Are We There Yet?

by David Smiedt

  It also seemed that a kleptomaniac convention had been through the previous week and I was accompanied to my lodgings by a porter who skipped over the recumbent tradesman and proceeded to read out an inventory of the room’s contents. He paused after each item so that I could acknowledge the presence of the two bath towels, one drinking glass, duo of pillows and so on. Once he had completed the extensive list, I was informed that the process would be repeated before checking out to ensure that no items had “vanished”.

  When I asked where the remote control for the TV was, he said that a R100 deposit was required.

  At every turn, evidence mounted that I had checked into the modern-day equivalent of one of those Victorian sanato-riums where one might secrete a three-eared cousin born out of wedlock. The resort guide which I mistakenly assumed was to inform visitors of the varied spa delights on offer was instead a chilling catalogue of the dangers lurking in the mineral-rich waters.

  Those with heart conditions were forbidden from a certain pool; another was unsuitable for anyone over sixty, and one was described as having the potential “to cause respiratory problems for children after twenty minutes …” Clearly believing that young guests and parents alike would flout this warning with cavalier contempt, the management saw fit to end the sentence with “and possible death”.

  Suitably enthused I slipped into my boardies and made my way to the spa complex which had once been the resort’s pièce de résistance but was now, as the French say, monumentally crappy. It was arranged around a large indoor pool beneath a two-storey ceiling made up of the white prefab panels most frequently found in government offices and sheltered accommodation. Aside from the fact that several of these were missing, affording a view of rust-weeping pipes, the atmosphere was made all the more clinical by walls covered in fluted concrete. The top floor, which was once given over to treatment rooms that resounded with the cracks of stubborn vertebrae, shiatsu-triggered groans of delight and the yelps that provide the soundtrack to the art of waxing now lay dormant. Outside each of these locked cubicles stood dusty receptacles which resembled oversized cricketers’ boxes. Once attached to humidifiers, guests awaiting their 3pm back, sack and crack depilation would shove their faces into these contraptions for a shot of sinus-stripping eucalyptus.

  Despite being hemmed by cracked tiles and festooned with posters either prohibiting jumping or once again informing patrons in graphic terms of the dangers that accompany soaking for more than twenty minutes at a time, the pool was an inviting prospect. Pale blue and quilted with patches of sunshine from prodigiously placed skylights, it was dominated by a dozen jets arranged in a circle which shot water five metres towards the ceiling. Here they were met by a suspended abstract chrome sculpture that looked as if it might have been scavenged from a bin outside the Alessi factory.

  Dotted around the place on creaky chaises longues was an equally creaky handful of octogenarians in load-bearing one-pieces and Nancy Reagan memorial hairdos. They were accompanied by likeable sun-withered husbands in faded Speedos who felt compelled to greet you no matter how many times your paths crossed during the day. These salutations would inevitably start out with a crisp “Morning” before moving into the activity-focused realm, as in “Off for a dip are we?”, and settling on a game-show host wink with the inevitable cheek-cluck noise.

  After a stint in the main pool I made my way to the hydro spa which was decked out in lurid orange tiles and acres of that wood panelling the Bradys had on the side of their car. At 37°C and possessing a mineral cocktail said to open a can of whupass on rheumatism, it lulled me into the kind of drowsy stupor that required two hours of prostrate recovery on a sun lounge by a fragrant jasmine hedge.

  At that point a curious turn of events occurred. Perhaps it was the combination of dehydration and a midday beer but the place began to grow on me. Yes, it was faded and tatty. Yes, there was a likelihood that somewhere in the depths of the complex lay a fully equipped S&M dungeon where guests could be flagellated senseless under the pretext of therapy. However, despite its numerous faults, the place had an air of relaxed egalitarianism about it that must have approximated a Black Sea resort circa 1975.

  For children on school holidays it surely offered the self-contained universe that characterise many of my fondest vacation memories. When substantially occupied, it was the kind of place where you could assemble a gang of prepubescent contemporaries quick time. A place where it felt like the summers were endless. A place where first kisses and lines like “Mary told me to tell you that you’re dropped” were doled out in equal measure. Decrepit as it was, there was also a sense of sedate innocence about it.

  This bonhomie was heightened by the fact that those whose budget would not stretch to a room could camp on a verdant stretch of lawn by the tennis courts. Had a spa with exclusive access to this multitude of natural springs been located in close proximity to Sydney, Stuttgart or Sante Fe, it would have been the A-list playground of twerps called Serge and Anastasia who program their enema appointments into Palm Pilots and address staff as “honey”.

  After dinner at the on-site rib restaurant – that’s my kind of health spa – I retired to my room to sample the local televisual fare.

  Television only arrived in South Africa in 1976 and for its first two decades was entirely government controlled. Until then, radio had been the primary entertainment medium and we used to rush home to crowd around the stereo for shows like “Squad Cars” and “Jet Jungle” – a superhero powered by oats. Like everything else in the country at the time, the radio stations were divided by race. Those for Englishspeaking whites played pop music of the Chris De Burgh and Bread ilk. Those for Afrikaners had their own country music which still does big business, while the black population had to share a series of stations where air time was divided across half-a-dozen or so languages.

