FOOTBRIDGE

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE HEART OF SOUTH AFRICA

BY ROGER RUSSELL
On Monday the 23rd of August 1999, Roger Russell set off from
Cape Town planning to walk 4200km around the Republic of South
Africa. A South Africa where not only was the crime rate one of the
highest in the world but where the police themselves were
considered to be corrupt and inefficient.

Some few weeks before he started this the BBC had televised and
broadcast an incident in which suspects in the process of being
arrested were brutally beaten by members of the Johannesburg
Flying squad. The circumstances and actions depicted shocked the
world.

Roger does not believe that this kind of news always reflects the full
picture. Roger believes in the essential goodness of people. The
goodness of the majority of the staff of the Police Services of the
country and the majority of the people that live in it.

The next day he was confronted by four armed youths and the little
equipment he had was stolen. He had walked approximately 17
kilometers.

Despite this he was determined to carry on. The event and his
decision to continue became public property. Media all over the
world covered the story. His courage inspired many South Africans
and some of them came forward with offers of help. The walk was to
continue!

This is the story of that walk, it is not a story of one man‟s

determination but a story of many people, a story of a country. A
story of courage and failure, of commitment and disappointment.
But above all it is a story of the other side, one for the good guys. A
story that tries to provide a balance in the picture of an emergent
society.
This book is for…

People who had the humanity to reach out when I was walking the streets looking for
support before I was robbed;
A lady at the second hand camping shop on Long Street who gave me a gas stove, Andrea
Weis of the Argus who ran the first article, Alan at AM-2-DAY for the interview on morning
TV, Logans who gave me a poncho and some large discounts, CADAC who supplied a
sleeping bag and 7-Eleven who sent me a cheque for R100.00. I have had this cheque
framed as it was the only sponsorship I received in cash before all the publicity. And finally
a backpack from Ken at Cape Union Mart.
Jeremy Pender of Pender designs for a supply of highly effective T-shirts. My family; Anny
and Brian, Carol and Diana, Jane, Jill and Jacky, Mom, all of whom are supposed to
support me but do it with such faith and concern that I carry them in my heart where ever I
go.

The team (those that came on board once they knew and stayed for the trip);
Arthur Gillis of Protea Hotels who told me that I would not want for anything and saw to it.
Barbara, his personal assistant, a veritable solar system of contacts and efficiency that kept
the walk a joint effort.
Ken Lazarus, Thanks, it is not easy to go to someone that has given you something and say,
“Hell Ken, I have lost it, have you got another one?” I did not have to, Ken got hold of me
and said, “I demand the right to continue to support you…” Thanks Ken and Cape Union
Mart.

Thanks to the public… To Victor who apologized that a member of his race had robbed me
and has vowed to do what he can to change things. To Robyn at Logans who was very
worried about my feet. To the staff at Pick „n Pay, Kenilworth, who provided me with a
thousand rands worth of vouchers from their own pockets.
To so many, many people along the road who sometimes did nothing more than walk across
the street and shake my hand but unwittingly carried me around the country. To those that
fed me, drove me here and there and provided a roof over my head.

Thanks to the SAPS and the staff of the many Police Stations I visited around the country;
sometimes good, sometimes not so good, but always the best they could.

And, of course the press – you people were wonderful. We all take a beating about what we
do sometimes and you come in for your fair share of that. The truth is that you are as
concerned about this country as all of us and I saw this demonstrated in a very real way
from the 23rd August 1999 until the 2nd May 2000.

Then finally, thank you to Cynthia Ayres for this book – She deciphered my writing, typed
it and then made it into English. She has been as much a part of the final product as all of
the people mentioned on its pages

Note from the author:

The story is written almost as a diary and the events are authentic. However in order to
protect the situations and families of some of the people I met along the way, I have written
some stories as commentaries. These appear at the end of each section that defines an area
through which I walked. The stories do not necessarily have a geographical relationship to
the area after which they appear.
 THE CROSSING

This land…
This green and gold and its constant beauty,
It is part of me as it is part of us.

This strength…
This unity and its desire to grow,
It is I, as it is my brother.

These people…
These hearts and their dreams of greatness,
They are mine as I am theirs.

No thing, no mediocrity, no self….

Will take from this land, this strength or these people,
Its beauty, the brotherhood or our dreams.
JOURNEY TO THE START

All my life things have gone wrong. Recently I was told that this was because I
have a masochistic aura. I apparently draw attention to myself through personal
tragedy. I wish I had been told this long ago. I would have worked hard to change
it and saved myself a lot of pain. However in my mistaken belief that I was just
one of the unfortunate, I developed instead, a philosophy that catered for disaster,
and it was needed.

I love to sit and listen when other families discuss their history;
“Do you remember when Joan did this…”?
“Look here is David. This was just after he was given that bursary to…”
“Remember when we had that holiday…

My family raise their eyebrows when my life comes up. Photo albums bring out
comments like;
“This is the Humber, you know the car that Roger fell out of in Eldoret….”
“That is the flat in Kisumu, the one where Roger got into the bath with all his
clothes on.”
By the time that most boys were being selected for the first team I was no longer
allowed to play sport at all. I had already cut my left leg through to the bone,
broken both arms, nearly drowned twice and had had my left arm crushed by a
motor car. The fact that I can walk at all is attributable to the co-incidental visit of
a famous surgeon to Kenya at the time of the leg cutting and my father‟s
insistence that I spent hours every day walking up and down the balcony forcing
my feet to stay straight.

He played a bigger and reputably even more unreasonable role in the salvation of
my arm when it was about to be amputated. His, “You will not cut it off before you
have tried to fix it!” sent the only available surgeon into the operating theatre
muttering about impossibilities and people that knew no better.
It was a miracle of faith that kept me largely in one piece and I learnt a great
lesson from him then; never give up, just try something else!

Of course people that attract problems should be careful about the careers that
they choose. I was born with a caul over my head. My grandmother, who knew
about such things, said that it meant I would never die by drowning. If I could not
drown there was not much point in going to sea, so I went underground instead. I
spent seventeen years in the depths of the earth. I learnt about sweat and grit in
your underwear, about brutality and death. I fought fires and drove huge
earthmoving equipment. I lost my finger in a fight and was caught in a mud rush
in which another man died. I joined the rescue team and dug other people‟s bodies
out from under the rocks. I saw strong men break down and soil themselves while
supposedly weak men went in where there was no hope of coming out again.

I learnt that it is not what is around you that matters; it is what is in you. This
went on for a long time. I did not have to stick it out, but when I started an
Afrikaans miner told me that Englishmen never made it in the mines. Many years
later I looked around to see if I had taught him a lesson but I could not find him.

It is one thing to write light heartedly about these events but the reality of such
experiences is measured in terms of shock and disorientation, of immense pain
and people that will not leave you alone. In needles and the smell of ether and cold
steel that probes and pushes where it hurts. In terms of decisions made for you
and about you but not by you. It is measured in lonely nights spent crying while
grief and frustration rages, futile, through your body. It is measured by vivid
memories of darkness with the sounds of nurses clicking their way down silent
corridors in the small hours of the morning. By hours of painful exercise and
determined effort to learn to be whole again. This reality costs, and it is the price
of life. The product is so incredibly worth it that it defies logic.

Every setback creates new targets to achieve, new destinations for the road ahead.
This truth has turned many a life of trauma into one of great beauty and personal
gain. I love myself and what I have become. Because of this I love creation and the
created. I love people and triumph. I am saddened, not by evil, but by the belief
that evil is destructive. Evil, failure, whatever is negative, call it what you will, is
part of a perfect harmony. Seen from a broader than immediate perspective, every
aspect of our existence is there to promote and refine that existence.

No one ever told us that we had a right to be happy, just that we can be happy.
Life has always been and always will be a fair mix of joy and despair, of laughter
and grief. But beware! Life is not balanced by having some good things and then
some bad; it is balanced at any point in time. Each event contains its own balance.
To believe that you have suffered enough so now it‟s your turn to be spoilt is a
concept that has no meaning to creation. What does have meaning is the freedom
to view life as you choose, to take from it what you will. We should not refuse any
of the experiences that come our way, but rather use our energy to work through
all of them; laughing when we can, crying when we must but always with the
knowledge that what will remain with us is what we have freely selected.

This philosophy was to be severely tested in the early 1990‟s. Some twenty-five
years before this I had met and married the essence of life. A person who loved and
cried with an intensity that put me to shame. She was my dawn and strong
sunshine. She was almost my entire day but her sunset was not to be mine. Her
name was Sharon.

She developed breast cancer and it was supposedly curable. I developed lung
cancer and it was supposedly not so curable. The eventual outcome was her death
in 1993 and after some radical treatment, a cure for me. The effort of living in that
time was very costly to all of us, the returns difficult to understand.
What do you select from such anger and despair?
What do you take with you from a situation where everything physical
undermines anything spiritual?

Remembering those times brings deep pain still. But the picture I have of her and
the people around us at the time is one full of love and strength. Of wonderful
moments and quiet sharing.

A short time ago I wrote…

Paint me a picture. Fill the skies with rain and thunderous clouds, the corners
with darkness. Draw pain and grief in every shadow. Then put yourself in it; as
small as you like, far to one side or big and right in the middle. But paint yourself
in full colour, as bright as I have known you to be and I will take this picture with
joy and hang it on every wall in my house.

In her new and enlightened state I am convinced that she walks often through the
rooms of my mind. She sees the pictures that she painted hanging everywhere.
She knows that it will always be so. I am sure that she treasures still the picture
that I painted for her. At the time it was not so easy but now, now I understand
that the gifts received from earlier pain and other growth were there to see us
through.

“Never give up! Just try something else.” After she had gone I found myself
without purpose, without her. My children were anxious to get on with their own
lives. It was going to get very lonely.

“Try something else!” – I started walking.

Sharon and I had discussed it often before her death. Whilst in the midst of our
struggle we had been overwhelmed by the love and sheer humanity that had risen
like a forest all around us. Care and concern were offered without reserve and we
had used much. We wanted to share what we had learned with others. Somehow
the idea of walking to say thank you was born. The concept was part of our joint
struggle and after her death it became a way to stay in contact with the idea of her
for a while.

So in July 1993, five months after she died, I caught a train to Beit Bridge. The
Beit Bridge crosses the Limpopo River and is on the northern border between
South Africa and Zimbabwe. The intention was to walk from there to Cape Town
at the country‟s southernmost tip. The most sensible of my friends advised me
against it. I knew little of walking and even less about the country. I was warned
that the political mood was violent and crime out of control. South Africa was
facing its first truly democratic election. It was not a good time to be white and
alone on the road. I was told that I was not rational and I should wait a while.

It was all true: there was much grief in the decision but I had just lost half of my
life and I was not prepared to be reasonable. The whole project seemed doomed
from the start.

The first few hours of the walk did nothing to dispel that impression.

The train conductor promised me that the train would stop at the customs post
and let me off on this side of the border. Of course it did not stop and I found
myself inside Zimbabwe with no passport, no papers and no right to be there.

The Zimbabwe Border Police were known for their enthusiasm in locking up white
South Africans if they could find any kind of an excuse. I was facing months of
incarceration in appalling conditions if I was found. I spent several cramped and
lonely hours hiding in a railway toilet. The South African Railway officials put me
there whilst they tried to find a way to get me back across the border. Eventually,
sometime in the middle of the night, I was put aboard a diesel locomotive and
quietly smuggled back across the bridge.

So it was that at 2.00am in the morning I found myself back in South Africa. I was
alone in the bush, standing beside two gleaming ribbons of steel. The rain was
pouring down, which worried me, but did not seem to worry whatever it is that
makes all those noises in the bush in the dead of night. Ignoring the strange
sounds I pushed my way through bushes and trees, climbed over a fence and
walked out onto the tar of the N2; the national road that cuts South Africa in half,
from top to bottom.

I looked to the South… I could not see much, it was dark and the road disappeared
quickly into a black, wet nothing. It was the way I was supposed to go.

I looked North and could just make out the lights of the customs post. I could see
the silhouettes of several large trucks. They indicated people, perhaps shelter and
warmth. I could start tomorrow, who would know, who would even care?

Never give up…! I turned my back on the lights, on the comfort and faced the
future. I moved one foot forwards and the other one followed.

Sometime around 4.00 in the morning I found a culvert and crawled into it. I
dropped onto the sand and pulled my sleeping bag over me. I did not have the
strength or the inclination to climb into it. I fell asleep crying. I woke with the sun
shining. I could hear birds singing. I crawled out from under the road and looked
around me with wonder. Everything was fine. I was going to make it. Not just to
Cape Town, but me, as a person; I was going to make it.

Since that time of change, it has become my particular mission in life to focus
peoples attention on the power within them and therefore in society. We have
become too dependent on possessions and forgotten the inner gifts that fill our
souls. In older times, when technology played a subservient role, people admired
and encouraged heroism. Challenges were sought out and taken up. Human
triumph was the measure of success. Even the telling of it was dependant on the
vigour and sincerity of the narrator and not on the gimmickry of special effects.
The excitement of technical advance has taken from us an understanding of the
courage needed to live. The role of money has made it seem second rate to possess
nobility in spirit. Success is measured in what we own not what we are.
Achievement, it seems, is not about proving ourselves; it is about sealing ourselves
off.

We have to learn about ourselves all over again and to do it we must come out
from behind our artificial barriers and electromechanical defenses. We must put
the unfeeling, the inanimate, where it belongs, and measure our excellence in
human terms.
Where hate stands up and screams abuse, love must bring peace. Where anger
tears down and destroys, compassion must build and where greed takes without
regard, generosity must provide. In this way we will give ourselves a balanced
perspective of mind and soul. We will see, as we once did, that victory lies in the
vastness of the heart and not in the depth of a cheque account.
The walk? The cancer? Sharon‟s death? Something had changed my life. I returned
from the walk full of admiration for my fellow man, and it was not the special
people that I had met, but all the people that I had met that had inspired it.

The need to earn a salary and demands of parenthood required a stable lifestyle. I
got lost for a while as a training manager on a platinum mine. My youngest
daughter completed her schooling and left home but I was not doing what my
heart needed to do.

In 1997 I cashed in what pension I had, gave up a large company house and car
and set off to walk across America. I was going to promote the services of Hospice
in a country where cancer was affecting one in every three people. The National
Cancer Association of America wrote and told me that they could not officially
support such a venture but I did not really care, I was already on my way.

Much of the sponsorship I had hoped for did not materialise and the airfare,
equipment and crippling exchange rate made serious inroads into my already
inadequate funds. Once in California and walking, I quickly became aware that
the ordered society of the United States was not as forgiving as that of South
Africa. “Freecamping” as they call it there was frowned upon and efficiently
policed. I had to frequently use hotels that I could not afford and although the food
was comparatively cheap in dollar terms, it was costly in Rands and cents.
I soon found myself without the funds to continue. When I reached Los Angeles I
knew that I would have to return to South Africa. On the last day I walked from
Santa Monica into the City, stood in front of the City Hall and promised myself
that I would come back one day and start again.

Although I found it hard to deal with, my return to South Africa was made easier
by the belief that I would be re-employed on a contract basis with the mine that I
had just left. I had discussed this telephonically before I made the decision to come
back. I would supposedly earn more cash, save harder and return to complete
what I had started.
Two women played a large role in what seemed to be the end of such dreams. One
entered my life very briefly. She had been appointed personnel manager just
before my arrival. I did not fit her new vision of what made a stable employee and
I quickly realised that I was not going to be employed whilst she was doing the
employing.

I hung around at the mine for a while, living with my daughter, but I was in very
poor spirits. There was no immediate prospect of employment. I felt that I had
failed in America, that I was not good enough for the mine and I was too miserable
to do anything about any of it. I desperately needed to be needed when the next
woman came along. I knew her well; we had been casual friends for some time.
She had welcomed me back with a great deal of understanding and when her need
arose she turned to me for help.

She sent a message to me one afternoon asking me to come and see her; she was in
trouble, accused of fraud. But trouble is what I do best. We fought a long and
bitter battle with the mine and she was acquitted but the scandal remained. So we
turned our backs on the mine and moved into a house in another town. Neither of
us had much except what we could fire up in the other. Together we begged and
borrowed, worked were we could and then started a business. We soon found out
that we could not share a house. Shortly after that we found out we could not
share a business. I moved out of both and later she closed the business down. A
large portion of the debt turned out to be mine, which, considering the growth of
my character over such a short and intense period was not too high a price to pay
at all.

I moved to Cape Town and started again. Some consulting work and the occasional
motivational address coupled with some support from my family kept me alive but
did nothing to kill the debt. Then my pride and joy, my car, a sports model of
dubious worth, blew up in a small Karoo town called Hanover. The cost of getting
it to Cape Town was crippling. It was April 1999. I was without transport, without
employment and living in other people‟s homes. America was very far away
indeed.

“Never give up just try something else!”

One night a frustrated policeman beat up a suspect in front of the TV cameras.

The story made headlines all over the world. For the next few days the media was
full of stories about the morale of our police members and the state of policing in
the country.

Here was real need. In South Africa the emerging economy and struggling
educational system have combined to make it difficult for most people. The
breakdown in family values and social structures is responsible for many
horrifying incidents that defy explanation. Despite the truth of this, thousands, if
not millions of people of all colours and creeds remain faithful to a belief in the
country's future. I could not accept that the nation I had met on the road from Beit
Bridge to Cape Town were not the beautiful people I believed them to be. I knew in
my heart that for every corrupt and disillusioned police person there must be
hundreds of committed ones. I was prepared to prove it.
America could wait. If I could convince the South African Police services to carry
the cost, I would walk 4200km around the country and reach out to all the good
people wearing a blue uniform.

The idea was to walk into all the Police Stations along the route and give the
members of each Station a message of thanks from the public for the work that
was being done.

I worked out a programme, scheduled it and calculated a minimum, non-profit

cost. Early in July I approached the communications branch of the Western Cape
Police with a workable proposal. The concept was well received but it was made
very clear that the Police could not finance it. The next day I was back. If they
would approve the project I would find the money. With the approval in hand I
went to an old friend of mine in the newsroom of the City‟s newspaper. An article
was published. I took a clipping of the article and the approval to television. By
sheer co-incidence I was standing at the security gate of the SABC explaining
what I wanted to do when the producer of the Breakfast show came past. He
overheard some of what I was saying and within a week I was interviewed on AM–
2–Day.

I was convinced that with the publicity I would have no trouble finding
sponsorship. I made a hit list of all the big companies; banking, insurance, the
breweries and several big supermarket chains. They did not share my faith in the
country. Apparently the scheme had little chance of success. For the first time I
heard the statement, “You will never come out of the Transkei alive!” In some
cases the fact that I intended to walk alone and unarmed was even cause for
ridicule. Slowly the refusals accumulated and my determination to go ahead rose
in direct proportion. By the time that I had received a solid no from everyone that
mattered I was convinced that it was more necessary than ever to show the
country that there was hope for all of us.

I eventually managed to get a backpack from Cape Union Mart, a sleeping bag
from Cadac and a little second hand gas cooker from a small sports shop.
Unfortunately the shop is just one of hundreds that I visited over the weeks and I
cannot recall which one it was. I spent some of the little money I had on socks and
shorts and T-shirts, donned the worn boots I had used in America and on the 23 rd
August, left the Caledon Square Police Station on a supposedly impossible journey.

The South African Police and a photographer gave me a low-key send off from the
Newspaper, courtesy of my contacts. Captain Crime Stop was there and walked
with me until we turned the corner and lost sight of the reporter.
I did not care. I was on my way. My bank was still refusing to discuss the fact that
I would not be paying them for eight months, I had approximately R300.00 in a
savings account and just enough gear to ensure my survival… if I could find
something to eat.

This was my kind of magic! No one really believed that I was going to get
anywhere. Those who had gone through the motions had done so because I had
forced the issue. I walked out of town and out of everyone‟s life…

For a short while.

The next afternoon I was back in Cape Town and everything was different – very
different.
 SECTION ONE

THE WESTERN CAPE

Chapter One

23rd - 24th August.

It rained!
Most of the way out of Cape Town, all along De Waal drive and out towards the
airport it rained. But my poncho worked fine, so much so that some envious road
workers asked me where I got it. The expected blisters started up but not in time
to seriously affect the day. By 3.00pm I was about 15km out of town and at the
point where I was to be picked up. Brian arrived to take me home and I spent most
of the afternoon trying to catch up with arrangements that still had to be finalised.
By the late evening I was over tired and had aches and pains in places that did not
have much to do with walking.

The next morning Brian took me out to where I had left off and I started walking
at 10.00am. The flu that had knocked on the door the previous evening was taking
over the house and I felt terrible. Every part of me except my mind was telling me
that the whole idea was stupid.
So I did what I always do; bent my head and put one foot in front of the other. One
or two cars hooted as they passed by and I assumed that they had read of my
departure in yesterday‟s paper.

