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Global
Lay-Correspondent Report on South Africa
1
On The Move
At once
promising something wild, powerfully unpredictable and
dangerous, South Africa roars like a wounded lion. Once my
father saw the slides of a colleague who had recently returned
from the country, the lush natural beauty in the images
instantly seduced him. Determined to move there, he asked for
a transfer from his company. He then campaigned to win the
family over with the idea. I was 11 years old at the time, and
I did not want to go. We had been on the move since I was
two-years old, leaving Colorado and setting up house first in
New Mexico, then Mississippi, followed by Nevada and Oklahoma.
I did not want to leave my friends, unaware at the time this
would become a way of life continually into adulthood. I’m not
sure what he said to my mother or my sisters to convince them
what a fantastic idea it was, but I do remember what he told
me … “They have rock music there Jeff”, and so (of course), I
buckled.
In early March of 1971, we flew out of J. F. K. International
Airport in New York City bound for London, our first layover.
There were ten of us, my mother, a colleague of my father’s
wife, her four children, three of my sisters and me. My father
had already been in South Africa for 2 months in order to find
a home for us, the rest of the family took this time to pack
our belongings. We then spent the last month up in the
mountains outside of Denver, which gave my imagination time to
run wild. Surely, Tarzan movies were not a good representation
of every day life in Africa. I was delighted to learn they
were not (at least not in South Africa). From London, we flew
to Rome, where a customs agent took one look at us, all of our
baggage, shook his head from side to side and just waved us
through. I was fascinated with the ruins in Rome; the
Coliseum, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the
Catacombs and Alfredo’s world famous restaurant. I fell in
love with Rome; the fountains, the battlegrounds, the
atmosphere, and the food.
We flew British Airways from Rome to our next layover, our
first true taste of Africa, Nairobi, Kenya. Because the South
African Government of the era (The National Party) created and
enforced an arbitrary classification of racial segregation
known as apartheid (meaning apartness in Afrikaans, cognate to
English apart and -hood), South African airliners were
boycotted and not allowed to fly over any other African
airspace. As yet, unfamiliar with this cauldron of hatred that
apartheid ignited, plus being just so politically naïve, I was
ignorant to the innate fear and caution that would become
paramount to my social education, awareness, ideals and shame.
I was not yet familiar with the phenomenon, known by the
Afrikaans community of Dutch decent as swart gevaar (black
peril). We finally landed in the city of gold on the veld,
Johannesburg, at Jan Smuts International Airport on March 11,
1971 completely exhausted, and as for me, ready for the
adventure of a lifetime.
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