Hitching

Friends and family members might worry about what I’m going to tell you, so I trust you will keep this as our little secret.

Occasionally, when I’m driving around South Africa, I pick up hitchhikers. Lest you, too, get bent out of shape by this practice, let me assure you that I have rules that I never (at least rarely) break when offering someone a ride.

I only stop for women, and it has to be during daylight hours, in parts of the country that I know and at times of the day when the hitchhikers are either looking for a ride to work or home from work. I only break these rules if I see someone by the side of the road and intuitively feel like they need a ride and won’t harm me. Like a few weeks ago when I was driving to Kimberley.

It was getting dark and there was a man with his thumb out who looked as though he really needed a lift. He was trying to get home to Kimberley, nearly an hours drive by car. Eventually he could catch a passing mini-bus, but it could take him hours to get home to his wife and children. That much I gleaned from our conversation, but that was about it since he spoke Xhosa and Afrikaans and just a smattering of English. Fortunately, hand signals for directions are universal and I was able to deliver him to his door once we drove into the city limits of Kimberley. He offered to pay me something for the ride. When I refused his offer he repeatedly shook my hand, hugged me, and said – in about the only English that I could clearly decipher – that God would bless me. He was still waving as I drove off in search of the guesthouse I was staying at.

OK, so I might have broken one or two of my rules. I don’t know Kimberley at all, it was getting dark and the hitchhiker was a man. Still, it worked out all right in the end.

A few days later I was riding in a car with a friend who was driving through wine country. We had passed dozens of hitchhikers clearly, in my mind at least, looking for a ride home from work. I asked my Capetonian friend if he ever stopped to pick any of these people up.

“No man, are you crazy? You will end up with a knife in your neck.”

Well that was a bit more graphic than I would have liked to hear. Since then, I haven’t offered anyone a ride. Truth be told, I haven’t picked up a hitchhiker since then because I no longer have a car. I returned my rental car and am back to relying on my own two feet or public transport to get around. But what to do when a destination is too far to walk to and the other options for transportation aren’t all that great?

My friend and director of the Zwane Community Centre, Spiwo Xapile, invited me to join him at his home village of Malungeni in the Eastern Cape of South Africa for a few days. Spiwo and I flew from Cape Town to East London. At the airport in East London we picked up a car and Spiwo drove more than three hours to Malungeni. As I had to return to Cape Town before Spiwo, we needed to figure out a way for me to get from Mthatha, the largest town near his village, to East London where I would catch my return flight. Spiwo said I had two options. I could take a mini-bus, often overcrowded and slow; or I could do what the locals do and hitchhike. Always one to do what the locals do, you know which choice I opted for.

Spiwo found a piece of paper and, using a blue marker, wrote the letters “CE” on it. I know, “CE” doesn’t make sense to me as the abbreviation of East London either, but Spiwo assured me it had something to do with an old spelling of the city and that he was not intentionally sending me somewhere I didn’t want to go.

With the piece of paper in hand, Spiwo drove me into Mthatha where we parked along the N2, the national highway, and we took turns holding the sign along the side of the road – waiting for a car to stop and pick me up.

Ten cars went by, then 20. Five minutes passed, then 10.

Having told Spiwo about my experiences picking up hitchhikers and my friend’s warning about how they could kill a driver, Spiwo said, “Bhuti, man. I’m not sure about this. Hey, a white man hitchhiking in Mthatha. Black people are afraid to pick you up because they think you will stick a knife in their throats.” With that, Spiwo laughed and laughed as car after car whizzed by me whilst I held my pathetic sign.

After 15 minutes, about the time I was starting to feel like a 13-year-old Nancy boy who was always picked last when choosing teams in gym class (not that I haven’t gotten over that), a car stopped. A young black couple, en route to East London in a Toyota Yaris, offered me a lift. I said a quick good-bye to Spiwo, hopped in the car and we were off … for about three kilometers.

Then we stopped and a young girl of 16 piled in the backseat and a middle-aged woman followed. With the hatchback now filled with luggage, the young girl sat with a bag on her lap, the older women with a purse on her lap in the middle, and me with the woman’s suitcase on my lap. Hardly a word passed between us hitchhikers, but the couple in the front talked and laughed all the way to East London. I choose to look out the passenger window and not at the speedometer, which often exceeded 160 kilometers as we passed vehicle after vehicle on the single lane road.

In what must have been record time between Mthatha and East London, the couple delivered me to my destination – a Kentucky Fried Chicken where a friend would be meeting me. They didn’t want to leave me until my friend arrived, but I assured them I would be fine and gave them 70 rand, about $10, for the two and a half-hour ride.

So, I guess I actually have two secrets that I trust you will keep. I occasionally pick up hitchhikers and I occasionally hitchhike myself.

I know there is some danger involved in this and I would never recommend that anyone else do it. Still, I like living in a world where you know you can count on a stranger to give you a lift when you need it.

Saying Good-Bye is not the Hard Part of Leaving

At the end of the month I will leave Cape Town and begin a slow trip back to the U.S. The hardest part about leaving a city I have come to know so well is not saying good-bye to friends and those we work with in the townships. Before long, I will be back here again, picking up with everyone where we left off. No, the hardest part is telling the people who have come to depend on me, in part, for their income, that I will no longer need their services.