A little way along the road, as my rhythm improved and I started to feel somewhat
better, I passed under a footbridge. I recognised it easily. It had been notorious at
one stage for stone throwing. Gangs of youths from the surrounding slums had
targeted the cars passing underneath, inflicting extensive damage to property and
serious injury to drivers and passengers. As a result the entire bridge had been
closed in with wire mesh.

I was watched, as I approached the bridge, by a youth in a dull grey T-shirt. He

was young and much like any other teenager you might see on the street corners of
Cape Town. He stared at me intently, his fingers entwined in the squares of the
mesh. There was something in his concentration that made me uneasy. So, as I
passed under the bridge, I crossed to the middle island and walked out from under
the bridge in a different place to where he was expecting me.

Sure enough when I looked up he was waiting where he thought I would be. I was
sure that he had intended to spit or perform some other indignity upon my person.
I foolishly congratulated myself on outwitting him. He turned and ran from the
bridge into the shanties that were crowded behind the barrier wall alongside the
freeway. I did not think that I would see him again.

All my instincts of which I have always been so proud did not warn me. Years of
working in terrible conditions underground and thousands of kilometers on the
open road did not warn me. Plain common sense did not warn me. I was right to be
uneasy but unable to predict that his run into the corrugated jungle was that of a
leader fetching the pack to the hunt.

A few hundred meters down the road I was surprised when he appeared at my
side. There had been no warning and as he came up beside me he showed me his
right hand. In it was a gun. I think he intended the robbery to proceed quietly but
that changed very quickly. I stopped suddenly and he found himself in front of me.
He turned and lifted the gun, holding it with both hands. His arms stretched out
straight from his shoulders, arms and gun making a rigid V that was pointing
directly at my groin.
He started yelling, “Give me everything! I want the money, the bag, everything!”
Somehow the slow dawning of awareness had become a hysterical screaming
match and I realised that I could die very easily.

I held my hands out in front of me, “It‟s O.K.” I said calmly, “I will give you
everything.”
I unclipped the belt pouch and threw it down on the ground in front of us. “There,”
I said, “Take it. You can have it. Everything is going to be just fine. I will give you
everything.”

Before I had gone to walk in America I had taken lessons from a self-defense
expert and had been told what to do. Calm everybody down, do not resist. Throw
items onto the ground in front of you whilst you slowly move backwards. When you
have put just a little distance between you and the attacker - Turn and run.

I wish he had done the same course; the calming effect was not being achieved.
The boy was working himself into a state of total panic. He kept looking at the
road and then behind him. He was literally shrieking at me, “Fuck you, fuck you.
Give me the money! Give me the money!”

Again I started to move backwards, trying at the same time to release the belt
buckle of the backpack. I had started to consider the possibility of swinging the
backpack around across the front of the gun and tackling him when I felt a
stinging blow on the side of my head and I realised that he was not alone. I was
pulled backwards and then kicked. Some one beside me shouted, “You Shit! White
shit, give me the bag.”

My hat was snatched off and the backpack became almost impossible to get loose
as it was being wrenched from one side to the other. I looked around and saw
several things at the same time; on the far side of the road a car had stopped and
two men were climbing out of it, looking towards us. There was one youngster on
my right side and three more behind me. The pack tore free and those behind me
started running. The one at my side bent and grabbed the pouch then he too
turned and ran. The boy in front with the gun was still screaming but had decided
my watch was the new item of choice.
“The watch, I want the watch.” His next glance at the road took in the approach of
the two men who were trying to get through the traffic to assist me.

This was enough to tip the situation beyond hope. Everything stopped and I
watched, unable to do anything as he brought the gun up and aimed it at my head.

I will never forget his face.

People tell you that there is contempt or hate or whatever in the eyes of the
attacker when this happens. For him, for me, there was nothing. It was as if he
decided, “Oh well, I cannot have the watch so I will kill you instead.” The watch
and I were reduced to the same value. He had been frightened by the situation but
never of me. It was humbling on a level that I have never been able to explain to
anybody. I think he must have been about 16 years old.

When he pulled the trigger the shot rang loud and a car swerved on the road. I
stood there but nothing changed except that he too took off after the others.

Instead of chasing the gang the two men ran to me. They had heard the shot.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes, I‟m fine but they took everything. They have taken everything. Don‟t worry
about me. Get my stuff! They ran over there.”
I said this because the two of them were big men and both armed. I was keen to
chase after my equipment.
“They have gone into the shacks.” I repeated.
“You won‟t find them in there.” Replied the one.
“What the fuck are you doing out here anyway?” Asked the other.
I stood and looked at the blank wall of corrugated iron and scrap timber that was
the Crossroads slum. It now hid the few possessions that would have taken me
around the country.

“I was walking for the police.” I said.

Chapter Two

They took me to the local police station and I told the story to the Station
Commander. I asked if I could phone the Communications Department before I laid
a formal charge. The only thing on my mind was that if the publicity was bad the
police might stop the walk. After a few kilometers of walking the second day had
ended, but what was worse was that maybe the entire walk had ended.

The officer in the Communications Department that had supported the entire
project so far was Wicus Holtzhausen. He was shocked, but had no hesitation in
telling me to go ahead and open a case. He suggested that I return to Cape Town
and call in at his office to discuss the future. I did not like the resignation in his
voice but agreed.

I went through the painful and tedious process of making statements and
describing details necessary to initiate the slow turning wheels of the law. When
this was finished the Station Commander told me that they had a Public Order
Policing Unit visiting the station and that as it was possible that I could identify
one of the assailants, the unit had volunteered to take me into the squatter camp.
That is if I was not too scared to give it a try.

I wanted my stuff back whatever the cost. I have never been scared of much in my
life and had no hesitation in agreeing. They warned me that there could easily be
shooting but I said that it was fine. So five policemen and I climbed into a vehicle
and set out for what they told me was a kind of no mans land.

As we approached the edge of the camp everyone drew their pistols, cocked them
and held them out of sight beside the seats. Again I was warned that they were
often shot at inside the camp. Again I assured everyone that it would be fine, I
would be all right.

Slowly we traveled down one little alley after another. Some of the so-called roads
were nothing more than open sewers and the huts or shanties were not much
better. People stood and stared, some openly, some furtively, no one with any trust
or friendliness.

Here and there, in the squalor, was the occasional shanty with a swept doorway,
here and there an old lady walking along with shopping and everywhere; children.
From naked two year olds with potbellies and huge eyes to well dressed 15 year olds
with rings in their ears and tattoos on their arms. The younger, the more open and
friendly, the older, the more suspicious and sullen.

Several times when the vehicle could not proceed any further down what was
supposed to be a road, we got out and walked. This meant that the guns had to be
put away as the regulations do not allow a policeman to draw his weapon unless the
situation is almost beyond redemption. Whenever we were on foot a small group of
locals would follow us. The policemen asked several of them about the boys we were
looking for. Surprisingly one of the groups volunteered information about a group of
youngsters that had passed through the area earlier.
But no one knew who they were, where they had come from or where they had gone.

When it became obvious that we would not find anybody that I could identify the
police started to tell me a little about the area. The old ladies and children were
comparatively safe as they all belonged to one group or another. These groups were
based on gang links or ethnic origins and protected their own. If you were from that
particular street or streets, you kept your mouth shut and went about your
business. If anyone did interfere with you they were challenging that particular
gang‟s authority and reprisals were quick and violent.

Many of the inhabitants of squatter camps have perfectly normal and legitimate
jobs during business hours. At home their society is different. It is governed by local
power and not the rule of law. To even think of supporting the South African Police
is to go out on a limb, to divorce yourself from the system and by so doing to leave
yourself unprotected in a world that is hungry for victims.

Someone who belongs can walk these streets with a camera in one hand and a cell
phone in the other, nobody will touch him. But if I walked through here in a pair of
shorts I would lose the shorts and possibly my life in the process. Everyone here
pays rent, not to owners of houses; there are no owners, just landlords. If you don‟t
pay, your shanty might inexplicably fall down or worse, burn down with you in it.
You do not own property here; you own or rent power.

These social structures exist because they are supported, not by tradition or the
common good, but by a culture that is being grown in the belly of uncontrolled
freedom. It is a process of natural selection that recognises only survival and not
the logic of principled behaviour. Organisations that aid this culture are tolerated;
those that threaten it are confronted. If our impositions are to survive they have to
prove their worth to all the members of the group. But no one will even consider
listening if it means leaving the womb to do so.
We returned, from what was for me a sad experience, to the local station, a western
idea on the edge of an alien culture.

Later I was placed in a police vehicle and taken to the Communications Department
in Cape Town.

I walked into the office. Wicus was there as were some of the others I had learnt to
know when I was planning the walk; Anine de Beer, Sandra and Eugene. They all
looked worried and I thought, “Well here it comes, this is where I get told “Go
Home!”
I said, “Hi!”
Instead of returning the greeting, Anine went straight to the point, “What are you
going to do now?”
I shrugged… “Get some more stuff and start again on Monday.”

Wicus laughed and everyone else started laughing. “We thought you would stop.”
He said.
I felt as if a huge load had been lifted from my heart. “Not a chance.” I replied.
Anine was already picking up the phone. “We must inform the press,” she said.
I knew she was pleased and for the first time since the whole thing started I
realised that nothing was going to stop me.
Chapter Three

25th – 29th August

It was a time of strange feelings and a time of power that took hold and drove the
walk along its own path. It was to make me a public figure beyond anything I could
have imagined.

The next morning, driving down the freeway into the mother city, I saw the first of
the news banners. From all the lampposts, kilometer after kilometer, they
advertised the headline… “Anti-crime walker mugged.”
In the city center I parked the car and set off on foot to the Police Communications
office. I went up to the first newsvendor I saw and asked for a paper.
I held out the money but he smiled and shook his head, “I am paying for this one,”
he said, “You are our hero!”

I looked at him and saw the holes in his shoes, the oversized trousers tied at the
waist with string and I became part of the country in a way that was to repeat itself
for the rest of the journey. If I did nothing else in the months that were to follow, I
created a bridge for a brief moment between the rich, the poor, the police and the
public.

A footbridge that crossed a divide we had been staring at ever since 1993.

So many people told me that the bridge would be the end of me, that I would never
make the other side, but in their hearts everyone wanted me to build it. For a few
short months I became a focal point for a common cause. The enthusiasm with
which South Africans, in fact the world, took hold of this rather insignificant
occurrence showed how desperately short of hope and heroes we all are.

At the communications office Anine brought me up to date. The response to my

decision to keep going had been phenomenal. There were messages from
everywhere, offering moral and spiritual support. I was told to phone Arthur Gillis
of Protea Hotels. Anine said it was urgent.

On the phone I met Barbara Wilson.

Barbara was later to become a source of comfort and sudden luxury after days of
appalling weather or deprivation. At this point she was just a pleasant voice and a
request to attend a meeting with Mr. Gillis at his offices on the foreshore.

Arthur and Protea Hotels took the walk and turned it into a viable event, not just
for a few days but without reserve until I found myself back in Cape Town some ten
months later.

The meeting was held in an office that most people believe exist only on movie sets.
The view through the glass that surrounded us swept across the character of Cape
Town, including long stretches of beach up the west coast, panning across the
industry of the harbour to the mix of man‟s creations and natural beauty of the
waterfront.
In the office was myself, Arthur Gillis, Managing Director of Protea Hotels, Barbara
Wilson, his personal assistant, Allan Duke, Ken Lazarus of Cape Union Mart, and
Tina Meier-Carter and Jacki McEwen of meier and mcewen. Tina and Jacki had
come with Ken; they were the owners of a marketing company that did work for
him. Ken had given me my now stolen backpack and was adamant that this gave
him the privilege of replacing it.

Arthur is larger than life, his opening remark was, “When I read this story in the
paper this morning, I said, “Roger Russell you are not going to do this alone!” So tell
us, what do you need?”
“Food,” I replied.
He looked at me and picked up the phone. “Tony,” he said to someone on the other
end, “Did you read the paper this morning, the story about the guy who got
mugged? Well I have good news and bad news for you… The good news is that he is
fine, in fact he is sitting right here in front of me. The bad news is that you are
going to feed him for the next ten months…”
When he put the phone down he said, “You have five thousand rands worth of Spur
Steakhouse vouchers. You will also be put up, with meals included, in any Protea
hotel you pass along your route. In fact my managers will drive out and fetch you,
then drop you off the next morning, wherever it is possible. Now what else?”

In a short space of time, everything else!

For some reason Tina and Jacki were always the „girls‟, and if I have ever met two
people that deserved all the good connotations that the title implies it was them.
Arthur asked the „girls‟, to arrange and handle the press, the new start, the
publicity along the way and whatever else they could think of.
Ken arranged for me to visit the Cape Union Mart of my choice and select a
complete range of equipment and clothes.
Barbara was to be my contact with all concerned.
The restart date was confirmed for Monday 30th August from the Victoria Junction
Hotel in Cape Town.

To say that I had been overwhelmed by the power of such people would have been
an understatement. The element that made it almost fictional was the fact that this
power had been directed to a project that would bring little in the way of
measurable returns for anyone in that room. It was a South African act, worthy of
the potential of its people. A demonstration of faith from people that lived and
worked where they wanted to live and where they had every intention of making it
work.

It was nothing compared to what was still to come.

When I arrived back at Brian‟s house he had much to report. The phone had been
ringing all morning. There had been calls from radio stations, TV, newspapers and
well wishers. The most startling was from my daughter Diana. Phoning from
London where she had been living for a couple of years, she was really cross, “Why
do I have to read about what happens to Dad in the paper? Why doesn‟t anybody
phone me?”
She had been on her way to work on the London tube that morning and had seen
my face looking at her from another passenger‟s newspaper; “South African anti-
crime walker attacked!”

The next few days were a high speed, confusing kaleidoscope of interviews with
newspapers, radio stations and T.V. presenters. The world had decided I was
special and everyone wanted a piece. I spoke to local stations, The BBC World
News, two London radio chat shows and international press. It was not me; it was
the need, a hungry person will taste steak in dry bread.

These were tough days. I was tired, much had been experienced, most of it dealing
with people that were constantly looking for an angle to exploit, to make their
stories different to the others. This had taken a surprising toll.

New equipment had been selected, new schedules written for every kilometer and
each day. New contacts, more promises, more commitments and tomorrow were all
holes down which my energy had been disappearing at a steady rate for some time.

The next day the new walk would begin with a big send off. I would be on the front
line. I would have to say something, it was still my project and I needed to promote
my objectives. At the same time I must feed the hopes of the people who were now
so much a part of the team. Brian had been a huge support, providing a tougher
element to the constant interactions than my easier philosophy would have been
capable of, but he too was taking some strain. Others had gone out of their way to
be understanding. Solid support in the form of sponsorships and equipment needed
to be recognized.

Perceptive in a way I had not expected, Arthur had suggested that I book into the
Victoria Junction Hotel the afternoon before the big day. It was intended to be a
time to gather the scattered remains and weld them into some sort of strength.
Brian and his friend asked to have supper with me and I reluctantly agreed because
if anyone deserved to share my ease with me, it was Brian.

The evening was expensive in terms of stress and the intensity of feeling was too
much. We cut it short and I went up to prepare for a task that had been a “What the
hell, let‟s give it a shot,” kind of mission to an undertaking closely watched by
millions.
Chapter Four

Day 1
This was a day!

A hand reached out and touched my life this day – touched the lives of people
around me. It was a small but magnificent flower in a meadow of achievement, too
small to be singled out from a distance but perfect in its integration of the forces
around it.

The function went well and I spoke from my heart.

ROAD OF HOPE
Departure 30th August 1999. Cape Town

HI!

Misquote… Some projects are borne great and some have greatness thrust upon
them – At the point of a gun!

At approximately 10.45 on Tuesday last week, a man with a gun saw fit to send out
an invitation to the public of the country and indeed the whole world to join me on a
walk into the future of South Africa.

He focused attention on a project designed to change the way he lives forever. He

started the journey for all of us, including himself, with a bang!

We live, love and do business in a country that has already crossed a great divide.
When I was a young boy of 19, just finished with my training as a miner, I was
given authority over a team of more than sixty black labourers. 3000 meters below
the surface of the planet, far into the rock – I had total control.
My word was law and I knew nothing…
Some of those men had been underground for thirty years or more and had
forgotten things I had not even heard of yet.
But… I was white and privileged; they were black and supposedly inferior.

What an incredible situation!

Today I live for a while in Summer Greens, where black, coloured and white
children come laughing together to my son‟s door and ask, “Uncle, can we wash your
car, weed your lawn… They play, squabble, work and enjoy the money they earn
together as equals. We as a nation have done wonderful things;

We have defied predictions of chaos and hate to put the past behind us.

But we have not finished… The job is not complete yet.

The men who came across the fence at Cross Roads came into my life for a short
while and took what they wanted –
We must cross the divide into theirs and give them what they need.

There are more barriers in apartheid than racism, we have to identify those
barriers and destroy them. Barriers between poverty and wealth, between hate and
brotherhood, between those that would be safe and those who must police us.

I believe in the human race, it is the greatest phenomenon to hit the planet ever.
Greater than tigers, lions, earthquakes, floods…
Even the dinosaurs cannot compare. God has thumbed his nose at science – We are
a creation that defies logic –

And friends, do you know what? We are in this case greater than crime – We can
look beyond the act to the person and reach out to make his life different forever.

To do it we must cross the barriers… It is not enough to say that in the 90‟s we
abolished apartheid…
- If the public won‟t join the police in changing our crime rates.
- If we cannot accept that in Cross Roads there are men, women and children, who
under terrible circumstances, cling to tradition, moral standards and principles.
That in Cross Roads there are gardens where flowers grow, seeds are planted. If we
cannot accept that in our squatter camps there are clean doorways alongside sewers
that serve as roads – That there are homes where families join in prayer at night.
- If we cannot see the Police as part of us, working hard to stop what somehow
makes us all less as a nation.

My message to the public is…

Let us reach across differences; let us support the good that goes on behind the
fences at squatter camps – let us touch the man behind the gun with our unity and
our strength of commitment. Let us create an environment that reduces the
potential for crime…
“I don‟t do crime” must be supported by “I make crime hard to do”
“I am your friendly local policeman,” must be supported by “I am your friendly local
community.”

My message to the police service is…

We understand that there is tremendous pressure and we know that when things
are difficult the strain takes its toll. But we want you to know something too;

We care.

We appreciate the courage and commitment of your long days and many sacrifices. I
as a representative of millions of South Africans want to meet as many of you as
possible, personally, and shake your hand…
A small gesture for a great work.
Without you we have little hope.
I went on to thank those that had been part of the event and what had led up to it.
Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens had given me seeds to plant in the towns that I
was to pass through. I ended the thank you‟s with a promise…

I will go out and plant these seeds, seeds of unity, seeds of faith and trust but what
I do is symbolic; the reality is a much greater journey and we all face it. In one way
or another we all take steps along this road, my part is the easy part, you must join
me where you live and work and that is often very hard indeed.
But if you do? We can all walk forward, as I am about to do, into a wonderful
country.
Thank you.

Followed by TV cameras and other groups, I left the hotel and started a completely
different walk. This time there was no indications of “Keep the idiot happy.” or
“Lets get this over with.” This time people watched the start as participators,
wishing that somehow they could stay part of the walk for its duration.

I managed the scheduled 16 kilometers and addressed Police staff at the four
scheduled stations. I was accompanied at various stages by bands of school children,
Station Commanders and other community figures. It was a very full day and by
the end of it I was glad to throw the backpack down on the floor. This particular
floor being that of the Landmark Lodge, the first of many Protea Hotels I was to use
on the walk.

I then hit the first problem. I had absolutely no cash; the Landmark Lodge did not
supply supper and the local Spur refused to accept a voucher unless I presented
myself and the voucher at the restaurant approximately three kilometers away. The
receptionist at the Hotel did not know how to resolve the issue, so I decided that
after a bath I would have to walk there and back for my supper.

An hour later I was lying on the bed trying to summon up the energy to do just that
when there was a knock on the door.

The youngster at the door introduced himself, “Hi, I am Mr. Delivery Man.”
“Sorry,” I said, “I can‟t use you, Spur will not accept my vouchers unless I go there
personally.”
“I know,” He replied, “I was just talking about it to the receptionist. You are the guy
that‟s walking against crime, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well I am going to sponsor you a delivery. The food can‟t come to you so I will
deliver you to the food. I will take you to Spur, you eat, and then I will pick you up
and deliver you back to the hotel. See, Mr. Delivery Man at your service!”
We agreed to a time and that was that. So simple and so… well, just so brotherly.

In between this discussion and actually going there I watched the news for coverage
of the departure. It was covered on all the National broadcasts and ended with my
sponsored cell phone number being given and people being encouraged to telephone
me to support me along the way.
The phone rang immediately.

From my notes:
Continuous phone calls. If it stops for a second, I check the mailbox, always at least
30 to 40 messages every time. Could not eat properly, people in Spur thought I was
mad, eating one handed with a fork, chewing with the phone against my ear.
Worked out plus minus 160 calls until I switched off at midnight.

