We have been talking about going to Africa since 2010, when Simon reconnected via Skype with Deane Yates, his Headmaster from Maru-a-Pula (translated as “clouds of rain” in Tswana, which symbolically means “blessings”). Listening to their conversations, and having heard Simon talk about his years of schooling in Botswana and the great man and his wife Dot, who not only began the school, but worked tirelessly their entire lives to prove black children and white children could thrive together in a school setting, I said, “His story should be a book. And you should write it.”
With the help of the American Friends of Maru-a-Pula, we made arrangements to travel to South Africa and Botswana to speak with the people who helped Deane and Dot make the school the internationally respected, highly successful environment it is today. Their story will be told in book form. The following blogs will be our story of discovering and rediscovering Africa.
Saturday, September 2, 2017
The taxi picked us up at 1 p.m. for our easy 1-hour flight to Atlanta and then the long, long leg to Johannesburg. Fifteen and a half hours later, with no sleep overnight and in seats that were the narrowest pitch we’ve come across in ages, which made our legs feel like they were in a vice, we arrived. It was 6 p.m. on Sunday, noon U.S. time.
With only a few agents on duty at Immigration, the lines were enormous. Two hours later we were through, but there was no sign indicating where our luggage carousel was—and no luggage. Thirty worried minutes later we found our cases with some random airport employee, intact and (surprisingly) with nothing stolen. Both of Susan’s bottles of Lysol arrived. Success!
Our shuttle driver for Southern Sun hotel at Tambo introduced himself as Elvis, and said, “You’re tired now, but Elvis is here to take care of everything.” Just by saying that, our stress melted away. From that moment on, we threw ourselves fully into the Africa experience.
We checked in and made a drink in the bar our first priority. Susan has a lot of food rules, even more so when we travel, and tap water or ice were definitely off the menu. We ordered two Castle beers, figuring that would be a safe choice (no ice), but the first thing the bartender, Zane, did was rinse the insides of the glasses with water. First food safety rule broken!
The conversation with Zane was lively–from why on God’s green earth anyone in the U.S. voted for “that circus clown” Trump to the personalities of all the U.S. basketball players. He asked where we were going to visit, and when Simon mentioned Sophiatown, Zane said, “It’s just like Cleveland.” We were surprised, and asked if he’d been to Cleveland. He said, “No, but I’ve seen it on TV.”
Our 2 beers came to the equivalent of $3.50, but the company was priceless. We felt an easy friendliness from Zane, which would be a hallmark of our 32 day adventure.
We were picked up at 6.45 the next morning by Daniel Pretorius (the House-master at our first stop, St. John’s College), and made the 35-min journey to the school through morning rush hour, marveling at how built up, hilly and DRY the place was. All the houses had enormous walls with barbed wire and electrified fences at the top. It was a sobering reminder of the legacy of Apartheid.
On the way we saw women setting up stands along the road, to sell fruit and other items we couldn’t identify. Mini shuttles zoomed past us like they were being piloted by crazed, drunken drivers. Daniel told us they were locals who started transport companies due to the terrible public transport and unsafe trains, and that hopeful riders used finger signals to let the driver know which route they needed. One woman we saw raised one finger, others pointed two fingers outward, to indicated the route, they wanted, and the shuttles either stopped or sped on.
After our rather harrowing encounter with Johannian traffic compliments of drivers whose general level of skill is either absolutely world-class or completely lacking and without an ounce of safety training, we arrived at the school alive. St. John’s College was built in 1907 and has the look of a classic British public school, in a completely self-contained (and secure) campus.
Our accommodation for the next 5 days would be the Old Johannian B&B on the college grounds, just separate to the school. It would prove cozy and comfortable, and gave us supremely convenient access to the library, along with a restaurant just steps away, with indoor and outdoor gathering areas we would use extensively for interviews.
With only 3 hours sleep the night before due to jet lag, we were exhausted. It was much colder than we expected (around 60F), but springtime for South Africa, and there was no indoor heating other than plug-in electric heaters, so our time going through boxes and boxes of material from the school’s archives required several mugs of hot coffee and tea to keep the chill away.
Still, the next 5 happy, busy days of research and interviews passed far too quickly, and by the time we had to leave for our flight to Port Elizabeth we felt we had made many new friends.
We were thrilled and excited beyond words to finally be in Africa, and the initial impression more than lived up to expectations. It was a rich and fertile source of story material with massive amounts of background and atmosphere, from the noise of the Hadeda (ha-dee-dha) birds, (Africans say the hadeda screech while they fly because they’re afraid of heights), to the bustle of the boys around the school. The Chapel alone was stunning and the brick buildings were redolent of the major English public schools.
The tower clock chimes; the Chapel bells ring; the organ plays in the background. We’re in a safe bubble of English gentility. It’s hard to remember we’re also in the cradle of humanity, Africa.
Next blog: Plettenberg Bay, where we see two of the continent’s “Big Seven”…and an unexpected troop of highway baboons!
Want to see more photos? Check out our Into Africa album on Veness Travel Media on Facebook. We will be adding to the album as each blog goes up.
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