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Inadvertently, In South
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inadvertently, in south africa - part two
By Sara John
We were standing, in the Emigration Hall of the airport, trapped in Johannesburg, facing two large armed Afrikaans Officials with enormous dogs, hearing the aeroplane we should have been on, flying up into the sky without us. Our torn up tickets to our destination, Windhoek, the capital of Namibia were blowing away before our eyes.
It was one of the most serious, frightening and potentially dangerous moments of my fairly sheltered life, to date.
By this stage, Hugh, my travel companion was too terrified to contribute to our interrogation. His personality was certainly not in any way confrontational, and he had not attended any of the Assertiveness Courses, or Personal and Professional Development Workshops that I had been running for many years. However, I decided that this was no time for me to be assertive!
I put my hands together on the tall counter in front of me and prayed, daring to wonder whether there was any assistance, spiritual, legal, diplomatic or otherwise, available in that country, South Africa, still under the apartheid system at that time. I recalled hearing the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster explaining that the power of prayer was always ‘worth a go’, because it was like leaving a message for someone on their answering machine! Hope for the best, he had said.
We were asked over and over by the two officials if we had packed our luggage ourselves, where was our luggage, what was our business, and why were we trying to enter South Africa without visas?
I tried to explain to the officials that we were the innocents in all of this, we were travelling to Namibia from London and we had been diverted because of bad weather in England. We were travelling with Lufthansa and we followed their re-routing instructions for our journey via Frankfurt and Johannesburg and on to Windhoek to the letter. I added that by now alarms would have sounded in Namibia because we had been missing since Thursday and it was now Saturday! We were not tourists, we were on official business! The business was Broadcasting.
I realised at that point that until year previously Namibia had been under the control of South Africa so there could be some resentment from the regime about losing a country. My gentle ‘outburst’ was simplistic, a little helpless, a touch of being a quiet and gentle older lady, reliable and quite straightforward. I thought the best way to play the scene was slightly Dame Judy Dench.
Observing the reactions from the officials, it seemed to work, Hugh glanced at me as though I was his mother rescuing him from big bad bullies in the park. Accordingly I felt, or imagined, the atmosphere to be easing a little, Hugh and I appeared to the officials not to be the exciting criminal ‘Aliens’ that they first apprehended after all.
We were told by the emigration officials that we HAD to purchase tickets for a S.A.A flight to Cape Town that afternoon, one thousand five hundred miles away and, in the wrong direction. Then we had to stay in the Cape Sun Hotel Saturday evening and catch a very early flight on Sunday morning on to Windhoek. Windhoek was more or less the same distance again, another one thousand five hundred miles. Hugh was fresh out of credit on his credit card so with another silent prayer I presented my debit card. (I dared imagine an assistant angel picking up the prayer, long distance, and saying to a colleague close by, “I DO NOT believe it, it’s HER again.”) Clickity click click went the machine, it had gone through without a hiccup.
Prayers work! Thank you God!. We were presented with two one-way tickets each. And, I retrieved my debit card and put it safely away.
I risked asking if I could leave a message at my husband’s hotel in Windhoek explaining our whereabouts. One of the officials said yes. He asked for the hotel telephone number which I had safely tucked in my luggage, that is the luggage which I had not seen since Thursday late lunchtime. I said, “All I know is that it is called The Safari Hotel, Windhoek.”
The Official rang a telephone number out of his notebook, and he handed the phone to me. The hotel receptionist answered and I asked to leave a message for my husband giving his full name. I
prayed a bit more. She said, “Oh! He is just passing my desk,” and handed him the phone. He had been to the airport to meet every possible flight since the one I was supposed to be on and could not believe it was me. “Where are you?” he asked in a terribly worried voice. A very small voice responded, “Johannesburg.” “Are you okay?” he asked. Where do I begin? I thought to myself. I decided that the saga was not anything like over, and I could not risk being emotional in front of the members of the Stasi still watching us, so I replied (smallish voice), “We are okay, we are being questioned and helped by two emigration officials. They have arranged for us to fly to the Cape Sun Hotel in Cape Town today after lunch and spend Saturday night there. We are due in Windhoek about lunch time Sunday flying from Cape Town SAA.” Andrew promised, all that distance away, “I will be there to meet you, take care.”
The two officials had, at last, lost interest in us, they must have decided that there was no more mileage in us for them. They had extracted an (unknown) amount of sterling out of me, maybe that was enough for one morning’s work. Enforced tourism.
“Right!”, I said to Hugh in my best ‘Right said Fred voice!’ “A spot of lunch to keep us going.” I wondered how we were going to pay for it because my purse had coins with Her Majesty on them, a handful of Deutsch-marks left over from Frankfurt, but no rand, South Africa’s currency.
We ordered toasted sandwiches and coffees at the airport cafeteria and clearly caused consternation because we ‘thanked’ the ladies serving us, and the cashier, who was happy to accept any currency, selecting the ones with the Queen on them. It was a salutary lesson in the ways of how apartheid operated in those days in South Africa. Already it was clear to us that all the work was done by Blacks; white people did not say “Thank you” to black people; black people stood back to let white people pass. This was how it was then.
Eventually we boarded a small plane and were looked after by SAA staff who all looked like film stars. They were blond, golden, slender and elegant and could have been extras in a science fiction film. Three hours later, having followed the map in the seat pocket avidly, we arrived in the airport serving Cape Town. We had not recovered from the ‘episode’ in Jo-Burg and were still fearful of being apprehended, again.
Looking on the positive side, Andrew, my husband, now knew where we were, and we had just twenty four hours to get through before our next day’s flight was due to land, (hopefully with us on board!), in Windhoek airport.