Two of these calls were different; one was from a woman who asked me bitterly if I
knew what sort of people I was walking for. The other was disturbing for a while;
the male voice did not introduce himself but told me I was a „fucking loser‟ and
would never make it out of Cape Town as he knew where to get me, then he hung
up.

This was truly a day.

Chapter Five

Day 2 - 7
The hype remained in some strength and I found myself feted and pampered. The
police were in a spot; they could not protect me with armoured cars and battalions
of guards because that would be tantamount to admitting that the country was in
trouble and that one could not walk the streets. Similarly they could not allow me to
get mugged again, they had been through enough ridicule already.

Solution… A string of volunteers; big hard eyed men, uncomfortable with walking
in tight shoes, but very comfortable with packing rather potent looking side arms.
They would pitch up in the morning as I left some station or other and say.
“I told my captain I wanted to walk with you today because I like what you are
doing…”
Then I would be closely watched to see if I swallowed this rather unlikely
statement. I would try my best to make it look as if I had. Once over this hurdle
who ever it was would continue, “…so he gave me the day off and here I am!”

I would express my gratitude and we would march off down the street. In time the
ice would melt and the sense of duty be replaced by the pleasure of strolling along
the road. So, with the sun shining and the public hooting or calling out greetings,
we were both able to enjoy what was in fact, a day off.

The Police Services in the Western Cape had obviously worked hard to address at
least the gender aspects of affirmative action so teams of ladies occasionally
accompanied me. There were walking clubs, cycling clubs and supposed office staff
(mostly armed), all of them young, full of fun and loving the day out. Being a normal
male I tended to enjoy this kind of company a lot. The rather special approach that
ladies apply to their daily life was a pleasure to share.

Walking past a huge new shopping mall situated at Somerset West was too much
for one group and they insisted that we make a two-kilometer detour to include
some window-shopping. This was extended to include a meal, with the result that I
only just made it in time to the reception at their Police station where I was
scheduled to plant an olive tree and address the community. One day I will be old
and tired enough not to care anymore and then I shall say no to smiling eyes and
pouting lips, but I am not quite ready yet.

The constant interaction, although generally enjoyable, was already exposing me to

some of the underlying issues of policing and life in South Africa. At one station I
was asked to attend a wreath laying ceremony at a small block of flats where a
woman had been brutally murdered. The family had nothing but good to say about
the investigating officers and the assistance received from the police and said it in a
manner that gave the impression that they were almost surprised.

We say that we expect the hard-eyed protector, the fun loving team player and the
sensitive public relations expert to all be rolled into one blue uniform! But most of
us do not really think it possible. We are quick to judge and make assumptions
based on group identity.

I was in the dining room of an up market hotel when several business people came
in. All big powerful image men, their conversation indicated attendance at some
insurance conference or other. They welcomed each other at tables and easily made
room for new arrivals. Until the black man arrived; then the ranks closed and it
was painfully obvious that he was not included. He looked around, greeted everyone
and went to an empty table by himself. People have told me lately that I am
courageous but his is a quiet kind of courage that will bring down the walls we all
face.

He is the new South Africa and so the future. It is sad that the others cannot, will
not, see that they are the old South Africa and therefore must become the past,
eventually. It is sad that it is not only colour that defines us but often our role in
society or membership of a group that carries the assumed behaviour.

In a radio interview some days before I had invited the public to walk up Sir
Lowry‟s pass with me. It would be a Saturday and I believed that there would be
many takers. However the public is fickle, so there was no one and for the first time
since I started the walk I left the police station alone and walked without company.
A police van followed me, but at some distance, so I was really able to focus on the
walking. I did well; 6 kilometers up a really stiff climb in an hour and fifteen
minutes. When I got to the top I was able to look down on the Cape Peninsula…
literally.

The view was tremendous. This country has many impressive features but the
Cape Peninsula must be one of its most blessed assets. The mountains, plains and
ocean combine to provide a vista that stops all thoughts of anything except the
wonder of creation and the power of God‟s sense of balance. To stand and look down
on the sculpture that was spread with such liberal abandon across the floor below
me was truly a moment of real pleasure. At the same time I understood that I was
leaving more than the sea and mountains of the Cape behind, I was moving into the
walk in a real way. I still had the R300.00 in my savings account and the Pick n‟
Pay vouchers, but believed the sensation and the fame to be largely spent. Ken
Lazarus arrived to greet me; I think that he appreciated that I would be over the
hill, out of sight from then on. His good wishes made a big difference to the day.

Much of what I do and my love for the bush come from an early association with a
special person. Dereck is my uncle and when I was a small boy, was my hero.
Africa, on a farm in Kenya, was exploited to the full because he took the trouble to
show me; show me the bush, show me hunting and its callous disregard for life and
very importantly, show me books. Dereck hunted and hunted well but he was a
reader of books and so a dreamer. Dreamers know that if you kill, you destroy the
stuff that dreams are made of. So Dereck taught me that when you kill, you kill for
need, you kill with respect and you follow the rules.
I was often asked what I thought of capital punishment. I believe the same rules
apply and I believe that this fact removes the validity of such an extreme measure.
Dereck does not talk much of those times anymore and the only reference I have
heard him make to the guns and blood of our old Africa was after I had been robbed;
Now he finishes his goodbyes to me with, “So long Rog, remember to keep your
powder dry.”

I could read long before I went to school and Dereck had plenty of books for me to
devour. By the time I was six years old I had read most of Zane Grey‟s cowboy
books, nearly all the Tarzan books and many other stories such as King Arthur,
Hereward the Wake and Robin Hood. My head was filled with lofty ideals and
dreams about nobility and principled behaviour. I knew that cowboys did not steal
horses or hit ladies; I was convinced that a horse and a suit of armour were
necessities of life. Even today I am still proud to be called a romantic and I can
thank Dereck for it.

He is retired now and lives in a small coastal village called Pringle Bay. It was not
far from Sir Lowry‟s Pass so he picked me up and I spent the weekend with him and
his wife, Joan. He gave me the “Two Bob Tour” of the region, which cuts out a lot of
coastline and includes a lot of beer.
Chapter Six

Day 8 - 17
After all my negativity about the publicity, the weekend was again filled with Radio
interviews and requests from the press. The BBC programme, “Five Alive”
interviewed me and introduced me as, “Roger Russell, a man who has become a
National Hero in South Africa…. Ian Fisher of the New York Times phoned me
from Johannesburg and asked if he could fly down to Cape Town and interview me
along the road! Cape Talk, known for their harsh reporting, interviewed me and it
was a surprisingly sensitive and positive session. All in all, a time of rest and
empowerment.

This strange fluctuation in my popularity was never predictable and would create
some very depressing incidents along the walk. However it would then suddenly
pick up and carry me along on a wave of enthusiasm. I often needed the attention to
help me believe that what I was doing was important and that people would be
better off because of it. The reaction of the public supplied this. But I suppose if I
am really honest I just liked being special.

For a few days it seemed that my predictions of a fall from fame would be correct
and despite the enthusiasm of local police members I found myself on my own
several times. Physically I was managing well and despite some chafing and the
expected blisters, I was reasonably comfortable.

Gladys phoned me for the first of many light-hearted and blatantly suggestive
conversations.
“Hello Roger,” she started, “I am Gladys. You probably won‟t like me much.”
“Oh, why is that?” I asked.
“Well,” she replied, “I am very big and fat and very black.”
“Sounds pretty good to me,” I said.
She laughed, “We are going to be good friends you and I and when you get to
Pretoria, I am going to teach you just what good friends do.”
Gladys phoned me frequently until I almost reached Pretoria when she stopped
phoning and the promised additions to my education were never realised.

Ian Fisher of the New York Times arrived as promised and because of a minor
misunderstanding about where we were going ended up walking about 16 km with
me. As fate would have it, during this time Gladys phoned again and insisted on
talking to Ian. Several coloured women working at a roadside restaurant asked for
my autograph. Ian spoke to me, to Gladys and to the passers by. He could not
believe the friendliness of the interaction between myself and everyone that came
into contact with me; across genders, across ages and across colour. I think he took
a drastically altered picture of race relations back home with him.
I spent the night in another hotel, arranged by the Police. It had become cold and
although I had not yet had the quiet soul-restoring solitude of nights along the road,
I was glad to be inside. I woke to the sound of rain and left the hotel to walk into a
slow drizzle.
I was to call at the Police station but when I got there it was deserted. I walked on.
The day was difficult; up and down hills, poncho on and then off as the sun and a
heavy drizzle played, “Now it‟s my turn.”

Caledon Police Station hosted me as required but I did not get to talk to any of the
members. I was received and bundled off to another hotel. It was clear that it was
as much as I would get. For the first time I started to realize that I would not be
welcomed with open arms at all the stations I would visit. Nonetheless they paid
the bill for a good meal after which I spent the evening in a huge bar, nursing a beer
or two.

I was surprised that the country atmosphere and an extremely attractive bar lady
attracted no other customers. The lady and I shared memories of other times,
places and finally lots of laughter over a supposedly terrifying horror movie on the
TV. I expected no police company for the next few days and had no real idea of
where I would be sleeping tomorrow night, which, rain or no rain, was the way I
liked it.

The contrast between the condition of one police station and the next was matched
only by the difference in treatment I would get from one or the other.
Riviersondereind was a wonderful experience. They drove out and picked me up in
the evening when I was still two days walk away from the town. I spent a total of
four nights there, being picked up and taken out to the road everyday. I slept on a
bed they had put into the canteen, so had a kettle and a TV at my disposal. I was
invited to the local tennis club braai, where I met the society of Riviersondereind. I
was fed pies, from a place, I have since been told, is renowned all over South Africa
as the best bakery in the country.

On my second night there, I was woken up by the phone ringing. I used some pretty
abusive language but answered it anyway.
“Hi. Roger speaking”
A woman‟s voice asked, “Who is that?”
“I am sorry,” I said, “You phoned me and I just told you. Perhaps you should tell me
who you are?”
“Look,” she replied sharply, “I just want to know who you are. I have this phone
number here, so I phoned it.”
I looked at my watch.
“Listen, its two o‟clock in the morning…” I took a breath and calmed myself. “You
probably got it from the TV. I am the man who is walking for the police and my
number was all over the TV.”
Suddenly she burst into laughter.
“I am so sorry. Yes, I do know who you are now.”
I was about to hang up in disgust,
“She is drunk,” I thought.

Then she carried on, “My husband came home late a couple of weeks ago and I
found this number in his diary. I have been looking at it for weeks, trying to find
the courage to phone it. Tonight he came home late again and he fell asleep on the
couch. I am so sorry,” she repeated, “but I just had to phone…I thought you were
another woman.”

I could have done without it, but the conversation continued whilst she explained
that her marriage was failing and men were not men anymore. I tried, on the basis
of her hasty assumption, to convince her that she should cheer up, hang up and let
me go to bed but it was some time before this was successful.

I became part of the station in this town. I lived in the barracks, sat long evening
hours in the charge office and walked along the road accompanied by ordinary
members of the ranks. When I was to leave they held a small function for me in the
recreation hall. This hall was, for most of the week, a place of entertainment with
dartboards, table tennis and an indoor braai facility. On Thursdays however it
became a court. The sports equipment was moved against the wall and replaced
with portable railings, the judge‟s podium and a prisoner‟s box. The necessary
banners and the coat of arms were hung and everybody behaved in a dignified
manner. I never saw it in this guise but all the furniture was there ready for its
transformation.
Chapter Seven

Day 18 - 31
The next day I walked out of their area and into the next. At about midmorning I
came across a small car standing at the side of the road. There was a woman and a
small child in it. I could clearly see her apprehension as I approached. I behaved as
gently as I could and she quickly relaxed. She was on her way to Cape Town and
one of her tires was flat. She was sure that there was a spare tire somewhere but
did not know quite where. I found the spare and changed the tire. I was only too
keen to do so, she was attractive and pleasant.

In fact I was so pleased with myself as I watched her drive off that I did not realize
my glasses were still in her car. Once she had completely disappeared and I turned
to leave I saw they were gone. I did not have her telephone number or even her
name for that matter. I kicked several innocent stones and small bushes but it did
not help – my glasses did not miraculously reappear.

The story has a happy ending; the local radio stations put out a message asking her
to come forward with the glasses. She phoned me a few days later and the glasses
were back with me within a week.

Swellendam Police Services treated me much as Riviersondereind had. Once again

I was in a barracks. Once again part of the daily activity in and around the station.
I was meeting and getting to know policemen and women in a way I had not
anticipated.

When I had started the walk, a big part of my motivation had been selfish. The
walk was an avenue through which I could put my motivational and communication
skills on the map. The impact on crime and the police was a sort of mutually
beneficial issue. But with the interaction and growing awareness had come a
strong commitment to the people that actually believed in their organization and
the work it was trying to do.

I spent five days with the Swellendam Police and I was adopted by two completely
different police families: the one was very English and reserved with a young
daughter who wanted to hear stories of Scottish heroes and King Arthur. The other
was Afrikaans and open with lots of uncles, aunts and cousins who joined in the
family meals and were to be frequently met on the streets of the town. Included in
the family members was another little girl and although there were no stories
required she and I hit it off immediately.

On a couple of occasions Vossie and his wife Annelise walked with me and the
discussions were often about the racial split that was creating difficulties in getting
a united community front to support the station. Nikkie also walked with me but
then the emphasis was on reaction and more manpower. Solutions lie in bringing
all these aspects together.

Whilst in Swellendam I was approached by a young couple.

“Are you the man that is walking against crime?”
I replied that I was and they introduced themselves. She expressed real gratitude,
telling me that the public was unaware of how personal costs were measured if you
were a policeman.

Their story included an early marriage and a happy year brought to an end by his
transfer from a middle class suburb to one of the worst stations in the Cape Flats.
The area was run by gangsters and even young children were dealt with carefully,
as they were frequently armed and brutal.

Within six months he was openly a different person, even being physically violent.
Her life became a nightmare, her marriage an ugly experience she had never
thought possible.
The experience lasted another twelve months and then he had a breakdown and
was transferred again. It was to save their marriage. Since then they had
successfully re-built much of what had been damaged but were not completely there
yet.

“I was not prepared for what happened,” she said, “I will never let him work in a
place like that again.”
“Many of us have no choice,” he said. “But I don‟t want to even talk about the
things I saw, let alone the things I found myself doing.”

The existence of inhuman brutality and harsh greed is not to be denied. It is easy
to argue for a hard and brutal response. Many highly placed South Africans
justifiably support more force, more power.

In Swellendam there is plenty of support for service but also an element of

conservatism. The community forum is strong and has an active youth group,
however one of the high schools has refused to allow its pupils to join it as the group
is multi-racial.

I went to Sunday Mass in Swellendam; Without any difficulty at all, the few whites
sat on the left hand side of the church whilst the thirty or so blacks sat on the right
hand side. Aside from a couple of hymns that seemed to come only from the right, it
was a lifeless ceremony.

Money was becoming an issue. I had very little left. Fortunately I was able to use
some of the Spur vouchers I had been given. The Station Tea Boat paid for a meal
at one of Swellendam‟s better restaurants. The waitress broke my heart. She was
my wife, as I had known her when I married her. What a wonderful thing it is to be
soft and feminine, so aware of it and so in control of it. She smiled and moved as if
she had been that way since birth. Sharon had that quality. The wine, the food and
the music created a sense of loss so deep that I left after the meal to walk for hours
through the empty, empty night.
The day I left Swellendam I walked 24 km, which was good considering how badly I
had been spoilt lately. I spent the night in a pipe under the road and ate noodles
and tinned fish. The novelty of it took the edge off how primitive it was.

Wicus Holtzhauzen and Anine picked me up on the road and took me to a holiday
home at Gouritz. I had a chance to relax so I walked on the beach and did some
thinking about the situation I was finding out so much about. The concept of a five-
point plan was born, as was some idea of what this book might be like.
Chapter Eight

Day 32 - 40
I arrived in Mossel Bay and booked into a Protea Hotel. The luxury of it was in
total contrast to the ups and downs of barracks, cheap rooms and the occasional
drainpipe.

Mossel Bay was well organised and positive about policing. The members came out
to meet me in force and we walked into town together. The women, the laughter
and the day out were reminiscent of the days I was walking out of Cape Town.

I attended a community forum meeting and was surprised to find representatives

from the poorest sectors of the community. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly,
they had little to say and were very much overpowered by the more affluent and
intellectual. Sensible issues were discussed and again I found out something for the
first time. The farm attacks were discussed with some very strongly voiced
concerns from the farming contingent. However when it came to the question of
supporting the farm watch programmes and level of security maintained by the
farmers, they became silent. These initiatives were not being supported. Farm
security was lax. Patrols and farm watch rosters were not always possible as there
were not enough volunteers. The farmers were angry but not co-operative in
maintaining anti-crime programmes.

Street children in Mossel Bay are present in large numbers and make a living from
the tourists. The woman whose brief it was to deal with the problem described
some of the cases to the group. One of the children, a fourteen-year-old boy is to be
found on the streets every school holiday. He joins them, makes and stashes his
money and then goes home to school in the term time. The money he makes pays
for his schooling. Generally the children are considered a threat to the security of
the town. This first contact with the tragedy of street kids aroused my interest and
I was to see the reality of the problem opened up to me in cities and towns all
around the country.

Heidelberg is a small town but I was met on the outskirts and escorted in to meet
the Mayor. He came out of his office reluctantly and made statements about what I
was doing and where I was from that surprised even me. It was obvious he had no
idea what the walk was all about. Once he was satisfied that he had done what
everyone wanted him to do he disappeared back into his office.

That night I spent some time at the station with the only policeman on duty. It was
a Thursday. Friday and Monday were public holidays so it was a long weekend.
The main coastal road ran right past the town. Sometime around nine o‟clock
someone phoned in to say that there was a cow on the road and that it was going to
cause an accident sooner than later. The man on duty phoned the standby, who
arrived a few minutes afterwards and an interesting conversation took place.
“Hey Jan, what‟s up?”
“Wessel, hi. There is a cow on the N2 so you must take the van and get it off.”
“Uh-uh, not me, not on my own. You know what happened last time.”
Jan shrugged, “OK. When a car hits it you can go and dig out the bodies!”
Wessel was angry.
“This is bullshit, it is impossible for me to chase a cow off the road by myself.”

I could not believe what I was hearing.

“Excuse me,” I interrupted, “you people want to tell me that you can‟t get a cow off
the road and there are hundreds of people, families, kids, using that road.”

Wessel looked at me. “Last time we did this we lost the police van. Only one person
went out and he parked the van to chase the cow into a field. When he turned
around someone was driving off in the van. Jan here can‟t leave the station so who
goes to the road with me.”

I did. We drove up the road against the flow of traffic, hundreds of cars streaming
by at high speeds towards Knysna and the Garden Route. We found the cow but
still both of us had to leave the van to get it safely confined. The pettiness of the
crime (unattended livestock on a national road) had seemingly little relationship to
the consequences of a high-speed accident on such a busy road. I realised clearly
and precisely just how frustrating it can be to be a member of South Africa‟s under-
resourced Police Services.

Riversdale had been waiting for me for some time. I was told several times before I
got there that I would be joined by the two “Walkers of Riversdale”. The walkers
turned out to be an elderly couple that explained to me carefully and repeatedly
how they walked 10 000 km a year; 30 km per day, 200 km a week, 800 km a
month and so 10 000 km a year.

They were dropped off, introduced and then left with me. They caused much of the
little hair I had left to fall out. They were very sweet and I have no doubt that they
walk many kilometers a week, a month and so on. However the fact that they have
avoided being flattened by a passing motor vehicle is even a greater achievement.
Sometimes they walked beside me, sometimes behind me. Often they would
accelerate ahead and then slow right down again so that the one would bump into
the other or go out into the road to overtake.

They kept up a constant bickering, the one criticising the other and becoming so
involved that they were totally unaware of the tons of four-wheeled machinery
hurtling past them no more than a few inches away.

I had visions of headlines in the newspapers:

Walkers of Riversdale killed

Old couple led to their death by anti-crime walker.
The days stayed wet and cold but I was still being hosted most of the time. My
poncho was not effective and my clothing never really warm enough. If the outer
clothing got a little wet it was not too bad. However if my underwear got wet I
ended up with raw bleeding skin between my legs and walking would become
painful.
Cold was one thing, deep damp cold was totally miserable.

On one of the few sunny days that came my way I stopped for lunch at a resting
place and put some of my clothing out to dry. I made coffee and sat down at a picnic
table to drink it. I was not in a good frame of mind. When I saw the man
approaching, I was irritated without really knowing why. Perhaps something
indefinable about the way he was walking told me he was drunk.

He walked up to the table and sat down opposite me. He took his hand out of his
pocket but kept it under the table. He peered at me through bloodshot eyes and
said, “I have a knife, but I am a Christian.”
He rambled on for a few minutes about prostitutes and other sinners and then
asked me if I was a sinner.
“My job is to get rid of the sinners.” He added.
“I have a knife,” he repeated.
“So have I,” I replied.
He looked at me for a few seconds and then said, “I have killed people before.”
I was starting to move from being irritated to being amused, “Me too, I have killed,
oh maybe ten people.”
This disturbed him and he brought his hand out and put the knife on the table.
“Where is your knife?” he asked.
“Under the table,” I said, but did not move.
He shook his head and got up. I watched him sit himself under the nearest tree.
Within a few minutes he was asleep. I quietly got my stuff together and walked on.

