A real skoroskoro and a conversation about religion

My problem with taxis in the mornings is that they are all packed until about 10am when they pass the point where I join the route on foot. That means I really have to walk far to the first major drop-off point.

The reason why I mention this is that I made a decision, in principle, not to take skoroskoros anymore and rather wait for a vaguely decent taxi. A skoroskoro is a vehicle that is in fact a crock and the onomatopoeic skoroskoro refers to the sound they make when they drive .... skoroskoroskoroskoro ... the 'Os' are pronounced as if they had a genuflect accent.

But I'm late for work and my principles take a hike and I take a skoroskoro when it stops. I immediately know it is a skoroskoro because the dented sliding door will not open until the driver gets out and manoeuvres it open with a secret flick of his hips ... and then it refuses to close again ... but soon enough we are on the road.

Further clues that this is the real deal in the skoroskoro category follow quickly. Apart from the skoroskoro noise my seat dumps me on my neighbour when we go around the first righthand corner and the front passenger door flies open. But we are an adaptable lot here in the south of Africa and I learn to lean left when the taxi goes right and and the front passenger learns to hold on to the dashboard with his right hand and the door with his left hand while leaning right.

I join the other passengers in silent prayer and try not to think about the state of the vehicle's brakes or shock absorbers while it careens through the traffic ... I suspect they are close to being non-existent ... which brings me to God and religion.

Now everybody knows I'm an atheist but few of you would guess that my parents and especially my father is a deeply religious person. He is one of only a handful of people, perhaps the only one, whom I know who practises all the virtues of Christianity including tolerance and forgiveness. That is why we still get along.

Many years ago when our politics also parted ways we decided to limit our conversational topics to one ... rugby where we are both on the same page ... we support the Free State Cheetahs. This happened as if we both grasped at the same time that it was the only way to keep our relationship going and no discussion preceded the event.

Fortunately we have since rejoined opinion on politics and the weather and rainfall patterns provide further stimuli for our conversations.

With my mother there is no such problems. She berates me my variety of addictions and is fearful that I'm now addicted to the internet as well ... and also hints darkly at my godlessness when she gets the chance between analysing the latest health affliction that is making her life a misery.

That was why I was shocked when she complained about being lonely instead of her normal ailing health the other day ... and being the dutiful son that I am ... took her seriously for once. Not that I could get her interested in the wonders of the internet or google ... no sirree!

For that I had to rely on my father who, after my presentation, dutifully thanked the Lord in his pre-lunchtime saying of grace "for the wonderful technologies that He gave us".

Then we had lunch and it was time for Abrie to take me back to Kruger International.

Without prompting he begins talking about how he is getting slightly irritated by the creationists and Christian fundamentalists peopling the rural community around him. He finds their blunt refusal to take any scientific evidence into account when they expound their own beliefs especially grating.

I feel his pain ... he professes to be a Christian ... but ...

I was also there once ... and for a long time ... until I realised that faith does not readily stand up to any manner of scrutiny by a questioning mind ... and once you begin scratching the surface of your religious beliefs with a vexing question you are in for a long and hard think.
FLAG UPDATE: Meanwhile it would seem that only Joburg is 'flagging up' big time. I spotted hardly a flag around Hazyview and my father quietly removed the one I put on his car. I asked Lizette in Pretoria to do a count for me but have not heard from her since and Charles Moore reported that there were noticably fewer in Cape Town during his recent visit there. Let me know if I'm wrong.

A clearer view of Hazyview... and my parents

Fortunately my brother Abrie arrives by car to come and pick me up from the Kruger International which indeed received a major make-over from when I saw it last.

That time, if memory serves correctly, it consisted of a single, dirty pre-fab structure and a windsock wilting in the blazing heat along with the ten or so passengers eyeing the small twin prop aircraft that was due to transport them to Joburg with all the suspicion it deserved. I was there to drop off my girlfriend of the time and I silently feared for her life.

But now 60 odd passengers arrived in a four-engine jet plane from British Aerospace to be welcomed by an attractive thatched-roofed building and a direction board indicating "International Arrivals" and "Domestic Arrivals" in the same direction ... for a moment I fear that it would be the same entrance ... but no ... the internationals split off at some point ...

But then I think that if a domestic and international flight arrived at the same time there would really not be anything to stop the al Qeada operative from just walking in with the locals. I hope that the airport authorities have some kind of plan for such an eventuality ... but knowing the locals of the Slowveld I'm not going to bet any money on that.