I’m already in the process of closing up the apartment where I’ve stayed for the past few months. One day a week, Veronica has made the long commute from the township where she lives into Cape Town to clean my flat. It’s an efficiency apartment that I could have easily cleaned on my own, but helping to create a few jobs while I’m here seems like the least I could do to repay a country that has been so hospitable to me. Besides, coming home to an immaculate apartment, with all of my clothes crisply ironed and hanging in a closet, is a luxury I will miss when I’m back in Minneapolis and cleaning my own house.

This morning I told Veronica that this would be the last time I would need her to clean for me. Veronica took the news about as well as someone, who desperately needs the 200 rand I pay her each week, can. That’s less than $30. Not enough to survive on here, especially when food and gasoline costs are escalating rapidly.

Friends who own a popular guesthouse in Cape Town introduced Veronica to me. They will continue to look out for her and find her work when they can, but with winter setting in and few tourists coming, it’s going to be a challenge for them to help her. A few weeks ago the lens of Veronica’s eyeglasses broke. Losing me as a client makes it less likely that she will replace her glasses anytime soon.

Later today I’ll get my haircut and tell my stylist that I probably won’t be back. She won’t miss cutting my hair. “You have Japan man hair,” she tells me. I take that to mean that my hair is very straight. I know it is a challenge for her to cut. She will, however, miss having a regular customer once a month. There are days when my stylist has only one client. She is trying to find a job waiting tables at night, but the bad economy and the lack of tourists make that an unlikely prospect.

I only rent a car here when I need it and after this week I probably won’t need to have my own transportation. Before returning the rental to Avis, I will take it to be washed. The man who washes my car gets 10 rand, about $1.50, for doing so. The company that owns the car washing service keeps the remaining 35 rand it charges for a basic wash. As surprising as it sounds, the car washer will miss the 10 rand he earns and the 10 rand I tip him when he washes my car.

By the end of the week the only service person I will have left to tell I’m leaving is the man on the street corner in front of my apartment building who sells me the Cape Times newspaper every morning. I give him seven rand for a paper that costs 6.50 rand. It’s not much, a .50 rand tip every day, but over the course of a year that comes to about $20. A man’s got to sell a lot of newspapers to make that up.

On the 30th Anniversary of HIV/AIDS

It seems appropriate that today, what is recognized as the 30^th anniversary of what was to become the AIDS pandemic, that I’m in South Africa – the country that is home to more people living with HIV/AIDS than any other. Much of the media coverage on this anniversary has centered on the remarkable advances in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. It’s good to pause and remember just how far we have come from those early, very dark days when people were whispering about the “gay cancer.” It’s also important to acknowledge that not everyone has advanced equally on this issue.

Recently I was, what a surprise, on a two-day train journey, traveling from Pretoria to Cape Town on one of the luxury rail lines. At breakfast in the dining car one morning an elderly woman, a widow traveling by herself back to her home in a wealthy suburb of Cape Town, sat at table across from where I was sitting having coffee. We exchanged “good mornings” and talked about the train trip. After a few minutes we introduced ourselves and Violet asked me to join her at her table.

The septuagenarian was intrigued by my train travels and the places I had visited along the Shosholoza Meyl route. Violet provided colorful commentary and historic information about some of my stops along the way. Eventually, she said, “But what brought you to South Africa in the first place?”

I explained how I first came here, with board members from Open Arms in 2000, to attend the International AIDS Conference in Durban. Before arriving at the conference we spent a week in Guguletu learning about the impact HIV/AIDS was having in that township. I got no further than that before Violet interrupted me and said:

“You might find what I’m about to say callous, but be that as it may. I don’t give a cent to AIDS. Never have. Never will. You have to understand that those people have a sex drive that is different and they can’t be educated. We had no AIDS in Newlands (Violet’s neighborhood) until the black workers brought it in with them. AIDS is just a way of thinning the overpopulation. It’s actually not a bad thing. Now, orphans – that’s another story. But putting orphans with AIDS on medications. Absolutely not! Then we are going to have to take care of them for years. No. I have no interest in AIDS.”

I got over being shocked by comments like this long ago. It doesn’t even make me angry anymore. Rather, if I have the energy, I try to use this as an opportunity for a dialogue. Since I had been living well on a luxury train for nearly two days, I had some energy this particular morning and started to explain the complexities of HIV/AIDS. That in addition to it being a global health issue, that homophobia, racism, gender and economic inequalities had all played a role in the spread of a disease.

“AIDS is, after all,” I said, “a disease.”

At that, Violet raised her hand in a gesture that indicated she had heard enough.

“Bless you for what you are trying to do, but I have no interest.”

End of conversation.

I wished Violet a nice day and returned with my cup of coffee to my original table.

I had heard it all before, but Violet was especially harsh. Most critics, even if they think it, don’t actually say that children with HIV should be denied medication because it’s too costly to pay for drugs the rest of their lives.

Sipping coffee, watching the landscape pass me by in the dining car of the Rovos Rail, I thought about some of the people I have known who have died of HIV/AIDS. John. George. Jimmel. Charlie. Chuck. Mary. Martin. Beauty. Anneline. Gloria. Nombulelo. Lundi. And five-year-old Sibongile. At least Violet didn’t have to worry about society paying for little Sibongile’s medication for years.

It’s been a hell of a journey these past 30 years – or maybe it’s just been hell. People like Violet haven’t made it any easier.