George meant a good hotel courtesy of Protea and attendance at a management

meeting of the Police Station. It is a big station and very active. The reservists are
an important part of policing in George and do a great deal of community work.
They have their own mobile station, which they set up in response to local statistics
indicating where their presence is required. I was able to deliver a good talk and
the reaction was gratifying.

The walk out of George to the Knysna area was absolutely stunning. I completed 31
km and enjoyed every minute of it. The road wound its way through forest and
mountain passes to emerge over the start of beach sand and blue sea that
disappeared into forever without losing even the smallest bit of impact. If this walk
was not so regulated by appointments and constant surveillance by the police, I
would have been able to spend a few days longer walking through this incredibly
beautiful piece of South Africa.

The difference in my PR work and that of the professionals was brought home to me
as I walked through this area; I met Braam Malherbe. I was walking down a long
forest road when a Landrover, covered with logos and fitted with every kind of all-
terrain equipment pulled up beside me. A photographer jumped out and
immediately started taking pictures. Two others also got out and one of them
introduced himself and then the others. He was Braam and the excitement was not
about me but about him.
 He was going to start a run from Knysna to Cape Town, a distance of 610
kilometers, in aid of nature conservation. He told me that the name of his project
was „Wildchild‟. He described the money that had gone into sponsorships, the
planned radio and TV exposure and the equipment that had been supplied. He had
a physiotherapist and a team of people that would provide his water and food along
the way. The whole run was scheduled with presentations and slide shows in major
centers.

I thought of the missed opportunities and wet, cold nights I sometimes experienced.
But the projects were different; his was short-term and local, it was carefully
designed for high impact. Mine was long-term and aimed at the individuals that I
met in blue uniforms. I was fleetingly envious, but it did not last.

Sure enough, two days later, we crossed paths again. Braam was walking, not
running - these are tough hills. The Landrover was behind with the back-up team,
children where everywhere. It looked like a lot of fun.

The walk out of Knysna was through an unsightly squatter camp, peopled by
beautiful souls. The friendliness and openhearted way they dealt with me is in
complete contrast to the broken circumstances they live in.

My last nights in the Western Cape but one were spent in the luxury of a Protea
Hotel. The night before I was to be handed over to the Eastern Cape was a
nightmare.
Chapter Nine

Day 41 - 43
The handing over was the last big event arranged by the original police
communications team. My impact as a national news item was fading fast and so
the walk was fast becoming more routine. But for this occasion the various
commissioners and other officials could not make the scheduled crossing of the
border and I was asked to get there a day earlier. The Western Cape Commissioner
wanted to walk the last few kilometers with me. I wanted to make sure that I did
not miss the appointment, so planned to be within 10 kilometers of the meeting
place by the previous night.

I put in some serious walking far beyond the scheduled limits. The area is well
known for its mountainous terrain and I had to tell my poor belaboured bones and
muscles to keep finding the little bit extra for that longer hill, for the other hour-
and-a-half at the end of an already taxing day.

I have one advantage that motivates the effort required; I can shut out my body and
live in my mind. Blisters, chafing and pain get locked outside whatever place it is
that makes me give up. It is not then a question of dealing with pain; it is a matter
of being deliberately stupid about it.

This has a built-in reward system. At the top of a long hot climb, be it two hours or
three, I can stop and balance the achievement against the damage done. There is
never a problem; the victory is always worth the expenditure.

This is a simple truth; the expenditure is history, you cannot take back what is
gone, but the satisfaction of having produced the goods stays with you and can be
savoured at length. The beauty of it? The effect is accumulative and the minor
triumphs of each day add up over the weeks and months to bring you achievements
that even I sometimes believed were too far-fetched.

After a couple of days of serious walking I had made up the necessary kilometers.
At the end of a day of cold winds and light drizzle I found a culvert approximately
eight kilometers from the border. I thankfully laid out my camp.
I ate well and as the culvert did not face the wind it was reasonably dry and warm.
I crawled deep down inside my sleeping bag and was soon asleep.

I woke up sometime later to listen to the steady fall of rain. I felt something down
by my toes. What ever it was, it was very cold and then, suddenly, very wet. I sat
bolt upright and grabbed my torch. A small rivulet of water was trickling down the
center of the culvert floor and had just reached my sleeping bag.
I dragged my groundsheet and all of the equipment, goods and clothing on it, away
from the water and then crawled to the entrance of the culvert. A huge sheet of
water stretched away from me into the fields. The only thing that had saved me
was the fact that the culvert next to mine was slightly lower and so had absorbed
the first of the now rapidly rising water. I could not afford to let everything get wet.
I needed to present a reasonably decent appearance the next day. I also needed
some serious rest. I decided to dam off the entrance to my culvert and divert the
water into the next one.

So, in the middle of a cold, dark and very, very wet night, I, naked and barefoot,
with my torch clutched between my teeth, splashed and tramped through mud and
water to bring sticks, stones, earth and anything else I could find to build a wall no
more than 10 cm high and about two meters long. It took ages, the water kept
eroding whatever I put in place and the little cooking pot that I was scooping the
earth up in fell far short of replacing a decent shovel. Eventually I used my poncho
as a lining. Spreading it as an outer wall and pinning it down with rocks. It
stopped the constant erosion of the dam wall.

Finally, with teeth chattering and muscles shivering, I dried the rain from my body
and climbed back into the sleeping bag. I had shut out the water but was not able
to shut out visions of it returning. I slept little and got up frequently to check the
entire structure.

I must have finally slept well because I woke to find the sun shining and birds
chirping. I got up and surveyed my handiwork. I could not believe what a pathetic
little puddle now remained outside the culvert. I could not believe how small and
flimsy was the structure I had spent hours building to stem what had seemed, at
the time, to be something akin to what had floated Noah‟s boat.

I was on time and I did look reasonably decent. The event went off well and
although it was not the last time I was to be treated like a newsworthy person it
marked the end of the original wave of enthusiasm.
COMMENTARY
NURTURED

Jocelyn was created to raise children. Her spirit, her desires, needed to mother in
order to fulfill some basic ambition that underpinned who she was. Physically she
was not adequate. The structure of her body stopped conception almost as soon as
it took hold. She would never have children of her flesh.

When she walked into the kitchen of Solly‟s house and saw them; two small and
dirty, miserable little girls, hiding in a corner of the kitchen, she turned to him and
said, “They‟re coming home with me.”

Solly didn‟t argue, his latest wife did not want them around anyway. Pauline and
Rose both grew up in her care; their interaction with the community of Smitsdene
was originally defined by her morals and beliefs. Later it was to be different.

Smitsdene was designed to give coloured families a start in life. The bush had been
cleared, roads and services installed and then basic homes were built. The homes
were made of cheap concrete brick. They had two rooms, an outside toilet, but no
bathroom. The whole was roofed with corrugated iron. The government sold the
units to the homeless for next to nothing. The idea was that families would move
in, plant gardens, add rooms and eventually end up better people, with a better
community.

When I first visited her there, the garden was sand. Originally it must have been
white but humanity had coloured it grey. The walls of all the houses had been
discoloured by the damp. The drab uniformity of visual impact where ever you
turned, told of a slow degeneration, not only of concrete and wood or iron, but also of
spirit.

Inside the house it was different, it was Jocelyn‟s kingdom, she ruled the behaviour,
she ruled the furnishings. Chris was her husband and had learned not to interfere
once under her roof. Outside, in the yard, he had car wrecks; scrap building
material and a few broken chairs. He sat out there and drank some of the time, but
mostly he worked on cars. He earned good money but it stayed with him, none of it
went inside, none of it went to her. Her salary bought the groceries; she paid for
her precious furniture.

I have seen thousands like them at the start of any working day in Cape Town. You
can see them too, when the trains pour out their contents onto platforms serving the
vast industrial areas. They bring the way they live to town. The women are
perfect. Shoes, stockings, dresses and coats – everything at its Sunday‟s best. No
one will ever know what it costs them but they fight for it. They fight misery and
lack of facilities to bring sanity to their lives through the appearance of order.
The men don‟t care; they fall off the trains, their trousers hanging around the
cheeks of their backsides, their shirts dirty with the residue of other days, not this
one. I used to think it was a difference in attitude but now know it is deeper than
that; it is a split that starts in the relationships they share at home. Inside the
house, a middle class parlour. In the garden, a junkyard and then beyond the gate,
on the street, a war zone.

The streets of Smitsdene are wide and unkempt. The pavements vast tracts of sand
where taxi‟s and outdated bakkies (pick-ups) and cars drive almost as fast and
frequently as they do on the road itself. Packs of dirty, underfed dogs scavenge for
food whilst children laugh, shout and kick at each other, barefoot and just as dirty.

Many of the houses sell small groceries at their fences. Most corners have either a
fruit vendor or a dilapidated caravan that provides cheap, hot food of a basic kind.
As evening falls, the teenagers stand around in groups and stare confidently at
strangers. The vendor‟s wares change slightly as it gets darker, alcohol and drugs
are easier to stock, bring more money and the kids buy them. Children learn to
drink early but the life they move into can so easily require a more personal price
than the few rands they steal or coerce from their families‟ meager earnings.

Pauline and Rose moved from a house where they were beaten, starved and ignored
by blood family into one where they were dressed, fed and taken to the Catholic
Church on Sundays.

They were taught, they were counselled, they were mothered as only Jocelyn could
mother them. Rose was a year or so older than Pauline and loved her adopted
mother. Pauline loved her too but she clung to a perception of her natural father
that excluded memories or suggestions of any shortfalls in his treatment of her.
Rose would sit with Chris and hand him tools as he worked on some neighbour‟s
car. Pauline ignored him.

Pauline disappeared one Saturday to go and visit Solly. That afternoon, in Solly‟s
car, she was involved in a car accident from which Solly came out unscathed.
Pauline fractured her leg in three places, resulting in a two-week stay in hospital
and nearly three months of convalescence.

Jocelyn paid, she paid the hospital bills, she paid emotionally. She spent hours in
busses, taxi‟s and queues to make sure that Pauline was visited and treated.
Pauline asked her, “Did you see my dad today? Did he ask how I was? Did my Dad
say he was coming?”
He didn‟t ask, he didn‟t come.

I picked the two of them up at school once, Rose was quiet and pleased to see me,
Pauline ran at me and hung onto my waist, full of fire, full of excitement. Her
blouse hung loose and she had no shoes on. Rose was clean and had her schoolbag.
I asked Pauline, “Do you want to fetch your bag?”
“I haven‟t got one,” she replied.
She did not want a lift home either, she told me she had friends to see. Rose
accepted the ride but did not talk of Pauline.

As the years went by, Rose was nearly always to be found at the house, Pauline
seldom. I phoned once or twice much later and was told stories of how Rose had
taken work in a factory and how she had bought a car, started a bookkeeping
course. I loved Rose a great deal, she told me about herself.

Pauline was not to be loved; she professed her passion and joy with hugs and
energetic activity but never shared. She bunked school, was caught drinking with
some of the known troublemakers in the area. She never discussed her life with
me.

Rose lived in her mother‟s world, sharing some of the gentler aspects of her foster
father‟s.
Pauline, I suppose, went looking for Solly and somehow lost contact with the
stability Jocelyn tried to create inside the cement brick walls of the house.

During the walk I passed Smitsdene and took time to call in at the house. It had
been years since I had had any contact with them. The neighbourhood had
forgotten me. The sullen stares were as hostile as they had been the first time I
went there. Chris was pleased to see me. Jocelyn was not there. I asked about the
two girls.
Chris stopped short for a second or two and then told me, “Rose is getting married.
She was always a family person. She is a good girl.”

“And Pauline?” I prompted.

“You don‟t know?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“About a year ago she was beaten up. We heard shouting and yelling outside
there,” he waved at the fence, “and I came outside. It was about two in the
morning. A taxi drove away as I opened the door. She was lying in the path by the
gate. She was drunk, and she was beaten.
We all talked to her, I wanted to throw her out then but I was told no. I was told
this was her home. I went and found Solly and forced him to come and tell her to
pull herself together. She would not listen, she did not even believe her own
father.”

He paused.
“…Then, just after Christmas, my cousin phoned me and told me that they had her
at their house. That I must bring some clothes. They had found her in the veld at
Protea Park; she had been beaten, raped. She was found crawling around in the
grass naked. Jocelyn made me go and fetch her. So I did take clothes for her but I
did not bring her back here, I dropped her off outside Solly‟s house. I don‟t want her
here in my home, I don‟t care what Jocelyn says.”

“Where is she now?” I asked.

“No one knows.” He shrugged. “Solly says she never came inside. He never saw
her that night. Nobody we know has seen her since. She was doing drugs, sleeping
around for money, drinking.”
“But…” I started.
He interrupted me. “You wouldn‟t like her much now if you met her. She‟s rubbish
and belongs out there on the street. Besides its none of your business.”

Smitsdene is typical of the type of community spawned by the economic reality of

life at the bottom of the cultural hierarchy that exists in the Cape. Two girls,
abused and innocent, the same life, the same care, the same levels of love and
neglect. They lived across three social phenomena; Church, curtains and
ornaments; beer, cars, grease and friendship; drugs, gangs and the law of the street.
One is now a citizen, the other a victim. Somehow, when I walked away from that
house, I believed that Pauline was better off not being found, that the solution to
her tragedy was not to be sought in the artificial worlds of her adopted mother and
father. She was best served looking where she had instinctively been looking ever
since she was that exciting little girl I had known so long ago.

Today I would possibly find her in the assault reports of some small Police Station.
PUBLIC ORDER POLICING

He is a tall, wiry man with a gentle, pleasing way that has no mark on it of his
other half. His child is young, six years on the planet and at least three times that
in wisdom. But it is a wisdom that has been developed at great cost.
He is a member of the Public Order Policing Unit, which is a nice name for the riot
squad. In the old days when you had had enough, when you wanted to teach people
a lesson, you called this unit. Hard, brutal men with little regard for others and a
high regard for their own explosive violence; they were the ultimate solution.

In 1994 things changed. Apartheid died and the weapons of the regime had to be
disbanded or redirected. Basically the transformation of the “POPs” unit
encompassed a simple switch;
Once upon a time they arrived on the scene and said, in effect, “You have an option,
disband and go home or stay here and die!”

Now they arrive on the scene and say, “Hi everyone, we are here to help you get
your ideas across in an orderly and civilized way. So lets have a chat and see how
that can happen.”

We spent three days together, walking and discussing the issues he and his
colleagues faced, at work and in their families. I have no details of what he went
through personally or what it cost his wife and child. I know that a great deal of
alcohol was involved. I know also that the little girl talks to you with an awareness
that no one of that age should have. Her eyes look at you and in them you can find
a humanity that comes from the anguish she has gone through.

I was part of the underground rescue team on the mines and we shared a
camaraderie that comes from being unique. We went in where others hung back.
We applied techniques and skills developed through intensive training and life-
threatening applications. I felt that I understood what it must be like to be the elite
and then have everything that made you elite denied you. To be part of a group
selected, trained and focused to apply a physical answer and then told to forget it,
you must negotiate and even support. A group of weapons that are suddenly
required to become diplomats, to demonstrate empathy.

I tried to tell them that they should not believe that their past was an evil thing,
something they should deny. I asked them to find and carry the good into their new
duties. Who could deny that they knew better than anyone, how mobs behaved.
Who was more qualified than they were to apply new attitudes and approaches to
situations the rest of us shied from?

Later that afternoon I joined some of them in the canteen. Miriam was shorter
than I and petite. She was pretty and like my other “POPs” friend, she was gentle.
I could not believe she was a member of the unit. I was told how she came to them
and how they had been amused and then disgusted at her inclusion. She changed
all that by going through the training and mock ops proving herself bigger and
tougher than the worst of them. But she was leaving, holding a degree, she is
eligible to join the new Scorpions, an elite investigative unit. They could not follow
her.

My friend looks after the training and he is deeply concerned about enriching the
work he is teaching them to do. Like much of the change required in the Police,
some of the old school must die or leave before the new will take root. In the
meantime, insecurity, anger, alcoholism and suicides destroy relationships and
trust.
PARASITE

This stretch of road is pure Cape but not Cape Town. The area has a long farming
tradition, which includes the exploitation of a poor coloured community. The
farmers used to provide a minimum wage and ensure bondage through a ready
supply of cheap wine. Not much has changed. Some of the wine depots that used to
supply this system still exist. That is to say they are perpetuated through the
licenses to serve liquor. I was at one on Friday evening. The place has a small
grocery store with a liquor outlet licensed by virtue of its links to a now defunct
wine depot.

The owner has a system. The labourers buy the essentials of life on credit. From
Saturday to Friday everything is written down, no cash is required. Friday is
payday and payday is a small brown envelope with small amounts of money. The
owner is nice enough to fetch the workers in his van and bring them to the shop.
The first thing he does is to collect the weekly bill. Then he opens the bottle store.
The meager leavings at the bottom of the pay packet disappear into the bottom of
the bottles and the labourers wake up on Saturday with nothing. But so what, they
can buy food on credit until next Friday.

“Hey master, just one litre. R 5.00 is all I am spending.”

One litre of Sensation (a cheap local wine) costs R 5.00. It is cheaper than Coke.
After a litre of cheap wine good intentions look dimmer, so it is followed by a quart
of beer; nearly twice the price. After the beer, a half jack of cheap brandy. And
then anything goes: fist fights, knives, broken bottles –
In fact everything goes; the money, the dignity and any hope of climbing out of the
eternal spin into disease and insanity.

It is hard to generate sympathy for the total disregard for their own self-respect and
the fact that these coloured people actively seek a peculiar kind of hell, but it is easy
to generate disgust for the people who live off it.
 SECTION 2

THE EASTERN CAPE

Chapter One

Day 44 - 46
I was officially handed over to the Eastern Cape today. The affair took place in wind
and rain on the centre of a bridge crossing the Groot River. There were several
people around including the photographers and news people. Amongst them was a
striking looking woman with bright red hair. She watched me with some
skepticism and when introduced did not say too much.

Later after the performances were over and I was trudging miserably through a
grey, wet drizzle, a car pulled up beside me.
The window was wound down and she looked out to say, “Are you completely nuts?”
I muttered something about being OK and that I was used to it but she did not let
me finish. “It‟s raining, for God‟s sake. Get in the car!”
“But I have to do another six kilometers today,” I replied.
“Well, do them tomorrow,” she said, “Now get in the bloody car!”

And so I met the first of what I now know to be the Stormsriverarians. Hilary was
not quite like anyone I have ever met before. She breathed a spirit of excitement
and recklessness into the walk, which although slowly compromised by months of
passing time, never really got lost.

The station of Stormsriver was a family of policemen and women. They worked
together and socialized together. And best of all, they hosted me – together.
I was cowed into obedience by her forceful approach and did the remaining six
kilometers and the required day‟s quota the next day.

For some of it a young black constable accompanied me. He was a really nice
person and very conscious of the fact that he was walking with someone who had
been on TV and in the newspapers. He was determined to show how fit he was and
had trouble slowing down what he felt was the right pace for the job.

After we had been walking for a few minutes, he offered to carry the backpack and
thinking it might slow him down a little, I agreed. The enthusiasm faded gradually
as the weight increased slowly in proportion to the kilometers walked. Within half
an hour he started to show some discomfort. Thinking that he was tiring I
suggested that I take it back.
He stopped and dropped it to the ground. He was a very uncomfortable person
indeed.

“Do you have any toilet paper in there?” he asked, pointing at the pack.
“Of course,” I said. “Do you want some?” I started opening the side pocket. He
nodded and pointed at the trees on the side of the road.
“You don‟t mind?” he hesitated and made a very controlled attempt to smile, then
grabbed the paper and half ran, half side-stepped his way into concealment. After a
few minutes he shouted from the greenery. “You go I‟ll catch up.”

And so the day went on. He was not happy about any of it and I think if he‟d had
any transport he would have foregone the glory and told me to walk alone. He got
caught short so often that he no longer put the toilet paper back in the pack but
carried it in his hand. His walking cycle became a short period of discomfort, a
quick run to the trees, a little time of privacy and a long run to catch up to me.

I have since wondered what it must have looked like to a passerby; a rather
unkempt backpacker walking away from a distraught young policeman who was
chasing after him with a roll of toilet paper.

Eventually we reached the station. I had been walking for six weeks but had never
seen a policeman so happy to be at his place of work as my escort.

Hilary wanted to know why I was not talking to schools and arranged for me to
speak to some primary school children. I really enjoyed it, and danced and pranced
around the classroom. The children liked it and Hilary was laughing all the way
back to the station. The talks to the schools became an important and satisfying
component of the walk from then on.

