etc., he calmly asks if I would like him to back up the car – and does so without trouble. Right, I think, feeling a little sheepish. No problem.
“Good luck driving, okay?” says Matt, standing a safe distance away as I put the car in drive and inch toward the gate.
“Thanks!” I attempt to say in my most courageous voice, but it comes out instead a muddled “Spanks” like I am chewing food or something. As I pull out of the gate and gas the car into a right-hand turn, I taste the saltiness of blood and realize that I must have bitten my tongue.
The Great Trek
So my first adventure on the left side of the road began at about 15:45 the afternoon my car arrived. Assured that I had plenty of daylight still left for the spring day, I bravely gassed the little red bugger out onto the great wide world of Westcliff Drive. The first thing that I noticed was a) “gassing” the car equals maybe accelerating at 20 k/hour – downhill b) power steering must not have been standard when this thing was put through the production line. In any case, I only backed up traffic just a bit until I arrived at a Traffic Circle. A traffic circle, to my knowledge, was supposed to work something like a stop sign only you didn’t have to stop depending on who has the right-of-way and which direction everyone is going…the exact rules are a bit fuzzy to me. In any case, the reality is that whoever is the boldest car seems to declare the right-of-way, even if you were there at the same time and it seems like you are supposed to go first. The result for me, was, of course, I went last, because neither was I bold, nor could I out-gas (out-petrol?) the BMWs and Mercedes facing me around the circle. So I waited patiently and swung around the circle, straining my back and coming clear off the seat with the effort of steering the thing 180 degrees. Thankfully, I recovered quickly and remarkably ended up still on the correct side of the street. Bravo! I congratulated myself and flashed anyone who would have been paying attention a big smile (hey, I needed all the self-confidence I could get).
The plan was only to go around the block making as many left-hand turns as possible, but of course, between me muttering to myself left, left, left I’m driving on the LEFT side of the road and keeping a keen eye out for pedestrians, dogs, and sudden kombie stops, I inevitably got myself turned around somewhere around Westmeath and ended up facing a great string of rush-hour traffic – in the right turn lane - along Jan Smuts (the main highway next to my neighborhood, named after a famous Afrikaner General and government official).
I looked to my left, traffic. I looked to my right. More traffic. There was no turning back, no way out. Trying to plan out both my exit strategy and my exiting prayer, I sucked in as much of the veracity of Smuts as I could, looked right, looked left, and looked right again, and in light of all the voortrekers before me, floored the puppy in a right-hand-turn up a hill. When I finally recovered the sense to notice my bearings, I realized that I was not only still alive, but accelerating up the hill at a blazing 40 k/hour. With all the obstacles confronting me (um… a right-hand turn?), I thought the fact that only two busses passed me and one car honked in my direction to be signs of a fairly well-managed escape route. Even better, the radio had suddenly risen out of static-land and was blaring some gospel-sounding music in an African language. I chimed in with the one word I could understand: “Hallelujah, Hallelujah!”
Needless to say, my route home was a bit more of a challenge. After about five more wrong, right-hand turns and several chances to practice driving in reverse when roads suddenly turned into private driveways with scary gates, dogs, and large warnings in Afrikaans, I was once again back on Westcliff drive. Making it successfully through both gates, I managed to put the car about where it was supposed to be, park it, de-mobilize The Immobilizer, turn the key to LOCK, and lock the gear shift. Feeling a bit smug about still being alive, I stepped out to see Denis stiffing the air with a humorous, but concerned look on his face.
Ambling around the back of the car, he stated matter-of-factly, “Smells a bit like oil, doesn’t it?”
Yes, I agreed that it smelled like something was something burning. But at that point, as long as it wasn’t me, I didn’t really care.
When I asked Matt, who owns an ancient Ford Truck named Billie (that still takes leaded petrol), what to name my car, he referenced the following scene from Cool Runnings:
Sanka - So what should we call her?
Junior - How about Tallulah.
Sanka - Tallulah, sounds like (something cheap). Where did you come up with that?
Junior - It's my mother's name.
Tallulah it is.
Afterword (or Foreword?)
So after my first driving experience with Tallulah, the others have been progressively more...interesting. Mastering the route to and from Wits University with the fewest tours of private drives and fewest friendly greetings from kombie drivers and other people in a hurry has taken about a week -- not bad, considering.
It is when the thing is parked that it turns into a bad comedy show, with me as the unlikely (and unwilling) emcee.
It goes something like this:
(the comforting sounds of spring - auto traffic and numerous squawking hadedas - blanket the serene spring afternoon at Westcliff drive. Rachel, the American student, has just arrived back from school)
The gates open, one, then two, and the little red car, Tallulah, barrels down the brick lane with enough clanking and gurgling to assume that everything is okay. The car is placed in park, the key turned to LOCK, The Immobilizer out, the gear shift locked, and the car door shut. Ahhh...quiet descends on the lovely front garden and tucks it neatly away...
For about 15 seconds.
Then:
Brrr!!! Brrr!! Brrr!!!
Oh right, the alarm. It has gone off so many times, no matter which combination of LOCK, The Immobilizer -out, shut, walk; The Immobilizer-out, LOCK, shut, walk away; Walk away, Brrr!! Brrr!!, ON-OFF-LOCK, The Immobilizer-out, shut, run away, Brr!!! Brrr!!; ON-OFF, The Immobilizer -out, crawl through the window, and run, Brr!! Brr!!; that I'm beginning to wonder if it is (friendly) reminder from the car that I should not be driving.
More important than the car's concerns for me, of course, is the relative sanity of everyone else around the neighborhood. Since the alarm sound comes from INSIDE the electric fence-guard-dog-ADT-Armed-Response-System-double-gated-walls, I'm just waiting for 1)everyone to switch their systems 2)some guy in a black armored suit and a gas mask to pop over the fence and shoot me (well, I guess at least I have the dogs on my side).
Also, with Gael running a psychological consulting business right next to where my car is parked, I'm fearful that somehow my car alarm is going to go off right in the middle of someone's life epiphany and sent them through the roof for good. On the more positive side, however, I could be bringing in more business.
A Jump-Start to a New Beginning
So, after a series of about ten alarms in a row, I finally called Rent-a-Wreck to ask them how to get the alarm to turn off on a regular basis. Their advice: switch a knob on the overhead dome light to the middle position: ON-OFF, The Immobilizer-out, shut. Okay, I said...I'll try...
The trick succeeded in shutting off the alarm, but of course, the dome light came on - and stayed on. Faced with the choice between dome light and insanity, I let the light shine.
The result was that the next day ON = click, click, click. Nothing. Luckily Billie, who helps with odd jobs around the house, was around that morning to push his own worn down bakkie over to my car to jump it. Tallulah lives again!
Today, however, was the last straw. All had been going fairly well, really: the night before, the light was off, the alarm was off, and the window was even rolled all the way up.
But this morning: Key -ON-The Immobilizer -in - START- nothing. No nothing. Not even a whimper. The gardener could barely contain his amusement - and he is here to see the show only once a week.
Needless to say, Rent-A-Wreck has taken away Tallulah. May she (and Denis, and Gael, and Matt, and Rachel, and the rest of Westcliff Drive) rest in peace.
Now all that remains is--what to name this white wreck of a car....
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