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.

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.

Fouriesburg and a taxi nightmare

Fouriesburg is a dusty three-bar town in the Eastern Free State. You will notice that I base my tourism on the number of bars in a town. If you can count them it is my kind of a place. Fouriesburg has few attractions as town in itself, but it is situated in one of the most beautiful corners of South Africa. It lies between magnificent sandstone formations at the foot of the Drakensberg (Maluti in seSotho) mountain range, about 8km from Lesotho and about 30km from the much more (too) touristic Clarens.

My friends John and Amanda have a weekend house here, so the Oyster Bay crowd, with some new additions in the form of Charli, Hannah and Carol decamped from Joburg for the weekend. For future reference I decided to name everyone here. They are : Jan (previously called the Laughing One), Madelein (previously the Laughing One's Chick), Vince (Writer), George (Fridge Guy), John (Lawyer), Amanda (no previous mention) and me. Charli debuted on my fist blog as the Wannabe Lawyer.

For the outdoors enthusiast Fouriesburg has much to offer. From rock-climbing to horse-riding, day walks, scenic drives ... you name it. Since I'm not much of an outdoors enthusiast myself I quickly ran out of possible things that the typical outdoors enthusiast might be interested in. But there is more outdoors here than you could reasonably shake the proverbial stick at, or in my case wave a wine glass at and I'm sure that there will be something for everyone.

Incidentally, the road between Fouriesburg and Clarens is one of the most beautiful in the country and the world perhaps. For more things to do in Fouriesburg see my guide about things to do in Oyster Bay.

As we speak, my friends are busy engaging with the outdoors. They invited, nay pleaded with me to come along but I said no. I pointed out to Jan that my time is no longer my own and that I have to satisfy the thirst of my 13 blog followers first and not be tempted by the lure of excursions into the mountains on foot. I must admit that I am running out of excuses for not going on these walks. I think last time I feigned a pain in the knee ... I was shot through it remember!

Anyway I walk enough in Joburg, not having a car and being reliant on public transport and taxis to get around.

The last minibus taxi I took was straight out of Stephen King. It had no tread on the tyres, and only the right front brake pad seemed to be working, but the driver made no allowance for this fact at all when it came to the speed he was driving at.

It was also raining and every time the driver braked, it would slide across two lanes to the right before coming to a standstill. When we almost smashed into the back of an oblivious police van, most passengers interrupted their fervent prayers to loudly voice their concerns ... this included me .... the atheist.

I still maintain that minibus taxis converted more people to prayer than any number of missionaries ever could. They are probably the most religious places in South Africa.

After the police van incident most passengers got off when the taxi stopped next. I followed suit and took a municipal bus ... which happened to come along at the right moment. Nobody knows exactly when or where these things run, but they are there. After the taxi it was a pleasant experience. The driver took my R6 without issuing a ticket and I did not mind.

This morning just before waking up I dreamt that I was on that taxi again ... but when I wanted to get off, the driver told me with a grin: "This is like the Hotel California. Once you get on ... you can never get off."

I woke up in terror.

Next time I will blog about a taxi user's etiquette.