Lots of people walked with me in Stormsriver. Amongst them was Frieda. Frieda
was one of many people that I met that had been at the forefront of the liberation
movement. People that had been actively sought and harassed by the South
African Police and were now working together with them to address the problems.

The day came when I had to say goodbye. Hilary had made me several cards and I
was unhappy about leaving, but when one does this sort of thing you seem to say
goodbye more often than you say hello.
Chapter Two

Day 47 - 55
Although I was walking along the N2, the Police of Kareedouw, a town some thirty
kilometers off the road, hosted me. I stayed with a young couple that was very nice
to me. I also spent one night at the station commander‟s house. In the morning,
the entire family stood together at the front door before leaving whilst the mother
asked God to protect each and every one throughout the day. As a guest, I received
special mention, which was good, as later that day I came close to losing everything
all over again.

Somewhere between the turn off to Kareedouw and Humansdorp I was walking on
a section of the road with a fairly wide verge. It had been raining so I had my
poncho on. For once it was working reasonably well. I was too cold to think of
removing it anyway and my hands were underneath it, tucked into the sleeves of
my pullover.

A white car passed me from behind and then slowed down and stopped. As I got
closer it turned and came back, pulling up beside me. The passenger window
wound down and a coloured man asked me very abruptly, “Where are you going?”
His tone disturbed me and I kept my hands under the poncho. “I am the man that
is walking for the Police, I am headed for Humansdorp.”
Ignoring the answer, he asked, “Have you any money on you?”
I checked the inside of the car; there were two of them, neither looked as if they
sang in the church choir.
“Some,” I admitted. “A couple of Rands, enough for some lunch.”
“And a gun? Have you got a weapon of some kind?”
As he asked this he looked at where my hands were hidden under the poncho.
I knew then that this could get very difficult.
“Its none of your business!” I said, “And if that‟s all, I am going to move on.”
He looked me carefully up and down and then turned to the driver, “Ag, leave him.
He‟s got fuck all!”

Then they simply drove off. For some reason it hit me hard and I was shaky for
some time afterwards. I think that my life had hung in the balance for a few short
seconds.

It was precisely what I have always considered to be my greatest danger. Most

people are concerned about where I sleep but I have rules to protect myself. It is
essential to avoid common vagrant haunts, it is important that no one sees me leave
the road and most important of all – once gone, stay gone. Do not wander around or
sit in full view of the road. No one knows where I am at night and I am safe.
But in the day it is different. I am exposed and alone. A passing car such as this
one can stop, take my possessions, my life and be gone in minutes.

The Humansdorp police community welcomed me with enthusiasm. I was put in

the barracks and fed. I was taken to schools and attended the community forum
meeting.

Two things happened in Humansdorp that I will not forget.

At the community forum meeting we were sitting through a lengthy discussion

about controlling the street kids. Someone mentioned that for an unknown reason
the kids had changed their normal hangout for another one. Various role players
discussed possibilities until a coloured man with an obvious liking for midday
alcohol stood up.
“I know why,” he stated very carefully.
It was quickly evident that no one wanted to let him speak but he ignored them and
carried on. He pointed across the room to the Traffic Chief.
“It‟s his fault.”
The room fell silent.
He carefully shuffled his feet as if to make sure he would not slowly fall over and
then continued. “He always used to eat his lunch and read the newspaper on the
corner of Main and Third Street. Now he sits outside the park at the crossing.”

The whole room burst out laughing and the poor man was highly indignant.
“It‟s true. The kids won‟t hang out where he is.”
He was, what we in the training industry term a subject matter expert. Without
the practicality of the street, intellectual planning cannot work.

The next morning I overslept and woke to the sound of voices outside the window.
There was a lot of activity in the station yard next to the barracks. I dressed and
went out. Most of the police I had met the day before were there. They were hosing
down the courtyard, emptying dustbins and picking up litter. Two of the
constables, a young white man and a black man had just opened up a drain cover.
The white constable fetched a shovel and tried to scoop out some waste that was
clogging the drain. It was not easy.

Finally the black constable shook his head, “Give the shovel to a kaffir.” He said in
disgust. He reached out and took it. “You whites have never shoveled shit in your
life, you need some serious money spent on your development.”

Most of the others laughed and the station commander walked over.
“I‟m not a racist,” he said, “and I don‟t care which of you cleans it but somebody
better clean it.”
The easy acceptance of each other and the ability to say things that would initiate
lawsuits anywhere else was, for me, a golden nail in the coffin of the perception of a
lost and bitter South Africa.

I walked into Jeffrey‟s Bay with the Head Girl and Boy from two of the local schools
and several Police members. The Police Station surprised me: it was by far the best
equipped and most modern I had seen. I was told that it had to be that way as all
the senior police officials and ministers retired to Jeffrey‟s Bay. I stayed the night
with one of the police members and managed to find out that the tea boat played a
large role in the level of furnishings and equipment. I needed to know more about
this seemingly innocuous fund that had the incredible ability of providing what
even the government could not.

My talks were getting better. I was learning about these people and the empathy
allowed me insights that touched their hearts.

The community at Jeffrey‟s Bay surfs and the schools accept surfing as an approved
sport. I was surprised by the vigour with which a teacher reacted when I teased
some of the children about this.

In Jeffrey‟s one of the local schools turns its rugby fields into a caravan site in the
holiday season. This is extremely lucrative and the school has many facilities other,
not so creative schools, can‟t afford.

Further along the road, at a small town, I was offered a place to stay by a local
hotel. I unwittingly opened myself to minor bribery and corruption. It took some
time for the conversation to get where it was going but I finally found out that my
sponsor was concerned that the police did not close the local shebeens. Then I
realised that he actually only wanted one particular shebeen closed. It was
apparently a big one, which, unlike the other smaller ones, did not buy its stocks
from him. It was not surprising to hear him ask me to use my influence with the
local station commander in the matter. My refusal was well taken but I did not see
him again, not even to thank him for his unselfish hospitality.
Chapter Three

Day 56 - 68
I was fast approaching Port Elizabeth and the arrangements for my hosting and
other issues were in the hands of a young lady called Michelle. She had her own
ideas about what I should do and when it should be done but we were able to create
a reasonable itinerary.

I was met at the Van Staden‟s River Bridge in force. There was good news coverage
and members of the Public Order Policing Unit walked with me into Port Elizabeth.
That was not all. A truck arrived and offloaded five bicycles with Port Elizabeth‟s
own Pacific Blue team. It did not stop at the bicycles and skintight shorts; the two
men were, in my disinterested opinion, probably hunks and the three women, in my
very professional opinion, gorgeous.

The officer in charge, Captain Zelda Coetzee, kept tight control and gave the
assurance that nothing would happen to me whilst under the protection of her
squad. The five of them obviously enjoyed the aura and uniqueness of their unit.
Even on bicycles it was a tough walk for all of us. The wind and the rain did its best
to damage the day but were largely unsuccessful.

The reception in Port Elizabeth itself was good with senior Police officials present. I
was taken to Algoa Radio and had an excellent live interview. My talks to schools
and stations were well received and I was happy to be working rather than being
pampered and excluded.

I contacted the local Rotary Club and spoke to Gilliam Nutt. She offered me a
complimentary osteopathic treatment, which is what she does for a living. Actually
she does much more than that; she is well known as a speaker and consultant on
natural health. The session was duly arranged and I was impressed with the
results.

She was in turn impressed with what she called my “aura”. But she informed me
that it was masochistic. I have a built-in programme that insists on causing itself
pain and grief. This was interesting news but I knew many people that would agree
with her. The Transkei has formed part of a lot of discussions lately and concerns
for my safety had often come up. I mentioned it to her; She suggested that I clothe
myself in a white light!

It was a good day, which also happened to be my birthday. Arthur Gillis phoned to
congratulate me, which was a nice touch. I took some of my carefully hoarded
money and spent a quiet evening in a curry restaurant. The food was excellent.

Once out of Port Elizabeth I stayed one night with another Policeman from the city.
His stories were different. They included quick-draw guns and holsters, using
girlfriends to enter known criminals‟ homes so that they would prevent or take the
fire if there was shooting.

The telling of such stories is a shallow reflection of the truth. The reality of policing
is portrayed in the bitterness and frustration I meet in squalid cells and dingy
offices, of which I saw plenty through this area.

Talk in the stations today included the latest slap in the face for local police. A
detective was shopping and left his car, only to be gunned down on the pavement.
He was working on a sensitive case involving local gangs. Some distance away, in
another suburb, a prominent businessman was shot by his nephew. A senior
politician visited the businessman‟s family accompanied by the press, but refused to
visit the policeman‟s family.

The day ended strangely. A policeman joined my walk for much of the afternoon.
He had arranged for a police van to pick him up but they did not arrive. He phoned
everyone he could think of but there was no vehicle available to help him.
Eventually I phoned one of my contacts and we were both picked up.

During the long wait he told me that many years ago he had run from Colchester to
Alexandria, two towns in the area about 63 kilometers apart. I asked him if it was
some sort of race or a charity function. He told me it was neither but that at the
time he was a member of the ANC‟s military wing and he was fleeing from the
police. Once a freedom fighter, risking his life to change a country, now a member
of a reformed government department that could not afford the resources to support
him.

After some very mediocre receptions, Grahamstown was a refreshing reversion to

motivated and enthusiastic policing.

The communications officer, Milanda, is a vibrant and very sexy young lady whose
love of life, policing and her husband carries everything before her. My arrival
coincided with a meeting of Station Commanders from twenty-eight surrounding
stations. I gave a really good talk and the response showed that they had been
genuinely touched.

Something had happened to me on this walk. Despite the incredible contrast

between the best and worst of what I was seeing the lesson was of people that were
mostly concerned with their country and the service they had pledged to provide.
When I stood in front of these commanders they knew that I was a convert. That I
understood something millions of South Africans did not; the scandals, the stories of
brutality and corruption were true colours in the painting but they were not the
picture. The picture was bigger and it was inspirational.

Later on the street I was approached by a university student. “Are you the crime
walker?” he asked. I replied in the affirmative and he told me that his class had
read the articles of my mugging. They had arranged a formal debate about my
chances of walking around the country alone and coming out of it alive. I asked
what the conclusion was but he awkwardly avoided a direct answer so I assumed
that it was negative. They were possibly right, the Transkei was coming and the
closer it got the more people told me that I should walk around it, over it, under it,
but not through it.
Socially my life had taken a turn for the better. I was invited to the Officer‟s Club
for drinks, Milanda and friends joined me at Spur for burgers and beer. I had lunch
with and addressed the local Rotary Club. When it was time to move on it was
difficult. Milanda and her husband Tim obviously also found it difficult. They
drove out on the second day and took me home to spend the night with them and
then drove me back out the next day. However it meant a late start and 20 km in
real heat. I was finished by 1.30 pm but it was tough, hot as hell, with sweat
pouring off me, white glare from the road and long dusty uphills.
Chapter Four

Day 68 - 75
Things are changing – this is rural Africa with a vengeance. The reception at the
Peddie Police Station was very different; two prisoners were turned out of a cell so
that I could shower. The toilet was frightening and the shower water cold. The tap
only worked if you were actually pressing it so you could not soap and rinse at the
same time. Afterwards I was officially entertained in an almost bare room where
we ate polony sandwiches and drank cheap orange squash. However there was
nothing wrong with the spirit and my hosts were keen to show that they were doing
their best.

I left the station at about eight and walked long and hard. I arrived at Tamara
(pronounced „Tamaga‟ with a soft G) at 3.30 pm after 35 km of stiff climbs and long
down hills. The road is difficult, narrow with rough rocky verges. My knees were
feeling the strain, as were my ankles. All the experts tell me I should use walking
shoes but in this kind of terrain I need the rigidity and support of proper boots.

I had an embarrassing moment when I passed a group of six women. They all got
up and followed me, crowding in beside me and behind me. The spokeswoman
admired my stomach and wondered at my thin legs but they all decided that I was a
strong man. That really made me worried.

After about a kilometer of conversation about why and where to, they suddenly
turned off into the bush and yelled their goodbyes. One of them shouted out, “God
bless you!” in English, much to the amusement of the others.

I wondered if Transkei would be like this. I was comfortable here. I was eating
bread with cheap tinned fish from the local shops. Tomatoes and whatever fruit
was on offer were occasional bonuses. I could buy a reasonable meal for four to five
rands. The people were simple and friendly.

The station was built with money from a Nelson Mandela fund and looked
wonderful from the outside. New brown brick, a decent cellblock and four houses in
the garden for staff. Inside it was different. There was very little furniture and
even less equipment. The floors were bare, as were most of the windows. There
was only one telephone line and no computers. The electricity was supplied by a
generator, which is run as little as possible because of fuel costs. I spoke to some of
the reservists that help run the station. They get no pay and have been waiting for
uniforms. They do not even get food. They sit and watch while the prisoners are
fed. They told me that they are helping the country.

The “white” stations provide much of their décor and equipment through the
infamous “tea boat” and I have found out something that is difficult to accept; the
basis for the tea boat is the money paid to the stations per prisoner. An allowance
is paid to stations per prisoner each day to cover the boarding costs. Apparently
through careful sourcing of goods and donations an acceptable standard can be
maintained and a decent profit turned. This profit is boosted by public or business
donations and sometimes even contributions from the police members. The
prisoner‟s food is checked frequently by various human rights organisations to
ensure that standards are maintained but it seems a strange way to finance the
station.

The walk into King William‟s Town was again difficult. I battled a strong headwind
most of the way and arrived exhausted. I was well met and given a bed in a games
room next to the bar.

Later, that evening, I went to talk to a small group in a family home. They were the
“Police are corrupt – we‟ve given the country to the blacks” type. I don‟t know why
such people invite me to address them. Perhaps they believe that my exposure to
the streets will convert me to their negative ways.

I returned to find a party in progress. People were sitting on my bed and others
were standing around talking loudly over the music. I was not in the mood and
made it clear that I was going to sleep.

The next day I addressed a management meeting and was then asked to talk to a
young man on the road to self-destruction. I listened for a while to the advice he
was being given and interrupted to give it to him straight.

“You do whatever the hell you like,” I told him, “but don‟t do it because you are
trying to get back at your family or your environment, they are just not worth it.”
“Just one thing,” I added, “everyone I ever met who didn‟t straighten out sooner or
later, went down the tubes. But it‟s your life, not mine, and personally I don‟t give a
shit what you do.”

He was visibly shocked, as were the others. The interview was quickly ended. I
had summed the boy up as strong and capable. I did not think he would be
impressed with platitudes and sensible advice. I hope I was right; he looked like a
good person.

Bar talk here is predicting serious injury or death for me in the Transkei.

The section of road from King William‟s Town to just outside East London is 35 km
long and goes through a huge black township called Mdantsane. I got an early start
and was very quickly in trouble. I should not heap ridicule on those in blue that
have stomach problems. The wheel turns.

I spent much of the first hour squeezing my buttocks together in the forlorn hope
that what was so obviously coming would go away, and then once defeat was
conceded, desperately trying to find cover.

To make it worse, two members of the dog unit arrived to walk with me. They were
really nice guys and the two dogs were magnificent. They were sniffer/tracker dogs
and especially bred for that purpose by crossbreeding Doberman Pinschers and
Bloodhounds. The line had been properly developed and was now considered pure,
but the puppies were not available to the public.

In between severe cramps and acute embarrassment I found out much about the
problems their units faced. As a feared and respected group the dog units are
targets of legal battles and smear campaigns. One of the officers walking with me
was suspended from duty and had been for over two months. The man he had
arrested had laid a charge against him and his use of the dog as being “with undue
force”. Until the case was resolved he and therefore his dog were effectively
neutralized. It is difficult to know how this could be resolved. Obviously, if not
controlled, these teams could easily go too far, but at the same time they need to be
able to work.

After walking some of the morning with me, they disappeared just before lunch.
This left me with the township to walk through with no escort. It was difficult not
to remember staring down the barrel of a gun the last time that I did this. I
resolved to be very careful about where I walked and who I let approach me. It
went well and I was picked up by Eddie Watson who briefed me on the
arrangements for my reception in East London. I managed 42 km that day and had
the pains, aches and blisters to prove it. What with the heat and the diarrhea I
must have consumed five or six litres of water.

The tea boat at Cambridge barracks in East London is a big one. The barracks
feeds the entire prison population of all the stations in the district. The walk into
the city was big. The dog squad, Captain Crime Stop, POPs and various other
police departments were represented. At the City Hall I was met by the Mayor and
the minister of Safety and Security for the Eastern Cape.

They addressed a large crowd gathered outside that I suspect were actually there to
see or do something else. The Minister called me a foot soldier of peace, which I
quite liked. All in all a good day.
Chapter Five

Day 66 - 79
Today Eddie took me around some stations and I gave the normal talk. We
attended the launch of a new community forum in the Stutterheim district. It was
a big occasion with a full hall and an entire stage of dignitaries. They made a place
on the agenda for me and I spoke to them of a strong country and a united approach
to policing. They were really appreciative and to my embarrassment the women all
stood up and ululated.

Then there was some whispering on the sidelines and the hall went quiet. A
piercing yell broke out from the back and a young boy of about twelve years old
leapt into the centre aisle. He was dressed in skins with a traditional headdress
and some weaponry. He came down the aisle and pointing at me, turned to the hall
and started calling out a long string of, to me, unintelligible sentences and phrases.
I was being singularly honoured. This was a praise singer. He was young and I did
not understand a word he said. At the same time it was as old and eloquent as it
gets.

Kenny, a resident of East London, had called me in Cape Town and again a little
while before I arrived. He wanted to show me something, he said. We arranged for
him to pick me up on Sunday, which, when Sunday arrived, he duly did.

He took me out to an East London suburb called Buffalo Park. As we drove he

explained to me that he ran a “Boy‟s Brigade” there. I did not realise that the
organisation still existed. I remember it as an old English institution created to
take boys off the streets in poor, violent suburbs of the larger English towns. Well,
for those of you that like nostalgia, “The Boy‟s Brigade” is alive and well and
marching on Sundays. The group had begged and borrowed musical instruments,
got their hands on some uniforms and practiced. The end result being a twice-
monthly march through a fairly rough area, joined by many of the residents.

The band plays passable music but I don‟t think any one really cares. There is
plenty of hip swinging and shuffling dance steps but little focus on quality. People
that don‟t actually join in run down to the fence and clap or cheer them on. They
march against crime.

Some of the young girls, not more than nine or ten years old, carry placards saying
“Stop Rape”. It touches your heart because in this area the chances are good that
they know exactly what it means.

As we marched Kenny explained to me that they were going to march down a street
called Homestead. At least that was the official name…locally the street was
known as “The Hole”. The gang that runs the area has adopted it as a sort of
housing estate for its members and guards it fiercely.
“Why do they let you march there?” I asked.
“Well, they don‟t like it, you will see that, but they do nothing. We do it because we
are showing them that there is a better life. In fact, two of our boys used to belong
to them.”

We turned into the street with drums beating and brass blaring. The houses were
shanties. Corrugated iron, scrap wood and black plastic. The road was dirty and
full of rubbish that even the potholes could not absorb.

A sort of silence fell over the marchers that almost drowned out the band. Faces
were set and steps seemed somehow more determined. No one ran down to the
fences, most of the places did not have fences to speak of. But there were plenty of
people there. They sat or lounged on their cars waiting for us.

They must have heard the band long before it turned the corner. They were young
and when not naked to the waist, well dressed. The girls were attractive and the
men well muscled. Any flesh without a tattoo on it had a ring or a pin through it.

In complete contrast to the state of the houses, the cars were all late models and
expensive. Kenny was right; most of them did not want us there. They stared at
us, sullen and defensive. One of them called out, “Hey Jantjie…” and stabbed a
middle finger into the air. I looked at the band, one of the boys stumbled but did
not look round. It took about ten minutes to march along the length of the road and
the entire procedure was a mutual but unspoken confrontation.

I was back on the road and miserable. The rain was coming down continuously.

Walking up mountains that I could not see the top of was depressing. The heavy
vehicles were normally very disciplined and sensible but there is always an
exception. That day a petrol tanker was really motoring towards me on the verge of
the road. He had plenty of space to move back into his proper lane but I had
nowhere to go. Next to me the road dropped into a ditch in which flowed several
centimeters of running water. I waved at him to give me space and his response
was to pull the wheel down and swerve the vehicle right at me. I sort of fell
sideways and ended up on my back in the ditch. I had to roll over in the water and
get onto my hands and knees before I could lift myself out of it.

My mood was not helped by the fact that the Transkei was now within two days
walking distance and the Police had finally discussed the issue with me officially.

I had been introduced to a senior official the day before and he had asked if we
could discuss the Transkei.
“Sure,” I replied.
“We need to know what your plans are for walking through the area.”
“Well,” I was uncertain, “I am just going to walk.”
“Mr. Russell, what are you going to do to protect yourself? It is not our area but I
can basically assure you that if you attempt to walk through it without proper care
you will not come out on the other side alive.”
“I am going to do nothing that I am not doing now. I am very careful about where I
sleep, how I conceal myself at night and so on. What else can I do?”
“Will you let us try to arrange a continuous escort?”
“No,” I replied. “The whole world has accepted that this walk is an expression of
faith in the country. How will it look if I get back to Cape Town in one piece but I
did it with an armed escort?”
“Will you carry a gun?”
“No. I do not believe in them.”
He shook his head and spent some time trying to convince me that I should take
another route or even stop and start again in Durban.