Meanwhile I arrive home (chez les parents) armed with two bottles of wine and we have our normal familial conversations about nothing and then go to bed.

This morning I wake up to go for a leak in ... a beautiful garden ... resplendent ... even in winter ... with an astonishing array of bright colours. From the bright post office red of the poinsettias to British racing green with canary yellows to orange to auburn ... thrown in ... and much in between.

Then I realise that I have been giving Hazyview a raw deal. It is a beautiful place and it is the perfect base camp from which to visit:
Blyde River Canyon

• The Kruger National park
• God's Window
• The falls
• The Potholes ... no not the same ones you see on the roads ... for which the authorities seem to to think that putting up boards telling you to beware of them for the next 5km ... every 5km ... is a solution. My brother Abrie correctly points out they could save a lot of money by simply putting up one board saying: "Potholes for the next 7000km". This would be more cost effective. They could even do better by putting up signs outside every airport saying: "POTHOLES EVERYWHERE!"
• Elephant rides

In the morning my mother sits me down and complains ... she is lonely here ... all her friends are dead or departed ... that sounds strangely macabre ... let me put it differently ... all her friends are dead and gone ... that's not right either. OK, so here friends who are not dead all left the area and went to live in old age homes somewhere... and she wants to do the same. I mean go and live in an old age home...

My father and I disagree with her...

Why give up a luxurious environment, if somewhat financially constrained, for a small room in an old age home somewhere where it is cold and windy in the winter and warm and windy in the summer ... Cape Town ... and be more financially constrained?

My soon-to-be 80-year-old father is the general handyman for my very able sister-in-law Maretha... (Was that a bad case of hyphenitis or what? And don't say what).

So my mission of the day becomes to get them online so that my mother can chat to her offspring where-ever they may be.

First I explain the wonders of google and gmail to them ... Storing your shit in the 'cloud' and all that and having live video chats and all of that plus google docs as well as spreadsheets and the internet BEING the computer ...

Using my father's upcoming 80th birthday as fundraising motif I phone my brother Noddy and he agrees that the old folks must get connected and he pledges his financial support for the project ... as does Abrie.

The end result is that my parents will soon be talking to YOU online.

Not clear why I wanted to write about Hazyview ...

My parents live on my brother Abrie's farm near Hazyview. That's about 400km from Joburg and I'm going there tomorrow.

Initially the plan was to rustle up the usual suspects and go as a group ... my brother has a backpacker facility on the farm. After initial excitement about the prospect my so-called friends began cancelling on me ... but all was fine ... The back-up plan was that my sister Emily and her kids would go ... then Emily cancelled yesterday.

A visit to my elderly parents is really long overdue ... I was last there two years ago ... so I decide I will go alone and book a ticket to the somewhat pompously named Kruger International outside Nelspruit in the Lowveld. The last time I was there it looked more like the Kruger Backwater, but that was some time ago and things change ... sometimes for the better ... one can only hope.

With the main leg of my trip taken care of I phone my brother Abrie to hear if he'll come and fetch me ... no problem ... farmers are always looking for an excuse to go to the nearest big town.

Now it's time to train my considerable intellect on the vexing problem of getting to the airport from my house ... I am loathe to ask one of my so-called friends to take me and averse to spending a fortune on a real taxi ... that means public transport in the form of minibus taxis...

When I faced with the same problem coming back from Oyster Bay I even wrote a blog about the lack of public transport to and from OR Tambo International ... your gateway to the nearest traffic jam ... but that was before I knew about the only 'real' public transport here.

A kindly reader then sketched the route for me and said a trip to the airport should come in below R20 if you know where you are going ... So once again I'm faced with a three-leg voyage before I can embark on the second leg of my real trip.

First I have to get to Park Station in Joburg Central ... from there I must take another taxi to Kempton Park and from there another one to the airport. I'll start out early....

Now Hazyview is somewhat of a tourist destination itself. In itself it has all the charm of a gigantic but poorly planned shopping mall, but there are more types of accommodation to suit every pocket and people use it as a base-camp to explore the many natural delights of the Lowveld about which I will write at length once I am there.

Where am I going with this blog? That is my more immediate concern ... my view has indeed become very hazy about that. I could swear I had a point when I started out... seems to have deserted me ... I'll just publish and be damned .... and such a poor piece on top of Rian Malan's must-read piece of earlier today... I'm shooting myself in the foot. What the hell maybe inspiration will hit me in Hazyview .... and then again not ... the locals call it Lazyview in the Slowveld...

Welcome to Rachel Tolton... and Hazyview.