Getting a new job and using public transport in a time of supposed racial tension

Ask most whiteys in Joburg about public transport in the city and they will tell you their is none. Until yesterday I would have told you the same (see my previous blog about the issue and also read the informative comment below it).

So yesterday Charles Moore, an independent TV producer phones me and says they need help with their sub-titles on a well-known multilingual environmental programme 50/50 (Human/Nature). Their offices are in Randburg and I take a taxi to go for an interview with Charles and Clive Morris of Clive Morris Productions. That costs me a whopping R100!

The interview goes well and afterwards I decided it was time to take a plunge into the only real public transport available, the minibus taxis used mainly by darkies to get around town. I quickly hail one by sticking my forefinger in the air pointing in the direction I wish to go. It is important to use the right finger because these terrors of South African roads often get the middle finger from other motorists and they don't seem to like it.

I get in with a friendly isiZulu greeting that is greeted back with ... silence. Oh shit, I think, this is a time of racial tension. But after the taxi stopped for a number of other passengers who got in silently and sat silently I realise that silence is the way to go. I suppose mainly because the passengers are deeply engaged in silent prayer for their lives. I soon join them.

The driver seems intent on breaking every rule in the book and all of that at break-neck speed. I can't say how fast he is going because his speedometer is working about as well as his shock-absorbers. It permanently shows that we are going at 20km/h. The shot shock-absorbers and the general rattling of the old Toyota Hi-Ace add to the feeling that we are hurtling towards a certain death.

One of these 'Coffins on Wheels' once got pulled over and the steering wheel was found to be missing ... it was replaced by a vice-grip spanner!

However I arrive safely at my destination for R7! I realise that thousands upon thousands of people do so every day.

I am hardly home when Charles phones again to tell me that I got the job and that I am starting immediately. So I am back into another minibus ... silently this time. Once again I arrive safely despite the fact that this one's sliding door refuses to close and I am required to hold it closed.

Charles gives me a printed script to be translated into Afrikaans. I give it one look and decide that I can knock it off in an hour. Charles promises to send me an electronic copy and I go home but first stop for celebratory drinks with my friends Jan (previously known as The Laughing One) John, the lawyer, George, the fridge guy and Vince, the writer. So I finally get home at about 10pm and the electronic copy is not there.

I phone Charles again and he sends it again ... this time I get it. I knock it off in about 7 hours and get to bed at 5am. I sleep till 9am when Charles phones again to ask if I got my next assignment for which the deadline is 11am. I check my mail and it is not there. He sends it again and again and I finally get it at just after 10am ... This time I do knock it off under an hour and send it off at 11 sharp.

Strangely enough I'm kinda tired now ... and there is more work to come, so this is me for today.