I had relied on a certain amount of my own ignorance as well as a sort of false

confidence in my ability to laugh the issue off. Now the place was just a little way
down the road. But I think what was really worrying me was the fact that senior
people in the Police Service itself were openly stating that I was not going to make
it.
COMMENTARY
AFRIKANERDOM

During my walk I often came into contact with a strong Afrikaans aristocracy. I use
the word deliberately. There is an element of Afrikaans society with a firm grip on
moral issues. Their convictions somehow encompass the conservatism of their
history with high religious principles. They are broad-minded enough to
acknowledge that the government of the apartheid era was lacking a fundamental
truth. They are dealing as sensibly as they can with the need to move across the
once almost impossible barriers between the races that populate the communities
they serve.
In Heidelberg I walked around the Dutch Reformed Church that stood, resplendent,
in the centre of town. It was magnificent in the still light of evening. Sprinklers
played gently across the grass and rose trees stood, disciplined and groomed,
defining paths and borders. Across the road, on street corners and strung along
shop fronts, the poorer community went about its business. Some of those coloured
people, some of the black people, were criminals. Some were competitive to the
point of total disregard for law or life. But most of them were decent. Hungry
perhaps, poor and without the benefit of cultural niceties, but nonetheless decent.

The traditional South African Policeman that remains in the service, or has
recently joined, has to, in terms of the new service, work amongst and with his
community. The tall, affluent white church reminds him constantly of his heritage
and images of his fathers, his uncles who stride across his mind saying, “You can‟t
trust the kaffirs, son. They are not like us!”
He knows this is not true and denies his allegiance to such sentiments. However
his culture contains more subtle affirmations of this belief in a “difference.”

To sit around a Sunday lunch with family and then move on Monday morning into
an environment where you and your black partner must believe in each other is a
mental denial of one value system or the other somewhere. How simple it must be
to feel allegiance to history and folk in a country where these contradictions do not
exist.

The young white South African policeman or woman stands in the middle of a
crossing. Looking back, the church is outdated but it is solid and safe. It speaks of
tradition and principled behaviour. Turn and see the community, it is beset with
trouble, there is injustice, economic deprivation and worst of all, people your nation
has mistreated. But it is a community of the country you were born to, the people
you are pledged to serve. You know in your soul what is right but there is so much
that is right that we deny.

It was a continuous learning experience to find that in town after town there are
Afrikaners who are making the right choice, the hard choice. When this is found to
be the case in the senior staff, the entire station is affected. These men and women
in blue do not only deal with lack of resources and a lot of criticism, they are being
forced into choices too many of us have the luxury of being able to ignore.
WHAT LIES BENEATH

The reality of what I am not allowed to see is not entirely hidden from me. A few
beers in a canteen and a little bit of my rough years in the mine up front, and I
become one of the boys. Stories of cover-ups and things swept under the carpet flow
easily across lubricated tongues. These tales are suspect but now and again the
source is impeccable and the story appalling.

A young girl of seven or eight is raped and then strangled. The murder scene is
shocking. The investigating officer is an Afrikaans gentleman. He is sickened and
swears he will find the perpetrator. The girl was a member of a large and
struggling family. The house they live in is overcrowded and dirty. No one knows
how it happened but it happened in the house. The coloured community closes its
ranks and no one is talking.

The officer is determined and consistent. Eventually there is a whisper of

something and five children disappear from the community. It takes some time but
the five kids eventually talk. The perpetrator is a young boy who lives in the house
with the little girl. He was with the father at a local shebeen and drank too much.
Then he went home and found her. He wanted sex and took it. Afterwards he
sobered up enough to realise that she would talk, so he killed her.

Why did the five kids disappear? The investigating officer picked them up and shut
them into small cupboards with no food and little water. They stayed there, alone
and in total darkness for several days. The boy confessed and was punished.
No one officially knows why he confessed.

The case is perhaps different but not isolated. This is a fierce country with fierce
problems. The solutions are sometimes without the justice they are trying to
protect.

All is not lost however; even the barroom debates include some humanity. I was
explaining the next day‟s route in the canteen one evening when the policeman
alongside me interrupted.
“That road is well known to be full of „Bosslaapers‟ (Bush sleepers)” he said. “I go
down there now and again with my dog. She has no time for them and they hit the
road very quickly when she gets hold of them.”

I hesitated. Technically I could be considered a „Bosslaaper‟ and was about to say so

when one his colleagues took up the statement.
“I don‟t think that‟s clever. I think if my life was so bad that I had to sleep in the
bushes and some frigging dog had to come and bite me, I‟d really get pissed. I say
leave the poor buggers alone. How many of the people we really need to arrest are
„Bosslaapers‟?”
DISCUSSION

A senior official of the SAPS spent time with me once. Circumstances were such
that he felt the need and the freedom to discuss issues about South African policing
that concerned him. At a time when the entire country was questioning the validity
of an arms deal that would cost in excess of forty billion rands the government was
not authorising the needed expenditure to fight the very real crime situation.

There was a moratorium on the recruitment of new policemen and women. The
traditional Afrikaner backbone of the, once force, now service, were leaving in
droves. They were not being replaced. In fact, despite their conservative beliefs,
they could not be replaced. It was true that the physical aggression and
domineering authority of the past caused immeasurable damage. It was also true
that the experience, information resources and the sheer understanding of basic
policing were essential in dealing with an explosion of violent crime. The ways of
apartheid were being eradicated from the service by a natural attrition, but a high
price was being paid in the loss of expertise.

The past had also handed on a legacy that included thousands of special constables
that were employed to stand guard duty and take on other menial tasks. All of
these people were illiterate or semi-literate. All of them were likely to remain.
They were protected. They could not, however, remain illiterate. Experience was
walking out of the door and illiteracy was staying, the balance was no longer viable.
Massive education was needed in most provinces.

The legacy did not include sophisticated administration systems, in fact quite the
opposite. Every cell phone theft requires more or less the same paperwork needed
by a murder or rape case. Thousands of cell phones are reported stolen each month
in South Africa. Laborious and time-consuming handwritten documentation for
petty crime fills the shelves at even the smallest stations.

Some good was being done by other countries. Switzerland was paying for training
in the implementation of a national programme called Service Delivery
Improvement Programme (SDIP). American and British police were assisting with
visits and consultants, but it was not enough.

He told me that the solution was in the hands of their largest critics; the public.

The opinion of people that he knew socially and through his family was negative.
No one in South Africa really believed that the man in the blue uniform was a
friend. People did not generally support the local police effort. People believed the
police to be inefficient and corrupt. Opinion held that honest and hardworking
members were few, and those few pretty dumb, otherwise they would be doing
something else.
Yet the same people that constantly voice these opinions do not get involved and are
largely ignorant of what happens at the local station. Community Forums have to
go through difficult birthing pains. They start as political platforms where budding
activists can voice irrelevant and destructive criticisms. Racial prejudices and
intellectual or economic differences have to be overcome. The kind of people that do
work on forums are not the decision makers in the community. Instead of
commercial and industrial leaders from the area, they are the poor, the workers and
the politically inept. To make things even more complex, the police management at
whatever station it happens to be is reluctant to accept the authority of the public.
But service implies a customer and customers have to be listened to.

However, in places where communities and their police have battled their way
through these issues, it is working; stations are better run, they have better
facilities and are generally more effective.

As I walked through the country, his words were borne out. Police stations in areas
where the public and police management had the resources and commitment to
stick it out through the birthing pains of community policing were good. Police
stations in areas where no one cared were bad.

It was an eye opener for me as were most of the things I was experiencing. I
thought a lot about what I had been told and created the Five Point Plan. Read it
and do some thinking yourself:

5 POINT PLAN

1. Understand – Crime affects you

2. Accept – We all have a responsibility
3. Educate – Yourself and your family about crime
4. Take steps – To protect yourself, your family, your property
5. Actively assist – Local/police anti-crime initiatives
 SECTION 3

THE TRANSKEI
Chapter One

Day 80 - 82
The border to the Transkei has a police station. It was not on my itinerary but it
was nearly lunchtime when I passed, so I called in. To my surprise they were
expecting me. Not as in “Here he is give him a cup of tea and a podium” sort of way,
but in a “Ah, here you are as scheduled. Lets check you out and you can keep
moving” sort of way.

The station commander took me out into the yard where I was introduced to an
extremely well dressed and capable looking young black man. He asked me a few
questions about the walk, where I was sleeping and other pertinent issues. Then he
asked me if I would be in Qunu on schedule and if I still intended to hand a letter to
Nelson Mandela. This shook me. No one except Anine de Beer and Wicus
Holtzhauzen had ever discussed this letter with me. I asked him who he was and
he told me that he was a member of the team responsible for the security of Mr.
Mandela and his residence at Qunu.

His presence at the border when I arrived was no co-incidence. The Transkei is an
enigma of sadly under-resourced and very poorly staffed police stations with some
very capable and efficient groups randomly scattered through the service.

The day‟s walk was appalling. As you come across the bridge at the Kei River you
face this incredibly dry and hot looking mountain pass. Known as the Kei River
Cuttings it winds its dusty, shimmering way up the side of the mountains. It is
narrow and over-utilized.

I fought my way up it. The verge is full of loose rocks and it is impossible to walk on
the tar. The trucks grind their way up and hurtle their way down. They pass so
close that on one occasion one of them actually hit my hand, nearly knocking me off
my feet. Halfway up I had to stop and relax. I know myself well enough to be able
to identify mild heat exhaustion. I soaked my face cloth with water, stopped and
wiped my body down repeatedly, letting the water evaporate in the heat. My head
ached and my muscles were trembling. I wondered if the dreaded criminals that I
had so often been warned about could be any worse than this.

The top was an oasis. I found a small rural shop and purchased half-a-loaf of brown
bread and a two-litre bottle of coke. I took it outside and sat under a tree on some
of the greenest grass I have ever seen. Just in front of me a pig grazed
unconcernedly and across him stretched a vista of hills and villages that epitomized
the Transkei landscape. It was really very beautiful.

Within a few minutes I had been joined by three locals who casually wandered
across and sat down around me. I greeted them, asked them how they were and
they reciprocated. I broke a piece of bread off and handed it to one of them, slugged
some of the coke and handed that over too. We finished the coke and the bread,
passing it back and forth. Although I do not think they really believed my story of
how and why I was walking, we parted mutually respectful and much easier about
each other.

I was met and walked into Butterworth with some police members and someone
from the council. The next day I was shown the town. It was an interesting tour.
The town is one of the dirtiest I have ever seen. The roads are broken, pavements
have entire sections missing, potholes are everywhere. It was the first of many
such towns. There were good roads and sidewalks once, but the Transkei had been
abused by its politicians and residents for a long time.

What time and circumstance had taken from the infrastructure it had compensated
for in the lifestyle. Everywhere was activity. People walked the streets. Taxi‟s
moved up and down the roads, hooting for business. Vendors‟ stalls were colourful
with fruit, vegetables and clothing. The people were happy and smiled at you.

Much had been done once to attract business interests and a huge industrial
township boasted some really big and modern looking factories. However most of
them were empty. Strikes and union demands negated all of the incentives offered
and the investors, mostly Japanese, took what they could salvage and left.

I was taken to meet the Mayor and various councilors. On the spur of the moment
they asked me if I would address a meeting of the Taxi Associations that was
currently in progress in the Town Hall. The meeting included groups from the
Woman‟s League, the ANC and COSATU.
It was to be a fortuitous occasion with an unexpected spin-off.

My talk went well and the response was very good. During the questions about my
personal life I happened to mention that I often caught the taxis between towns
where I had worked in the North West Province. I also told them that because I
was often seen walking along the side of the road, the Taxi drivers had nicknamed
me “Johnny Walker”. Whiskey is a popular drink and the audience liked the name.

For the rest of the time I was in the Transkei, the taxi‟s spread the word. A
politician could do himself no harm in aiming his campaign at these men. They
have the captive ear of thousands of commuters. A taxi is not like a bus, it is small
and intimate. Taxi drivers are looked up to and their opinions carry weight. I know
that my popularity in the Transkei had much to do with their good PR work. As
they passed me walking, or I passed them picking up passengers, they would wave
and call out. Now and again I would hear, “Hey, Johnny Walker…”

That night I was hosted in the local hotel. The hospitality was welcome. In the bar,
after supper, I was drawn into a negative conversation about the country. I was
also given a traditional walking stick. I accepted the stick but could not accept the
deep-seated bias, which seems to permeate the thinking of some very intelligent
people.
Chapter Two

Day 83 - 85
On the road to Idutywe (pronounced E-du-tshwe) I stopped for lunch a little way off
the road in a large cement waterway. I needed some shade and it was the best
place and out of sight of the road. I had just started eating when a man walked out
of the bushes and sat down opposite me. He was half-naked and had wild, staring
eyes. He kept slapping himself on his upper arms. Despite this, he started a fairly
normal conversation and we talked of the lack of work and the problems caused by
the deterioration of the mine industry. He was right, the retrenchments of recent
years had sent thousands of people like him back to the Transkei, jobless.

Ignoring the fact that I was a white, he seemed to take me for a fellow hobo and he
continued by saying that we were all brothers in poverty. Then he started to
become irrational. Statements included the burden of the ancestors and the fact
that we should kill all the whites. He started shouting about the wealth of the
country and my role in depriving many families of their bread to feed only one
family: mine. He told me that we whites were like people who live in a hut,
throwing out bones for the dogs: him.

It was frightening. I weighed every word I said carefully. I was sure that if a twig
fell over or I sneezed in the wrong place he would attack me.
Eventually I could take it no more and said, “Shut up! If you don‟t shut up, I‟ll hit
you.”

To my surprise he stopped and after muttering about something I could not

properly hear, got up and greeted me, then left. I stood and packed. I was
exhausted. When I climbed out onto the road he was sitting on a rock some
distance away. I waved at him but he ignored me.

I entered Idutywe as part of quite a procession. It was a good town. The same
contrast between dirty, broken streets and lively, colourful townsfolk but with an
added touch of community that made it stand out for me. The communications
officer and others had brought everything to the party; there were children from
local schools, council representatives and as always, women‟s groups including a
strong church presence.

The Mayor said something I found sad, he explained how they would see big
limousines drive through town and hear that a famous politician had gone this way
or that. I was the first to take the trouble to stop and meet the people of Idutywe. I
was hardly famous, but the fact that I had time for his town, time to stop and talk
to them, demonstrated how forgotten this part of the world really is.

Before I left the next morning, the children performed a dance routine for me. It
was done on a stage in a huge hall. The hall itself was empty except for a single
row of ten chairs standing about twenty meters from the stage. The music was
provided by a small portable tape player and there was absolutely no scenery or
backdrops. Just the children dressed in their school uniforms. The dance was
stunning, full of grace and power.

They followed it with a short sketch.

They had written the story themselves in my honour. It was about a small group of
children who had started to steal and drink. A man walks into their town to
promote policing and they wonder how he can put himself in danger just to get
people to obey the law. They change their ways and become a dance group.
Why do we not know about this talent that seems to be everywhere?

The Transkei is an absolute goldmine of culture, respect and friendliness. So far I

had seen little of the prejudice and crime I had been told to expect. I made up my
mind that if I never spoke to people about anything again I would speak to them
about the Transkei. It is a sad fact that many of the coach tours offered to tourists
go from Johannesburg to Durban, put everyone on a plane, fly them over the
Transkei to East London and then continue the coach tour to Cape Town. I can
testify to the truth of this. I was on the main road through the Transkei for sixteen
days and saw hardly any luxury coaches at all. Along the N2 between East London
and Cape Town I would see three or four a day.

The next few days on the map showed no towns and I looked forward to a time of
restoration. The first day lived up to expectations and aside from the villages
scattered everywhere, I was clearly out of the hype and demands of the public part
of the walk.

Not without contact though, all along the road the taxis and buses stuck out
countless arms that waved as voices called greetings. Every now and then a few
people would appear to walk alongside me and chat for a while and then walk off
into the grass again. The fields were green. Fat cows and countless goats
wandered at will. There are few fences in the Transkei.

I walked off the road through a small cutting looking for a place to sleep. I found a
little haven and put up my shelter. There was a small clearing in some trees
backed by a small jumble of loose rocks. It overlooked a small depression through
which a stream trickled its natural music. The water meandered from one rock pool
to another and was absolutely crystal clear. I had a day in hand and decided that
maybe I could spend it here.

But for some reason I was uneasy and checked out the entire area carefully. There
were some footprints in the sand along the river but they were old. They
disappeared where I could see the waterline had been some time ago. There was
also a cattle trail that cut across the hill behind me but that too was overgrown and
obviously not in regular use. Finally I relaxed and ate.

Everything went wrong. I spilt the last of my coffee, dropped my only dry clothes in
one of the pools and finally stabbed myself in the arm with a thorn tree. I am not
prepared to discuss how I accomplished this. Eventually I gave up and went to bed.

The dream started with the interior of a native hut. It was dark but not so dark
that I could not see the bodies lying everywhere. When I reached down to touch one
of them it swelled up and burst. Flesh and organs spilled out across the floor. I
could not stop touching and I could not deal with the results. I tried to find the way
out but I was surrounded by walls. Eventually I climbed up the side of something
and found my father sitting in a small hole. He shook his head, “Roger you do not
belong here, this is not a good place for you.”

I woke up and just lay there. My heart was pounding. I listened carefully but could
only hear the water trickling through the pools. I tried to get back to sleep but
could not. Finally I got up and climbed onto the top of the rocks behind my camp.
It was cold and the moon created a clear blue-gray vista in front of me. The trees
and shadows were black, the rocks pale gray. The water in the pools was black. It
was deathly quiet, nothing moved.
“OK,” I said out loud. “I am not staying, I will move on in the morning.”

I immediately felt better and when I returned to my sleeping bag I slept like the
dead.
In the morning, true to my word, I ignored the clean pools and perfect setting. I
packed my stuff and left. About 5 km further on I found an abandoned building and
spent the day there.

I had been tired the day before so the little accidents were explainable. The
incident with the irrational half-naked rectifier of apartheid wrongs two days
previously had disturbed me. So a bad dream about huts could be understood. The
image of my father who had passed away two years ago was not so easily dismissed.
It had been too real, too sincere. I do not know if the place had strange and
malevolent forces resident in it. But I was glad I had left.
Chapter Three

Day 84 - 89
At Bitjie most of the arrangements for handing over Mr. Mandela‟s letter were
finalized. The great man was currently overseas and the letter would be received
by his local chieftess. Nelson Mandela was born in Qunu and now has a residence
there.

It is a little incongruous as the house is magnificent and contains a museum. The

surrounding area is rural and there is not much else in the way of buildings except
for the village huts and a small shop or two. The plan was for me to leave the
station at about 8.00 am and walk the 10 km to Qunu to arrive in time for a
welcome and the handing over of the letter at about 10.00 am.

African time meant that none of the people that were supposed to walk with me
arrived until 9.00 am and then it was only a Mr. Sambudla, a force in the local
community policing, who came along. I left as soon as he arrived.
As we walked, people kept appearing along the roadside and by the time we had
reached the national road there was a crowd of about fifty people. They all knew
where we were going.

About a kilometer from the village a lorry pulled up ahead of us and an entire police
band climbed down. There was an atmosphere of joy and pride everywhere. The
band formed up, emitted some grunts, toots and brassy honks and then suddenly
rocked the countryside with “We are marching to Pretoria.”

The women and children all cheered and with one or two preliminary shuffles we
were off. I cannot easily describe how much the whole affair touched me. Despite
the distances and the lack of resources here was ceremony and respect being given
the place it deserved. If I have a picture in my head that epitomizes the moment, it
is of the policeman in front of me with his tuba. He was a big man and his buttocks
rolled like the ocean as his feet shuffled forward in time to the music. Feet, that I
might add, were clad in dusty black shoes with heels worn down to an almost
worthless existence. His shoulders heaved with the intensity of his input. Within
seconds the dark stain of sweat appeared and spread rapidly across most of the
cloth that covered him. When we stopped at the entrance to the field in which the
ceremony would take place he turned to grin at me. The rapport was
instantaneous, he knew that his appearance did not matter at all; he knew that he
had played like a magician.

The actual handing over of the letter was a formal occasion and I was, as the guest
of honour, seated next to the chieftess Nokwanele Balizulu. I had no idea of what to
do and desperately tried to maintain protocol. The table was laid and when we sat
down glasses and bottles of cold drink were brought out. I did not want to be the
first to take some, so held back although the chieftess asked me more than once to
help myself. After some time I realised that nobody was drinking anything. It still
took me some time to put two and two together, pour myself something and take a
sip. There was an almost audible sigh of relief as the chieftess did the same and
then everyone followed suit.

