I've started seriously looking for answers to that question since yesterday. What brought it on was a chilling couple of tales related to me by friends.
The first was of our new neighbours who, not a month in their new house, were hijacked a few kilometres away from home. Along with their Merc went the house keys and remote controls to the gates. They haven't been home in the last week (waiting for the locksmith to change all the locks and remote codes) fearing that their home might be invaded (quite easily) and they might lose their few possessions there in addition to the car, or worse that they might be physically harmed. They got off lightly in the hijacking (no physical harm done to either of them and their baby, luckily, was with one of the in-laws at the time) and to perhaps endure a second attack, at home, might be seriously damaging to their psyche's.
The second tale was of a couple we know, who live 3 or 4km from us, whom we'd visited on a couple of occasions and vice versa. They were having dinner one evening, around 7pm, when "M" got up to walk into the kitchen and three shots came through the large window in his direction, luckily missing him (believed by the cops to have been due to the glass which deflected the bullets). He grabbed his pistol, which he always keeps close by, and let two shots go in the general direction of the garden, hoping to scare off the attacker(s). Another couple of shots came through the same window and M grabbed his wife and dragged her, screaming, through to the bedroom out of sight of the garden. Their 12yr old son was upstairs, watching TV or something, and he came screaming down the stairs in response to the noise. M also grabbed him into their bedroom out of sight with the wife. M heard shouts in the garden, from a different angle than the shots came from and realised there must be more than one of them, and released three more shots in the general direction of both shouts. After that, things quietened down and the cops were summoned to take reports, search the premises, and so on. It appears that M must have wounded one of the attackers as a small pool of blood was found behind one of the large plants. There was no body though, so the attacker at least made it out of the garden. Where he is now though, no-one knows. In the end, M and the family are okay, shaken for sure, but physically unhurt.
It just feels to me like "it" is getting closer to home. More and more each day we hear of people getting shot, stabbed, wounded, murdered, robbed, mugged, assaulted or abused in some form or other, and what is our wonderfully efficient police force and government doing about the ever-increasing crime statistics? ABSOLUTELY FUCK ALL, THAT'S WHAT!!! At least, that's what it appears from ground level, where the South African public live and die!! I don't possess a gun, but am thinking seriously about getting one now.
Now, with me being on the global team and expecting to spend 3 out of 4 weeks overseas in the near future on projects, what will I be able to do if something terrible happens to one of my loved ones back home? Again...absolutely fuck all...
This morning I asked Steph to think about her reasons why I should stay on the GT, fearing that one day I might get a phone call to the worst while I was away, but instead of that, we ended up standing in the kitchen deliberating the topic. In the end, I said that Steph and my family were the only reasons I stay in SA. If I was single, I would be living elsewhere...somewhere a damn site more secure than here. Steph, on the other hand, does not get on well with her family and has no other reasons than my family and our dogs to stay in "Arsezania" (as Fishman and Meerkat call it).
So, I'm about to send out feelers to the management of the GT to describe my fears to them and enquire what my options are as to whether a move to Europe might be a possibility for us.
Who knows, maybe one day we'll be two more in the queue at Joburg International Airport, emigrating to somewhere perhaps not greener, but certainly a damn site safer than here.
6 comments:
Steven I suppose the greenness of the grass is dictated by how much you are affected by crime. My best mate immigrated after numerous hijackings but the last straw where when his wife and 2 year old daughter (at that stage) was with him in the car when they got hijacked. He said the only thing he could hear while lying on the ground next to his car with a 9 mil next to his,his wife and his daughters heads, was Waltzing Matilda while the PAPVRETERS tried to start his car. The where unable and ran away but he said he did'nt know if he or his family would be so lucky the next time. Anyway he has since long gone to Auz and is doing great. Another loss for Arsezania, as he was a very successful businessman who employed a whole lot of people. Fuck this makes me mad!
No comment.
Salagatle!
Fishman, as far as I'm concerned, anyone who guns down one of these fuckers is a hero. If someone's trying to take away my basic civil rights to earn a living, have a home with kewl possessions, whatever the case may be...if someone tries to take them away by any means other than me giving it to that person, that fucker relinquishes all his basic civil rights and deserves to either go away for a long time, or to fuckin' die on the spot.
I'm tired of being blamed for something that failed to exist from 1994 and that this fucked up government hasn't fixed yet (apart from lining their own pockets).
What can I say..?
What is it going to be like there in the next 20 years...I shudder to think...how old will you be then...do you want to be sitting in shit town in 20 years?
I think not!
No place is perfect...the grass is normally greener because its a different kind of shit keeping it green, but at least its not dangerous and life threatning...its still very hard to leave a whole life behind and start again.
A South African couple attends my church. The husband is a pharmacist (I'm at a blank right now as to what you call them) and used to have his own shop in South Africa. The wife told me that there are twenty other families in our immediate area who are from South Africa and who are also pharmacists. She said there are a couple dozen SA families who are also in the area who do IT work, and also several SA families in the area who are in medical professions.
They get together regularly and some of the families are even forming their own little school so their children can be taught in Afrikaans. They're building a community in a strange land and doing the best they can.
The wife did break down and start crying while we were talking a few weeks ago. She really misses her parents and siblings who are still in SA. Her husband bought her a plane ticket and she'll be travelling back for a visit in a couple months.
I don't know why I rambled on so, other than to say it seems as though a lot of people are making the decision to leave, and they're building new lives and I was flabbergasted to realise there were so many living so close to me. I really had no idea. Twenty pharmacists! Incredible.
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