  Many of the most popular programs, however, appeared across the radio spectrum in several tongues. Fleeting attempts to make these shows more multicultural were abandoned after participants with the most basic of educations were asked to answer questions in what was obviously their second language. The incident which prompted this retreat – and stakes out the shadowy ground between urban myth and “my brother heard it live” – took place on a show called Check Your Mate, where couples found out how well they really knew one another. “Where is the strangest place you’ve ever made love to your wife?” was the question posed to a man, who replied with something along the lines of, “In the carpark outside a casino”. After responding with a lame “talk about a winning hand” single entendre, the host then instructed the man’s wife to be escorted out of the sound-proof booth and asked, “Where is the strangest place your husband has ever made love to you?” After taking a moment to consider her options, she replied, “In the bottom”.

  Television confined our radio listening to the car and even though broadcasts in its nascent years were limited to two hours in the evening and two in the morning, the box provided us with a variety of entertainment we could barely fathom. Previously, yearnings for talking pictures meant a trip to either the local cinema or film shop. Most everyone we knew owned a small projector and reels of film in metal canisters would be lugged home with feverish anticipation on movie nights. After a few such evenings were marred by the choice of a pastel green wall as the projection surface, thus rendering all the stars slightly bilious, my dad soon mastered the art of stringing up white linen bed sheets.

  Irrespective of what was happening between the sheets on screen, these nights were invariably filled with romance as Mum and Dad snuggled on the couch beneath a flickering beam of light, only to be disturbed when the celluloid snagged and snapped, causing us kids to glare at my father as if he had purposely misfed the projector. Sometimes there was even a fair whack of drama. The most notable of these instances was when a young maid named Maria who was new to the city and had recently begun working for us (everyone under our roof was always invited to movie night) was confronted with h
er first moving image. Seated beside me on the couch, she looked at the sheet not three metres away from her to see a steam train barrelling in her direction with a trail of gun-toting cowboys in pursuit. With a wide-eyed squeal of fear, she was over the sofa like an Olympic hurdler and halfway down the block before my dad caught up with her.

  When our first TV – an enormous Telefunken with faux mahogany panelling – was delivered, the projector was unceremoniously relegated to a musty cupboard in the storeroom. As difficult as this may be to believe, my family and I actually watched the test pattern for a good hour after the set was initially tuned. The excitement during the build-up to the first broadcast was palpable in schoolyards, offices and beauty salons across the land.

  And what was the first show we ever saw? It was a tutorial on how to tune in your TV. As we elbowed one another in glee, it didn’t dawn on us that what we were in fact viewing was the quintessence of redundancy. We were viewing and that was all that mattered.

  Aside from the restrictions placed on news services by a state-run broadcasting authority, the insidious presence of the apartheid regime manifested itself in myriad small-screen ways. Until a pair of dedicated channels was introduced in the early 1980s, the only black people you saw on TV were playing servants, rioting over something or other on the 6pm bulletin or dazzling spectators on the soccer field.

  Even the notion of racial equality was a no-no. For example, I recall watching the simpering host of a show called Pop Shop announce the “Ebony & Ivory” video with the words, “Who’d have thought you could write a song about the keys of a piano?”

  Things have come a long way and the racial make-up of South Africa is now reflected on television. From cap-toothed presenters, product-hocking guests and collagen-friendly soapie stars to dreadlocked game-show hosts and sexy weatherwomen, most everyone is black, multilingual and working it Oprah-style.

  The ads also now feature groups of upwardly mobile black women perving on waiters at cafes with oh-so-hilarious orders for coffee – “Hot, dark and strong – like my men”. As opposed to sweet, white and weak perhaps.

  The saving grace of the block of advertising I saw was the most heart-warmingly honest slogan I have ever encountered from a public utility. “Travel South African Rail,” went the pitch. “It’s a pleasant experience.” Not great. Not marvellous. Just the best you could hope for.

  South African television is mercifully behind the times in that its definition of current affairs has not yet been broadened to include the secret filming of compo cheats, extensively tattooed bickering neighbours and exposés of what really goes into your margarine. That evening’s episode of a show called Carte Blanche had me scrambling for my notebook as it chronicled a rural hospital crisis that would depose any First World government.

  So traumatic are the working conditions in overcrowded, under-resourced South African hospitals that staff would rather be unemployed than face what awaits them over the course of a shift. Rural health authorities argue that the infrastructure has crumbled in the wake of apartheid’s demise, leading to such a lack of training that nurses do not have the diagnostic skills to prioritise between chest pains and haemorrhoids, a maintenance program so underfunded that gastrointestinal wards have no working toilets, and compromises such as “a drunk radiologist is better than none at all”.

  Definition of a crisis? When a black doctor working in a far-flung location stares wearily down the barrel of a camera and says, “I’m glad the old system is gone but I saved more patients’ lives under it”. The show ended with the shattering tale of a young family who had gone to visit their father after a minor operation to find him dead in bed with a still-hot meal by his side.

  After passing the room inspection the next morning, as well as a brief pat-down to ensure I hadn’t secreted a tumbler in an orifice, I made my way to reception to check out.