The chieftess was constantly attended by another young woman with whom I later
spoke. Her English was perfect, her conversation polished. I found out later that
she was the chieftess‟ personal assistant appointed to guide and facilitate the role
the chieftess had to play in the frequent formalities that went hand in hand with
having a “subject” called Nelson Mandela.

The next day I started walking in the pouring rain but this dried up to allow a big
march into Umtata. A police contingent, including the Brass Band from the
previous day, Traffic officials and several hundred hangers on led or followed me
around a torturous route to the City Hall.

The agenda stated an arrival time of 1.00 pm and a function at 2.00 pm. We arrived
at well past two and even then half the guests had not arrived. Everyone did finally
pitch up and we started well after 3.00 pm. The entire affair was only completed at
about five.
During this very relaxed and very African passing of time I embarrassed myself at a
level which seems will be impossible to repeat no matter how hard I try.

My monumental faux pass was achieved in this manner: When I had arrived in the
Transkei and first met the friendliness of the people I quickly noticed that they
always greeted me with the Xhosa word “Buyapi?” I asked someone what it meant
and I was told it means, “Where are you going?” I was really impressed. The
concept of asking a traveler “Where are you going?” instead of “Where do you come
from?” appealed to me. I spent weeks composing the letter to Nelson Mandela and
put in a whole piece about the Xhosa greeting that disregarded the past and looked
to the future. I thought it was a nice touch. The letter was submitted to the Police
who checked it for content and, I assume, hidden needles or poisoned ink. I gave it
to several people to proof read and not a single person even coughed or looked
embarrassed.

In front of a hall filled with dignitaries and about 400 others I told my story of
“Buyapi?” and they all started laughing. I stopped and the lady seated next to the
podium tugged at my sleeve.
“Mr. Russell,” she whispered, “ „Buyapi‟ means „where are you coming from?‟ „Uyapi‟
means where are you going. Nobody wants to know where you are going to!”

I am not often stopped in mid-stride and I pride myself that in this instance it only
took me about two minutes and four or five garbled utterances before I was able to
speak coherently. All I could think of was “Mr. Mandela has been given an idiotic
letter.”
As a man supposedly concerned about the country I did not even show enough care
to understand his language correctly. There was nothing I could do to retrieve the
letter and to this day I still feel embarrassed about the whole affair

The next day (Thursday) I was off, so I relaxed and walked around town for a while.
Nearly everyone knew exactly who I was so I was not given much peace. I had
planned to continue walking on Friday but I was told that Mr. Steve Tshwete would
be in Umtata and arrangements could be made for me to meet him. So, on Friday
morning at about 9.00 am I was standing at a military airbase, part of his reception
group.

To my surprise he made time to greet me properly and his attention resulted in an

invitation from the people organizing the occasion to join the rest of them on stage
for his address to the people of Umtata.
During this function I was allowed to say a few words to the completely packed hall.
Many of the crowd had seen me several times over the last few days. When Steve
Tshwete addressed the hall his talk was dynamic and I could understand why some
people talk and some people walk. During his presentation he referred to me as a
“true patriot”. I was honoured. After the function I was invited to lunch.

When lunch was over and he and Jackie Selebi were leaving he called me over and
put his arm around me. He is a big man and I was literally dwarfed. He turned to
the people around us.
“This man is a hero,” he said, “while most of us just talk he is doing something.”
He asked me to contact his office, as he would like to come out and meet me when I
walked into Pretoria.
This cost me a day, which I would have to make up somehow. But it was well worth
it for me as a person.
Chapter Four

Day 90 - 96
The road out of Umtata was a long steady uphill climb. The level of interest in my
passing was higher than normal. This was explained when I was told that I had
been on TV again. My knee had been giving me hell lately and it was complaining
with a vengeance today.

I was followed for the entire day by a policeman. I had to get the local stations to
see beyond the immediate. I understood their concern. If I get attacked in their
area they will bear the responsibility. When I get assertive they often just hide
behind, “This area has had some trouble lately, so it‟s not safe.” None of these areas
are supposedly safe.

Spent the night in Tsolo. Tsolo has a reputation. Well known to crime syndicates
and to the followers of National News broadcasts, the area is a clearinghouse for
stolen goods, cars and dagga. Truckloads, hijacked as far away as Johannesburg
are brought here, dismantled and the parts re-distributed. Dagga, grown in the
mountains of Lesotho, is packed on donkeys and brought here. Stolen cars arrive
here on four wheels and leave as bundles of doors, or boxes of spare parts.

I was not taken to the station but to a house belonging to a family of a

superintendent from Umtata. I asked to call in at the station but was met with a
flat refusal.

Passed over a bridge today on my way to Qumbu. I found out later that a few
hours afterwards a thirty-five year old man was murdered by five youths. There is
a vigilante group around here called “Umfelanbawonye.” They originally killed
cattle thieves but ended up involved in feuds and senseless killing. Officially they
have been stopped but that is not really the case. I heard many stories of their
continued existence and infiltration by syndicated crime. Even the police admitted
to me that they sometimes get phone calls saying, “Under such and such a bridge
you will find a body. It was a cattle thief.”

The station at Qumbu was primitive. Water was scarce and only available in the
mornings. Toilets get a bit sticky at night and washing was out of the question. I
did not have proper food. Pick „n Pay was not represented there, neither was Spur.
Supper ended up being porridge and biscuits.

The walk to Mount Frere was not a walk, it was a swim. I did 39 km through
appalling conditions. The rain came down incessantly, making the road slippery
and dangerous. Sometimes the visibility and noise of the falling rain were so bad
that I had no idea that there was any traffic until huge shapes would suddenly
appear and rocket past me.
Within an hour or so I had given up worrying and accepted that I was totally
soaked, even to my underpants, which I finally took off and put in my backpack.

I was well received and hosted in Mt. Frere; there are no secrets here.
I was taken around town and introduced to local business people. These were not
the wheeler-dealer types of the bigger towns but the Afrikaner who owned the local
garage, the Indian who owned the café we ate lunch in, the butcher and the Parish
Priest.

I soon understood why the Police wanted to do this, they were well thought of and
obviously an integral part of the whole community. I was taken to the hospital and
introduced to the Matron and the two Cuban doctors. They interested me because
of all the conflict about bringing Cuban medical staff to South Africa. I heard
terrible stories about their abilities. I was obviously not able to judge the
application of their skills personally. It was very evident that they were well
thought of by the locals and their staff.

I spent two nights in the Isinamva Community Development Centre, one of those
amazing places where, in the middle of nowhere, the intellects of never-say-die
community people thrive.

I sadly walked out of Mount Frere accompanied by Police Captain Mathias and a
string of children. The people here were wonderful and I will miss them. I was
treated as someone very special and it has again underlined my responsibility to the
ordinary people of this country both in the police ranks and outside of them.

I was experiencing serious trouble with my knee. The pain would suddenly become
excruciating. If I kept walking, after half an hour or so it would fade. If I stopped
and rested, it would ease off, waiting for me to start walking again and then
striking even more painfully than before.

I spent the night at one of the initiatives created at the Isinamva center – it is a
couple of huts that form part of an actual village at a place called “Rode”
(pronounced “Gode” – with a soft g). The place allows tourists to live for a day or
two in a traditional manner. Everything is genuine and so much so that I find it
difficult to believe that any of the rich and spoilt could deal with it. But it works!

I had hardly arrived in the rondavel (hut) in which I was to sleep when two old
women asked me to come and have tea. When I say old, I mean old as in bent and
toothless with white paste on their faces and little understanding of English. I was
taken to another hut and found another three women there. The five of them ran
the place.

They sat on the floor against the far wall whilst I sat on an upright dining chair on
this side. We struggled desperately to transfer some basic pleasantries whilst
drinking hot sweet tea out of huge tin mugs. (VERY HOT!)

Afterwards I was brought a bowl of hot water and a towel. The washing of hands
preceded the serving of supper. It was about 4.00 pm! There was samp mixed with
beans, spinach, pumpkin and boiled chicken. The chicken must have also walked
from Cape Town because the leg I was given had done some serious work when it
was alive.
After supper was over, I was given a sort of thin maize drink heavily sweetened
with sugar. Then I was given permission to go to my hut and wash. I arrived in the
hut to find a goat standing on my bed. I thought that this was rather a nice touch
until I realized that he had eaten half way through one of my T-shirts. He left the
hut in an undignified hurry.

Later I asked where the toilet was and a small tin hut was pointed out to me. It
was situated in the far corner of a recently ploughed field. There was no way to
reach it except across the mud. It took me nearly fifteen minutes to get to it, only to
look inside and see that there was no toilet paper. Back to the hut and then back to
the toilet. When back inside I found that what I had assumed to be a long-drop was
in fact a short-drop with the pile of excretia and buzzing flies within easy leaping
distance of my rear-end once I was seated. I gazed down at it all for a few minutes
considering things like standing on the seat, holding it all in for another day and so
on. Eventually I gave up, sat down and got on with it.

Despite all of this it was a real experience and very different. The next morning,
standing by the cooking fire, sipping more hot sweet tea, I actually started to think
it might be nice for a couple of days. Sanity intervened and I quickly packed and
left.

Later in the day I walked into Mount Ayliffe. I walked alone although someone
arrived to confirm that I was in fact on my way.

As I walked towards the town I saw a huge marquee in a field alongside the turn-
off. I got closer and could see chairs, braai fires and people, lots of people. I
wondered what was going on and wished that I could be part of a nice, old-fashioned
braai.

I was busy working out how close I would be passing to it all when a group of people
in blue detached themselves from the others and walked towards me. I think half
the town had come to meet me. It was a really good function, plenty of speeches but
lots of good humour and easy-going friendliness. In order to reach Kokstad in time
for a function at 11.00 am the next day I could not stop there and once the function
was over had to walk on.

This I did and walked into one of the worst thunderstorms of the trip. I saw it
coming and it was very clearly a bad one. The heavy, black clouds came peeling
over the mountain range just ahead of me. There was no slow build-up, the whole
mass of black thick cloud; lightning and thunder raced towards me like an express
train. I had just managed to get my poncho on when it hit. The poncho was
useless. The wind punched me one way and then the other.

The poncho was wrapped around corners impossible to get at. I was soaked through
in seconds. The water came down in sheets; it was like walking along the length of
a waterfall. Much to the admiration of the police who had decided to follow me out
of Mount Ayliffe, I kept going. After about thirty minutes, the crashing of thunder
and huge flashes of lightning faded off behind me. The rain slowed and then
stopped and presto! The sun came out.
The sides of the road had become deep rivers of water. The grasslands on either
side were covered under sheets of water whilst what was once a stream was now a
raging torrent carrying broken trees and debris.

11.00 am in Kokstad. I had walked my butt off yesterday and today. My knee was
causing me untold misery and most of my possessions were badly soaked. I had
climbed Brooks Nek, one of the toughest passes of the trip, to arrive here on time.

What I missed appreciating, because it had never become a factor, is that I was
alive. I had walked through the dreaded Transkei and instead of death had found
friendliness, respect and complete acceptance. I had seen and experienced some
frightening things but the Transkei is a land that has a difficult history. This
history, the ignorance and abuse that is written on every page, has not managed to
take from it its wonderful hospitality and the simple honest goodness of its people.
COMMENTARY
COMMUNITY JUSTICE

I arrived at the station at about 2.00 pm. There were three policemen on duty in
the charge office. They seemed to know who I was and the one I spoke to asked me
to wait while he called the Station Commander. Through the door of one of the
offices I saw three other men. One of them was seated in a chair, his hands folded
over the top of a walking stick. He was old but he was a big man. He had a white
peppercorn beard and sharp eyes. He watched me disinterestedly. The other two
were on the floor. One of them was stretched full length whilst the other sat with
his back against the wall. His face was badly swollen and both eyes nearly closed.
There was blood down the side of his chin, in his hair and all over his shirt. Most of
it was dark and stiff but at his mouth and on his head it was fresh.

The one on the floor did not move and I could not see much except his back.
“Probably drunk,” I thought.
I sat down in the corner as requested and waited. There was a fair amount of
activity and I could see it was somehow connected to the three in the office. Once or
twice one of the policemen would go through and talk to the old man.

I waited a long time. About an hour after I had arrived a POPs police van pitched
up outside and two policemen got out, fetched someone from the back and marched
him into the station.
“We got him,” they said.

The boy, he was not much older than sixteen, was sullen and uncooperative. They
went through the entire process of booking him. They took his possessions, listed
them and made him sign for them. Then they took out his shoelaces and removed
his belt. Finally they marched him off to the cells. The two POPs people gathered
up some papers, greeted everyone and left. Up to this point I had not had much of a
chance to speak to anyone and was clueless as to what was going on.

Shortly after this handing over, a more senior policeman arrived and, although he
greeted me, went over into the office and looked down at the two on the floor. He
pushed the man lying flat with his foot. There was no response. He spoke to the
old man. Then he came out to the charge office and a heated debate ensued. As it
was all in Xhosa I could not understand any of it. Then he too left.

One of the policemen in the office shrugged his shoulders and went through to the
back of the station. Within a few minutes he appeared at the front driving another
police van. This he reversed up to the front door.
The three of them then proceeded to drag the two injured men out of the office. The
one leaning against the wall said something but the old man stood up and hit him.
The policeman waited for the old man to turn away and leave the office, then pulled
the man to his feet. A fresh trickle of blood ran down his chin. He was pushed
through the door and fell. When he hit the floor he doubled up and started crying.
Two policemen took hold of the feet of the one still in the room and dragged him into
the charge office, turning him over as they did so.

It was horrifying. He was not conscious and he was lucky that he wasn‟t. His arm
fell unnaturally across the floor. It was bent halfway down, between his elbow and
his wrist. Obviously broken. His face was open from his cheekbone to his chin.
The skin pulled back, his teeth clearly visible.

The three policemen looked down at him, one of them looked at me and then the old
man. He shook his head at the others. After a short discussion they bent down,
picked him up and pushed his body into the police van. The one who had been
crying was again pulled to his feet, helped to the van and then boosted into it. The
old man and two of the policemen got into the front of the van and drove off. I was
left with one policeman in the charge office – now was the time, so I asked him.

“They robbed a store last night,” he replied. “There were three of them. Those two
who just left and the one that the “POPs” people arrested.”
“We had a problem because we could not find an ambulance to take them to the
hospital in…” He named a large town about fifty kilometers away.
“So we had to use the police van. We are not allowed to use the van to carry injured
people. But if that one on the floor had died? Here in the police station?”
He shook his head. “That cannot happen.”

I was frightened to ask, “How did they get like that?”

“The people of the village caught them this morning. They beat them. Our people
don‟t like all this crime. They beat them because they were angry and then they
beat them to find out who was the third one.”
“The young one?” I confirmed.
“He‟s lucky we arrested him otherwise he would look like those two.”

“The villagers dragged them into the office at lunchtime today. They told us, „Here
are the robbers you policemen cannot catch.‟ Then they gave us a piece of paper
with a name and address on it. „And here is the name of the third one. We know
that you cannot get them to tell the truth so we did it for you.‟”
“And the old man?” I asked.
“He is the father of the one he hit. He is very angry and ashamed.”

It was not nice to be exposed to such a level of callousness that included Police and
even family. The truth is that the society existing in most of these areas deals with
people that threaten it severely. To have a police service that is bound by
conventions that society does not recognize is to invite its contempt.

There exists in the Transkei an organisation that makes the stories of the Mafia
and Pagad seem like fairy tales. Known as UMFELANBAWONYE it is spread
across most of the rural Transkei like a rampant cancer.

It started a long time ago and was originally created by youngsters. Boys between
the ages of fourteen and twenty formed a secret group to deal with stock thieves.
People caught stealing cattle were brutally murdered. They still are. When I
walked into the Transkei I was not aware of all the implications. The fact is that if
I were found by one of these groups, perhaps sleeping under the road or in the veld
somewhere, I would probably have been killed.
Today, the organisation has not only expanded its vigilante activities but has
become a tool of organised crime. It seems a contradiction in terms but things that
are done in secret can include much that is not, and never was, the original
intention.
MAKING A DIFFERENCE

He was just slightly hesitant when he introduced her, so I waited.

“This is Helen. Helen, this is Roger.” She was young and very pretty with an air of
control. The same hesitancy was just discernable.
Then he said quite casually, “Helen has AIDS.”
I went towards her. “I understand,” I said, “May I hug you?” She just stepped
forward and it was easy, somehow despite the concerns, without restraint. I looked
at him. He smiled and nodded. “She is also staying here tonight,” he said. “She
has come to address an AIDS group tomorrow. So you will have company this
evening.”

It was a good evening. I decided that if I was to be natural I had to ask questions.
So I allowed myself to follow up on all the issues I had ever wondered about. She
talked freely, she seemed glad to. What I learned that had the most impact on me
was the terrible loneliness of a black person with AIDS. The culture and traditions
do not accommodate the support desperately needed by people who find themselves
sufferers, innocently or otherwise. I spent much of my time telling cancer patients
and their families to talk. To talk freely. Share your worries and your pain. Most
black families cannot do this when one of them has AIDS. Tradition will not deal
kindly with the truth.

Helen had been date-raped. There was a case made, charges were laid but it was
not a clear case and nothing had come of it. In fact the only retribution with lasting
impact was hers. She had come away with a death sentence. She had dealt with it
well and had found a new boyfriend who was a good man and loved her. He also
loved her little boy. The boy was ten years old and at school in her hometown. The
boy was the only person in her life at home that knew she was dying. Correction,
the boy had told his teacher who, fortunately, respected Helen‟s need for silence.

When she discussed the boy and his simple, innocent support, she cried. I left her
alone and after a few minutes she looked up and smiled bleakly at me.
“Perhaps you should tell your man?” I suggested.
The “No!” was emphatic. “You do not understand, I cannot. He will walk out on
me.”
“And what about the fact that he makes love to you? He has a right to know.”
“I‟ve told him I cannot, must not have another child, so I force him to use condoms.”

She could not tell her parents, she could not tell her sisters or other family
members. She could not tell her boyfriend. Everyone that could have just reached
out and touched her arm, that could have said, “I don‟t care Helen, lean on me,” was
excluded. Excluded by the knowledge that they would shut her out if they knew.
I am not so sure that they would have, but she was and that was what mattered.

We moved on after a while. We ate supper together and talked of other things.
When she said good night, she stopped at the door, “I am not completely lost,” she
said, “I worry about what will happen to my son when I die, and I can‟t do much
about that. What I am doing is talking to others, people that do not know my
family or me. That will make a difference to someone.”
“You have made a difference to me,” I replied.

YOUR FRIENDLY LOCAL POLICE STATION

It had been, for various reasons, a long day. I was approaching the time that a safe
place to sleep was the only important task yet to accomplish. This was not going to
be easy. It is an unbreakable rule that no one should see where this was going to
be. If people knew where I was it would be too simple to overpower me and take my
things. In this area, every kilometer I walked had a hill, and every hilltop a village.
The people watched as I passed by. Sometimes they waved, sometimes they didn‟t,
but there was never a moment I was not watched.

As dusk approached, I passed a turn-off and saw a sign indicating that some
distance down the road was a Police Station. I could walk there in just under an
hour. Despite the fact that the station was not on the itinerary and therefore not
expecting me, I felt sure that they would give me a cell or a back room to sleep in.
The station I approached was one of three buildings alongside a minor dirt road.

It was still light when I got there but only just. The building looked modern enough
but there were no lights on. I walked into the charge office. Three men were
behind the counter; one sitting at a desk and two leaning against the counter. I
walked up to the nearest and introduced myself.
“Hi, my name is Roger. I am the guy that is walking round the country for the
Police.”
He looked at me strangely and I realized that they had all been drinking. None of
them were in uniform but they all had their pistols belted on.
“Go over there,” he pointed to the corner, “sit down and shut up until I tell you I
have time for you.”
I went. I sat down in some confusion. The room was rapidly getting darker and I
was alone, far off my publicized route. These men were drunk and they were all
armed.

It had taken just a few seconds for this to run through my mind when he
interrupted my thoughts.
“And take your fucking hat off, this is a police station – So show some respect!”

That was too much. I got up and went back to the counter. “What is your name?” I
asked. It was a mistake. He reached down and brought out his gun. He pushed it
into my face and said, “You want a name? My name is on the register for this thing.
You want a name? I will give you a name.”

One of the others came round the end of the counter at speed. I had no time to
really react to either threat. The one who was now on my side of the room grabbed
me and virtually threw me out of the door.
I remember thinking: this is it, I am a dead person.

As we burst into the darkening evening I heard him telling me, “It‟s OK, don‟t
worry. That man is joking. He does not mean it. It is OK.”
I looked back inside, the two others were arguing with each other. I realized that
the one with me had not attacked me, but possibly saved my life.

It took some time. I was asked to wait outside. After much discussion inside the
room and a telephone call, the man with his name on a gun register and the man
who had bundled me out of the front door left. The third one came out and
introduced himself. He had been drinking but was not out of control. He told me
that he knew who I was and that they would help me if they could. I was given a
room in the barracks and after using the toilet, was locked into it for the night.

