Mpumalanga

Two vans carrying 14 students and 2 professors are cruising through rural Mpumalanga province on their way back to the Johanasberg Airport. At a T in the roads the vans stop and a young man with a big backpack steps out into the big skies, humid air, and expansive green of north-eastern South Africa. He waves farewell to his companions, remembers the lunch they packed for him, runs back to grab the lunch, waves farewell again in repeat, and then the vans disappear down the road back home carrying one less student. Five minutes later the young man is riding in the bed of a bucky, (South African for pickup truck), on his way South to Hazyview.

I’m staying at the Bushpacker Hostel outside of Hazyview for a few days, waiting for the arrival of my father and wondering what to do with my months in Africa. The tap water at the hostel is, for the time being, not safe to drink, so taken to boiling a big pot in the evening, letting it cool overnight and drinking it the following day.

I’ve been warned that swimming in the Sabie River, that runs through the valley, is made dangerous by the crocodiles and hippos that reside there. Orchards of tropical fruit are interspersed with native vegetation. Macademia, mango, lichi, avocado, banana pecan. In the absence of continued human disturbance the grasslands here give way to trees and then forests. The Marulla trees, famous for intoxicating elephants and humans alike, look a bit like giant oaks. There is a crocodile that lives in a fenced pond off the main drag of town. The street vendors say the crocodiles owners feed it chicken.

Travellers roll in and out of the hostel on their way to Safaris in Kruger Park. A group of international volunteers one night, german international development students, and obnoxious Africaner youth the next. And there is also is frog that stays under my dorm room bunk bed. My dreams have been an active wonderland since I started taking malaria medication.

I buy my fruit and nuts from the street vendors who also push me to buy impressive wooden statues carved from whole blocks of wood. They are all terribly desperate for business. One man, by the name of Pleasure, working on the construction of expensive, electric fenced homes, says he gets paid 40R/8hr-day. That’s $5 US. Most of the poorer black folk I meet live in former homelands. During apartheid they were not allowed to leave the homelands without their pass card.

My dad arrives on Saturday.