  “Have you heard?” asked the woman behind the counter as she handed over my remote control deposit. It’s a fairly open-ended question, especially when put to a person prone to bouts of morning sarcasm. Stifling the urge to respond with “on numerous occasions”, I was intrigued by the combined tone of glee and gravity that accompanied the question. “About what?” I replied.

  “Shane,” she clucked earnestly.

  Sensing my confusion, she added a helpful, “The sheik of tweak”. It seemed the boy who had been missing for twelve years and had lobbed into a police station sprouting allegations of slavery had been bumped to page two in the wake of a certain Australian spinner testing positive to a banned diuretic on the eve of his team’s first World Cup match. Unable to conceal their glee at the prospect of Australia’s strike weapon being sent home in disgrace, the staff took a smirk break as I threw my gear into the car and my car into gear.

  Continuing northwards, I cruised by endless paddocks used for the cultivation of maize, wheat and the crop that sounds more like a dental complaint than anything else: sorghum. At this time of year, however, they lay fallow. The area was known as Springbok Flats, named after the rivers of gazelle which crisscrossed this plain before the settlers began blasting the bejesus out of them for land clearance, but were still so numerous that they continued to attract the odd lion with a venison hankering up until the 1930s.

  Beyond the bucolic blandness to my left lay the Marakele National Park, home to cycads older than Zsa-Zsa Gabor and 800 breeding pairs of Cape vultures, a species which has been observed to glide the currents for over twenty minutes at a time with a single wing flap.

  My destination was the town of Nylstroom. I wasn’t hoping for much and this dreary hamlet delivered in spades – as you might expect from a town whose welcome sign is sponsored by the local liquor outlet. The town’s main drag was a wide affair bounded by single-storey discount furniture outlets, feed stores and the kind of clothing shops favoured by menopausal women who attend a lot of funerals.

  The town offered precisely two highlights. The first was its name. According to a group of devoutly religious Voortrekkers, this region was the Promised Land of the Southern Hemisphere. Known as the Jerusalem Travellers, they fled the Cape in the 1860s in search of a Holy Land unblighted by Brits. When they eventually reached this region, they put two and two together and got three.

  Encountering a stream flowing north through fertile land at the eastern tip of the Waterberg plateau, the parched settlers thought it appropriate to give this source of fresh water a name. Searching about for inspiration, their eyes were drawn to a nearby hill referred to by the local tribe as Modimolle (Place of the Spirits). Dominating the landscape and vaguely conical, the trekkers concluded that what they were in fact staring at was a pyramid. Which naturally meant that they couldn’t be anywhere but Egypt. Therefore the stream already had a name – the Nile. Hence they christened the new settlement Nylstroom and have pretty much been embarrassed ever since.

  The second of Nylstroom’s delights was that it was the location of my first Afrikaans conversation in fifteen years.

  While refuelling the car, I was accosted by a man weighed down by an overstuffed plastic laundry bag slung over his shoulder who asked if I would be interested in buying a leather jacket. At which point I surprised myself by wrenching a coherent declination from a lexicon that had not been utilised since George Michael was a heterosexual sex symbol.

  He then proceeded to yank from the bag the kind of double-breasted number most frequently sported by the underlings of Miami Vice drug lords. An impassioned sales pitch followed in which he countered my every point with a slick retort. I’m one of those types for whom haggling carries all the fun of a barium meal, but although I had zero intention of purchasing, the fact that I was conducting the negotiation in Afrikaans led to it lasting longer than it should have.

  Having ascertained his chances of making a sale were slimmer than that of a Beatles reunion, the mobile boutique was eventually hoisted onto the salesman’s back and he trudged off in the direction of the main street.

  A dozen of years of ma
ndatory Afrikaans study has guaranteed most white South Africans a degree of bilingualism. However, besides making Dutch street signs somewhat easier to decipher – a handy skill in the wee hours having extensively sampled Amsterdam’s finest diversions – the language is of no use outside the nation’s borders. However, despite being synonymous with a regime of soul-sapping discrimination and possessing such an abundance of gutturals that fluency makes one appear to be trying to dislodge a moth from the windpipe, Afrikaans is a language with its fair share of soul and beauty. It has spawned poetry of rare insight and depth, authors such as Herman Charles Bosman who mastered the twist-in-the-tale short story half a century before Roald Dahl published Tales of the Unexpected, and a vocabulary with an idiosyncratic charm all of its own. An accident, for example, literally translates as an “unlucky”. A cemetery is a “burial farm”.

  The road north to Potgietersrus gently arcs its way through vine-wreathed paddocks and fragrant melon farms along a valley floor with the watercolour grey Waterberg Mountains on the left and the charcoal Strydpoort range on the right.

  Where Nylstroom was slipping into a coma from which it didn’t look likely to recover, Potgietersrus had an air of quiet languidness about its wide streets overhung with tropical bowers. Apart from a nearby cave network from which has emerged everything from the bones of extinct sabre-toothed predators to a hearth system indicating that between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago the controlled use of fire was a sophisticated endeavour, the town’s primary tourist attraction was the Arend Dieperink Museum.