Bowls and John

Sunday—En Route to Pilanesberg

So we wandered around the grounds of our hotel while we waited for our transport to take us from Jo-burg to the airport where we’d hopefully be reunited with our luggage, and then off to Pilanesberg, where we’ll meet the hippos. On one of our spins, we saw a bunch of old people dressed in white playing Bowls. Boy, does that look like fun. It seems like bocci to me—that is, you throw out a little ball, and then throw bigger balls (ha ha) and try to get the closest to it. The best part was the one player (see photo) who grabbed a big hand full of butt long enough for me to take a picture and then some. The other best part was that there was an attendant cat, who just sat watching the game being played. I have a picture of him, too, in case anyone is interested.

So our driver came at 10:00 to “collect us”, as the receptionist said, and he was an older white South African guy who had clearly spent too much time in the sun. His name was John, and he whisked us away to Jo-burg airport, and then walked in with us to the luggage people in case there needed to be yelling. John rules. So our luggage was in fact there, but here’s some more good news bad news: it was raining in Atlanta when we took off, and since our baggage didn’t make our flight, it sat on the tarmac for a very long time, and all of our clothes are soaked with runway water. YAY! But we didn’t find that out until we got to the Ivory Tree Game Lodge, so it was like an extra special surprise.

More about John. So John was brilliant. He answered all of our annoying touristy questions (what kind of tree is that? What kind of tree is that? How about that one? And that one?) and then went on to tell us all about the South African Power Crisis, the Zimbabwe economic disaster (turns out John is originally from Zimbabwe) and also that I (Shannon) have been pronouncing Lesotho wrong my whole life (Lu-sue-tu, for anyone who wants to know). We really wanted to ask about, you know, Apartheid and stuff, but despite our weariness (each of us did a whip-lash falling asleep turn in the car) we decided that would be socially awkward and insensitive. He also told us about the platinum mines, and we saw all of the shanty towns built up by the migrant workers, most from Swaziland and Zimbabwe. The poverty was intense, and most people are living in tin shacks. There were goats and cows free ranging, but honestly, through Jo-burg and Pretoria, the landscape looked a lot like the American South West. John told us that the free range cows cause trouble in the winter, because the tar gets hot, and they sleep on it, and cars totally run into them. Oh the car-nage. (right? Huh?) The origin of John is a mystery. He’s worked in Ethiopia, Qatar, Sudan, and a million other places, and when we asked him what he did, he made a vague reference to a transport company—perhaps a diamond smuggler? He told us all about the outdoor sports (including bowls), and also, his ride was a Benz. Perhaps he didn’t work for any company, but just seeks out interesting tourists to tell his stories too. In any case, we hope he is our driver for the return, because then we’d be friendly enough to ask about all the racism.