But where were we now? We walked out of the airport easily because we had been on an internal flight. We were unsure of how to get ourselves into Cape Town. There were no taxis, no one to ask and we did not want to arouse any interest or suspicions. Asking a white person would have been inviting questions. Asking a black person might well have got them into trouble. It was like being in a bad horror film.
Just around the side of the airport building there was a row of mini buses and we realised that these, with their drivers, were taking passengers into Cape Town. Was it five miles? Fifteen or fifty? We went over and asked if we could go to the Cape Sun Hotel, please. The driver readily accepted the request and off we went. More prayers. Were we being kidnapped? Would anyone pay the ransom? Was he a good driver? Was he a driver at all? There were no badges, insignia, or official hats to confirm his status. We asked some questions, had very satisfactory answers, and concluded that he clearly knew what he was about. Right off he knew that we were British.
The journey into Cape Town was very interesting. Our driver gave us an up to date, realistic and fresh perspective on the situation there, as it was then. Nelson Mandela was still in jail! However, we had to refuse the driver’s kind offer of taking us to meet his family in a nearby Township. I explained that we were in enough trouble already. Clearly he could not conceive of two whites being ‘in trouble’.
We arrived at the hotel, an enormous and, we soon discovered, almost empty building. I paid the driver, tipped him and asked how we could get to the airport next morning, a Sunday, by seven o’clock. “I will wait here for you,” he promised indicating the pick up point outside the hotel where he was dropping us off. “Yes,” he insisted, “I will be here!”
We checked in and, yes, we had been booked in by the Authorities. We had adjacent rooms with views of Table Mountain. A quick planning meeting together, and we decided to explore a little of Cape Town, not too far, find somewhere to eat and then an early night. We needed to be outside next morning, for, ‘Please God’, our new friend, the taxi driver. By six thirty am.
Setting off from the Cape Sun Hotel was eerie and creepy. We were glad of each other’s company but found it hard to stay positive and reasonably secure as
we had been so traumatised. Fortunately Hugh had done a lot of work with broadcasting companies all over sub-Saharan Africa, so he was totally realistic about the dangers awaiting ‘outsiders’. He was also knowledgeable about how ‘Brits’ were viewed in these, mostly now, independent nations.
I suggested that we needed a Plan B just in case our Taxi driver did not show, or there was some problem at the airport.
Plan A at that time was to get out of Cape Town. This meant relying on the one taxi driver that we had only just met; the airline accepting our tickets next day; and the Namibian immigration officials admitting us, having travelled from South Africa, a country which had damaged diplomatic relations with their neighbours. Would it all hang together?
We set off investigating Plan B. First stop, the railway station. We spoke to a railway employee in the station yard. We explained very briefly our enquiry. He spat out the words to us, I can hear him still. “Only Bleks and cattle go by train. It takes three days and nights. Open trucks. No stops.”
Second Stop, Car rental. We spoke to the representative of a well known rental agency. “Are you completely crazy?” he asked us. We were not sure if we were. “You will need jerry cans of petrol, containers for water, food for a week and you have to put watches and all other valuables in a bank here before you go. I take it you can use firearms? Cars are hi-jacked by bandits all the time.”
I did not dare remind Hugh that as he could not drive, and had never needed to, I would have to drive one thousand five hundred miles. Suddenly I felt much older than I really was.
Then we passed a shop selling firearms. I looked in the window. It was like an old fashioned ironmongers with displays of screwdrivers and paintbrushes of all shapes and sizes replaced with arrays of guns of all descriptions. We decided not to pursue that option.
There were no eating places. Tradespeople were clattering down metal shutters over their shop fronts. The City was shut! We went back to the hotel. Back in my room we rang for room service. The menu was priced up in rand. We ordered steak and salad and chips for thirty rand. We were not sure what that meant. Thirty shillings? Thirty Pounds? Three hundred pounds? Within ten minutes there was a knock on the door and in came a boy (of about twelve) in a smart uniform wheeling a trolley of supper for us. Like in a thirties Astaire/Rogers Hollywood film.
Later that night and trying to sleep but tossing and turning, I suddenly had a good idea. The Embassy? The Consulate? Of course they would be able to help us if Plan A went out with the tide. I checked the phone book but only one consulate, the consul for Holland, was listed. South Africa had become a pariah nation.
It was light already so I prepared to leave. Hugh and I had agreed to meet in the lobby for 6-15am. And there he was, waiting and anxious. I had paid the bill the night before, so we were free to set off. Across the road was a minibus with ‘our’ driver. He waved to us and we greeted him like a brother. We arrived at the airport. It was all locked up! “Come with me,” said our saviour. We went around to the staff entrance at the back of the building and we were shown in to the staff coffee shop. The three of us had breakfast and we watched our SAA plane for Windhoek taxi in and await its passengers.
Once aboard I drew vertical lines on the passengers’ map in the seat pocket in front of us. The distance between each line was fifteen minutes and the journey would take three hours. It took a little more than that because at that time SAA airlines were not allowed to overfly black countries.
Hugh finally admitted to me that he had always been very fearful of flying. “But,” he said cheerfully, “I’m fine with flying now, we have been on an aeroplane everyday so far. But, I am very frightened of airports!”
A first class and comfortable flight, I kept my worries about being allowed in to Namibia to myself. The “This is your captain speaking” announcement was most welcome. “Look down on the left hand side of the plane and you will see Windhoek airport. There are friends and families waiting on the roof to greet you on arrival. Have a nice day.”
We landed safely. “Welcome to Namibia,” said the customs official as we were welcomed and waved through. Andrew and one of his colleagues were as close as they could get to the arrivals, we were greeted with kisses and open arms, and they had our luggage ready!
The ordeal, at last, was all over.
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