The next morning several officials appeared from nowhere and some serious
apologizing was done. I had no problem putting the whole incident behind me. The
unfortunate individual who had wielded the gun apologized and was a little
skeptical when I said that I had no intention of reporting it. In fact I had. Some
time later I discussed it with the area Commissioner and asked how he felt about
making it public. He told me that although it did not reflect well on the level of
policing in the region it was the truth and should be told. So now it has been told.
But no names, no pack drill.
 SECTION 4

KWAZULU-NATAL
Chapter One

Day 96 - 97
I had, on occasion, reason to be disappointed in the reception at one or two of the
Police Stations I had visited along the route. I have little concern for the pomp and
ceremony; and did not care whether it was provided or not.

The sacrifice, the cold, wet nights and long, dusty, lonely roads, were made in order
to bring a message to the ordinary policeman or woman. In the first television
interview and in repeated documentation I had clearly stated that the purpose of
the walk was, “…to reach the Man in the Van!”

The communication of this issue to the Station Commanders must have been clear
as most of the stations took trouble to ensure that this happened. In Swellendam,
Nikki had taken the time to drive me through the entire district. We went from
station to station, called the people on duty together and talked to them. Relaying
the appreciation of clear-thinking South Africans, for the commitment that was
being demonstrated under sometimes terrible circumstances.

Kokstad was different. The reception, the pomp and circumstance were fine. But I
was not given any opportunity to speak to members. Although I was there for
nearly three days, I had to literally fight for opportunities to even meet police
people, let alone address them.

When the initial arrangements were negotiated for the walk I asked if one
Communications Officer could be made the contact person for the entire walk. It
would have made my life a lot easier. I do not believe it would have been much
more than an afternoon or days work once or twice a month to administrate.
However it was not considered possible and the project had been handed from one
area Communications Division to another as I passed from district to district. The
assigned officer in each new area always had to be convinced that I did not want
fancy snacks and dignitaries when I arrived, but a room in the barracks and a
chance to address the staff.

After being escorted into town by some members of the Crime Prevention unit I was
loaded into a car and taken to the Police Sports Club. I had been asked to arrive in
Kokstad at 11.00 am in order to allow a Senior Police Officer to attend the hand-
over function. I was to be officially transferred from the Transkei to Kwazulu-
Natal.

It had taken me some trouble to do this, walking through a devastating rain storm
the previous day and maintaining a grueling pace from early morning up one of the
longest mountain passes of the trip, Brook‟s Nek. But I was there on time. Some of
the local people from the town authorities and community organisations were there
but none of the dignitaries.
The Communications Superintendent from Transkei arrived an hour late and the
Area Commissioner did not arrive at all. My name was not included in the agenda.
After the people who were on the agenda had all said their piece, the meeting was
closed. Most of us just sat there in embarrassed silence until the Communications
Superintendent from Kwazulu-Natal suggested to the hosts that I should be
allowed to say something. I did my best but it is always difficult for an afterthought
to be positive.

Afterwards I was asked by one of the Kokstad officers what time I thought I would
reach the next town. It soon became clear that they thought that I would carry on
walking the same afternoon. I explained that according to the schedule they were
all supposed to have I was to be in Kokstad for two days so that I could visit
stations. This was not happily received. No such arrangements had been made and
no accommodation was available.

Eventually I was taken to the outskirts of town and given a bed in a prefabricated
office belonging to the Dog Unit. Despite freezing cold shower water and a shaky
prefabricated structure, the arrangements were fine. In fact, once I had spent some
time with the unit, they were very helpful indeed. One of them even went to the
trouble of fetching a washing machine from home and setting it up in the showers
so that I could do my laundry.

I saw very little of the other Police members in Kokstad. At the function I had
insisted that I be allowed to speak to the members at the station. The people from
the Crime Prevention Unit had then agreed to pick me up the next day and drive
me to the station. They never arrived.

I waited until mid-morning and then walked. One of the officers phoned later and
said that she was at an AIDS march and could I perhaps find my own way to the
station and introduce myself.

At the station I was asked to wait for the shift officer and did so for about an hour
and a half. No one would phone anybody for me. No one would allow me into the
back of the station to talk to anybody, so I just sat there on one of the benches in the
charge office. Eventually I gave up and walked back to an empty Dog Squad
building.

That evening I decided to walk back into town and attend mass. It was about 6.00
pm. I walked past a portacamp used to house policemen and as I did so a drunk
emerged from one of the trailers and staggered onto the road ahead of me. When he
saw me he stopped and waited. His stance and expression told me what was
coming.

As I reached him he took a step forward and swung his fist. I avoided it and he set
himself up for another try.
“Don‟t do this,” I warned him.
“Ek gaan jou bliksem,” (I am going to hit you) he said.

I took his arm and pushed it down. I was not in the mood to accept any nonsense
but at the same time did not want to react violently. It would be messy and bad
publicity. He was too drunk to be able to resist or even remember any kind of
physical response from me. It was just not worth it.
“No, you are not,” I told him. “You are going to leave me alone. You are not a bad
person, you are a good person.”
He looked at me, obviously thinking about this very seriously.
I let go of his arm and walked on.

He turned and followed me along the street telling me that he was a bad person and
very drunk, and that if I would just stop walking for a second he was definitely
going to hit me. He forgot about me when he started on the occupants of a car at a
stop street. They pulled away from him in a panic and stalled the car. By the time
they got it restarted and left him I no longer existed in his befuddled mind.

Once again because of pressure from me I was able to arrange to talk to the people
at the station. The appointment was made for 07h45 on the Monday I was to leave
Kokstad.

When I arrived at the station the Station Commander met me there and told me it
was no longer possible as there was a group of people waiting on the edge of town to
say goodbye. Kokstad is a big station with a large complement. I was there for
three days and if I spoke to more than four people under the rank of Captain I
would be very surprised.
Chapter Two

Day 99 - 101
I described my reception and stay in Kokstad in some detail because of the
incredible contrast to my stay at the next two stations.

Wesa is a satellite station and belongs to Harding district. It is situated at a

logging town in the middle of one of the most beautiful forests I have seen. To get to
the pick-up point I walked nearly 30 km through an incredibly hot day. I got burnt
and suffered mild sunstroke. My diet lately had been poor. I had very little money
and had been living largely on handouts. Fried chicken and chips, cheap
hamburgers and lack of fruit or vegetables were doing nothing for my natural
resistance. My skin had developed several ulcers in various places over my body.
My knee was not healing and the walk up Brooke‟s Nek had put it on a new level of
stiffness and pain.

Wesa was an oasis. It is a model station with a neat garden, clean rooms and
colourful curtains. It has satellite TV for the members, computers, a gym machine,
laundry facilities, fridges and a small lounge. There is a large, well kept vegetable
garden, a security fence with video surveillance and floodlights. I was given a
decent meal, sheets, pillows, warm blankets and hot and cold running water from a
decent showerhead. This in a station about 30 km from Kokstad with a staff
complement of not more than 10 people.

I stayed here for two nights during which time I walked through the district. The
second night at the station the tea boat sponsored a few braai packs. The shift and
myself enjoyed an outdoor meal at the back of the station. It was a beautiful
evening.

Whilst the fire was burning down, the patrol van arrived and two young boys were
let out of the back. They were brought over to the fire and stood there warming
their hands to the flames. The sergeant who had brought them went into the
kitchen and returned with two plates piled high with cabbage, rice and meat. The
two boys‟ faces lit up like lights. They took the plates with them and were herded
into a cell at the end of the block. I asked who they were and was told that all the
juveniles and women at Harding were kept here at Wesa unless they had to go to
Harding for court proceedings. The two youngsters were currently on trial for
murder and robbery.

I left the next morning in the midst of a turbulent scene in the charge office. Two
traffic inspectors had brought in a motorist from the nearby N2. He had been
speeding and when caught, became abusive. He was still being abusive. Initially
the conversation revolved around a minor charge for which he would have been let
go. However he was becoming more violent and aggressive by the minute. His wife
was distraught and every now and again tried to calm him. He insisted that he was
late for an appointment and would bring the wrath of politically important people
down on everyone‟s head if he was not let go immediately.

After a few minutes of this he tried to force his way out of the police station. When
I left he had been arrested and his wife was being advised to go to Harding to apply
for bail. It all seemed rather futile to me.

This area, under the influence of the Station Commander at Harding, gave me the
lift in spirits I needed to put Kokstad into perspective. During the walk through the
area I was joined on the road by several policemen and women and once by two
reservists. There are over thirty reservists at Harding and they are well looked
after.

One of the reservists that joined me was a young woman who had been with them
for three years. Attractive and intelligent, she is one of thousands all over the
country that do this volunteer work in the hope that one day they will become part
of the permanent force. She told me that it is better than sitting at home and that
currently there was a post open at the station. She believed that of the thirty
reservists she stood the best chance of getting it.

I found out later from the Station Commander, that he did not have a say in who
would get the job but that Central would send someone from outside the district.
However he does what he can for the reservists. Some time ago he lost the chef that
catered for the prisoners. Instead of getting another one he gave the job to five
reservists; each one works one shift in rotation, so everybody gets at least a week‟s
pay every month.

The commander took over in 1995 after the previous Captain had to be transferred.
Because of his racist approach his attitude had been so bad that the community had
marched on the Station and demanded his removal. They threatened even worse if
another white person was put in charge.

The current Commander is white and had to overcome serious resistance from the
team at the station and the community. I sat in the charge office discussing the
whole story with one of the sergeants, a huge rock of a black man. He told me that
he was sixty years old but as long as his commander was in charge he would never
retire.
“He must not leave us,” he said, “I have never worked with a man like him before.
We have no blacks at this station, no coloureds or Indians or white men; we have
only policemen.”

The illustrious tea club is highly effective here. It is not managed at Central,
neither is it managed by the senior staff. It is managed by the station. A
committee has been voted in and the entire fund is run by this committee.

This system has provided the décor, the equipment, the facilities that make these
police members amongst the proudest I met on the entire trip. I was asked with
some smiles if I wanted to see the cell phone that had been recently acquired. I
found this a little strange but agreed. I was taken outside and shown a public
telephone booth outside the cellblock.
“It is for prisoners,” they said.
One of the major differences between this area and any of the others that I was
exposed to was the attitude towards co-operating with the community. Everywhere
else the Police were criticized by members of the community for using the van as a
taxi, for allowing unauthorized involvement in community issues.

In the Harding area, community forums are only the managerial component of a
joint approach to serving the entire spectrum of community activities. Although it
is against the rules, the police van is an ambulance, a fire engine and often a taxi.
If a child gets severely burnt the people call on the police for help. A woman walked
ten kilometers in the pouring rain to report an assault on herself. When the details
had been taken they took her to the hospital in one direction and then back past the
police station to her home.

Often they pick up women or children on lonely roads and take them home to their
villages. Old men and women sit waiting in the charge offices, not to report a crime,
but to ask advice on marriage, pensions, assistance in completing forms and a
hundred other issues. The police enjoy their role and the community is proud of its
local service.

I purchased a supply of vitamin pills and the ulcers are clearing up but my knee
remains a serious problem. Yesterday, the wet cold created by a blistering hail
storm and a cramped, shivering rest to avoid it, brought tears to my eyes when
forcing my leg back into taking steps.

I cannot afford to give in and say I will limp or I will stop again. I have to will my
stride into normal motion and wait. Wait for the ligaments or joints or whatever
the hell it is that is damaged to stretch into quiet acceptance. Somehow I must find
the money to get the problem seen to.

The road from Kokstad ran parallel with the Northeastern border of the Transkei to
the coast. The entire area has a reputation for ethnic and political conflict. Just
recently there had been what is now known as the Shabashabane Massacre. I
stayed at the nearby Izingolwene Police Station and was told a story that did not
entirely fit the reports of the time.

It was Christmas and there was only a skeleton crew on duty at the station. A
report came in of burning huts and some fighting. There were only four men
available to respond and they got into one van and went.
They found thousands of ANC and IFP supporters, all armed with traditional and
modern weapons, facing up to fight. They knew they could do nothing to stop it and
desperately radioed for help from the Public Order Policing Units in the district.
Four men arrived, unprepared for what they found. No one else came. They tried
to intervene but were thrown aside.

The known death count was 19, but there were more that the world knows nothing
about. It was a bloodbath that resulted from senior people in the Police Service
ignoring rumours and informants.

The police on shift at Izingolwene gave me a letter, typed up by them and signed by
them. Its simplicity and respect for what I was trying to do illustrates the essential
power of this much-maligned group of public servants.
Chapter Three

Day 102 - 107

There was already evidence that this Christmas would not be the same. All the
stations I visited were busy with operations designed to not only defuse but also to
disarm local situations. Roadblocks, raids into squatter camps, extra shifts and the
calling up of more reservists were in progress or being discussed. All leave over the
holiday period was cancelled. Office staff had been told that they would be pulling
shifts in the charge office in order to free active police members for the streets.

When I had scheduled the walk I had anticipated that it would be stupid to walk
over Christmas and New Year. Now I could appreciate what a sensible decision I
had made. My walk would stop in Pietermaritzburg, on the 21st of December and
re-start there on the 7th of January.

The Kwazulu-Natal Police Service was definitely doing its best to rectify any
impressions I had formed in Kokstad. The Port Shepstone Police came out to meet
me in force and I was escorted to this beautiful coastal town by a Crime Scene van,
some Crime Prevention members and another bicycle unit. It was fun and I was
feeling very special indeed when a farm truck pulled to a stop ahead of us, blocking
the way.

A large elderly man leapt out of the cab and stormed up to the Crime Scene van.
“What do you bastards think you are doing? Do you think this is some kind of
fucking game? Farmers are getting killed, the country is fucking bleeding to death
and you are out on some kind of a fucking picnic!”

The more everyone tried to calm him down the angrier he got.
“I pay taxes so that you can go on bike rides in the sunshine…and because you are
not doing what I pay you to do, I have to pay some fucking security company that‟s
bleeding me dry, to come and do it for you. I am going to the newspapers about you
people, you see if I don‟t. In fact I am going right now. I want some fucking action
on this!”

He left, we laughed about it, but in everyone‟s mind was a realization that his
stance was, to a large degree, very understandable. We arrived in Port Shepstone
to a well-organized function attended by the Mayor, representatives of various
community services and Senior Police Officials. The press was there and the papers
produced some positive stories about both the Police and the walk.

The walk along this coastal road was almost a holiday. The daily requirement for
kilometers was easily attainable and there was generous hospitality from some
wealthy homes. One of the people that hosted me in the first few days found out
that I was struggling with my knee and took me to a chemist friend. He gave me a
great deal of Voltarin and suggested a maximum dose for three to four days. It
worked and the relief was huge.

A pleasant interlude brought home to me the kind of reputation I have developed

amongst my relations. A car pulled up beside me and a friend of my nephew‟s,
Ryan, climbed out with his girlfriend and greeted me.
“We were on our way to Port Edward and my girlfriend said, “Look at that hobo.”
But I didn‟t see who it was so I phoned Anthony and asked him, „Where is your
uncle?‟ When he told me you were near Durban somewhere, we turned around and
came back.”

We talked for a while and realized that they would be returning to Johannesburg on
the weekend I was starting my Christmas break. We arranged a lift and I started
to appreciate that I would soon become civilized for a short while. My eldest
daughter says that I am a tramp by nature with expensive tastes. I must admit
that whilst sleeping in ditches, eating porridge and tinned pilchards are not
unacceptable much of the time, I derive a great deal of satisfaction from superior
red wines, delicate taste experiences, good hotels and fast cars.

The reception by many of the stations along this route is again geared to the
concept that someone senior must meet me, give me tea and biscuits and then
provide an escort to the next station. At one large station this is exactly what
happened. I asked if I could talk to the members and found out that the entire
staff, even those off duty, had been at a meeting that had finished half-an-hour
before. It was now too late; everyone had gone their separate ways. What made it
even worse was the fact that the meeting had been called to give everyone a pep
talk.

The stretch of road from Ultra City to the Carridene River is known locally as the
“Hell Run”. Not very original but apparently fairly accurate. There are regular
attacks on unsuspecting motorists. Cement blocks or bricks are scattered on the
road to force cars to slow down or stop and then they are attacked. A few days
before my arrival a policeman‟s car had broken down here and he was shot dead.
Nothing was taken except his gun. A few weeks before that R 1.5 million was
heisted by a gang using two BMWs stolen in Durban the night before.

The crime rate in this tourist mecca is high but locals tell me that much of it is
aimed at holidaymakers. However statistics show that in the townships, alcohol,
drugs and domestic violence provide a daily quota already beyond what the stations
can sensibly handle.

A large proportion of the strength at these stations is Indian. They are efficient and
the stations benefit from commitment that has not always been evident in other
areas. In fact one of the community forum members told me that the townships
along the “Hell Run”, mostly populated by black people had asked for all the black
policemen to be removed from the area. They only wanted Indians. Whether this
was because they were too effective, or quite the opposite, he was unable to explain
to me.

Taxi drivers in the area, once heavily utilized by underground elements in the fight
for freedom, are supposedly used by syndicated crime. Taxi wars, commonplace in
the area, are more complex than mere disputes over routes and business. They
involve issues of power and distribution of drugs. This was new to me and contrary
to my own experience of the taxi industry, which when I am more normal, I use
extensively. I have found most taxi drivers to be pleasant and helpful.
The attitude of most passersby has been sullen and unfriendly but I am constantly
accompanied by blue uniforms. Despite my ongoing protests and pleas, there are
some areas in which the police refuse to allow me the freedom I require.
Chapter Four

Day 108 - 115

I was to walk into Durban the next day. The SABC had agreed to cover my arrival
and I was looking forward to the day. It would be a measure of how valid this walk
had become. Those that had doubted my ability to perform physically and those
that had believed implicitly that the Transkei would end everything violently had
been refuted. My body was in good shape thanks to Voltarin and assorted vitamins.

Money remained a problem. Food was my daily concern, sometimes half a loaf of
bread and a liter of milk were the only fuels that carried me and a 20kg backpack
through 30km a day. I had taken to accepting gifts and donations, something I had
always been wary of. A Mayor had given me R 50.00, a passing motorist R 20.00
and the tea clubs; Isipingo R 30.00, Port Shepstone R 100.00. This was going to see
me through two weeks of walking.

On the way into Durban, the Station Commander of Wentworth and myself, passed
the scene of one of South Africa‟s own specialties; a taxi horror smash. The police
on the scene were picking up body parts across the width of the road. Seven people
were dead, including a three-year-old child.

The SABC met me as I entered the City centre and did a reasonable interview.

Again I was joined by a bicycle unit. There was a well-arranged function in the
grounds of the G.F. Swart Station. It went well except that half the seats were
empty and the list of apologies was too long to remember. However it was soon
obvious that although I would be given a tour of the facilities that were thought
appropriate I would not be spending the three days I had put aside for work
addressing members.

There was a party planned for me in Durban!

Somewhere right back near the start of the walk I had received a strange phone
call.
“Hi Roger, I‟m Bubbles.”
Bubbles was phoning from a beach party, apparently near Durban somewhere. The
party had been a good one and was in its second day. Quinton was there and
Quinton was all over the phone. It did not take more than a few sentences for me to
realize that Bubbles was a very special lady and Quinton was, to put it mildly, as
unusual as a straight banana.

I had received some very welcome phone calls from Bubbles during the course of the
walk. Bubbles, myself and a variety of friends to whom she frequently handed the
phone had passed much airtime. We discussed their bodies, their incredibly
flamboyant behaviour, my legs, my chaste life. There was a great deal of
speculation about the eventual state of my sex drive once I reached Durban. The
party had been planned in my honour and as I got closer to Durban I became quite
concerned about how they would all deal with the reality that was Roger Russell.

Bubbles and Quinton picked me up at 6.30. The party was in fact good fun but very
normal. The local pub had put up some banners and there were plenty of people
that wanted to meet me. They were all very ordinary people except for Bubbles,
who was for once not a disappointment. She was attractive and attentive – a very
pleasing combination.

In a mellow moment, one of those slightly alcoholic opportunities that strip the
images to the bone, I came to the conclusion that Bubbles was in love with Quinton.
That was sad; Quinton was seriously interested in men. In fact he liked the concept
more than the reality and I think he was disappointed that I was totally at ease
with his homosexuality.

December the 16th is traditionally a difficult day on the beachfront in Durban. I

strolled around the area at about mid-morning and found it crowded but orderly.

8.00 pm that evening it was different. I walked through the crowds and it was
difficult in the extreme. I was pushed and jeered at openly for being white and
alone. Some youths pushed themselves off a car against which they had been
leaning to stand across the front of me.
“Are you lost?” one of them asked.
“No,” I replied, “I am in Durban.”
“You a funny man?” asked another.
“Look,” I said, “I‟m just walking here man, you want something from me? Can I
help you?”

I don‟t get frightened by people like this, I get annoyed. I pushed through them
roughly and walked on. One of them slapped my shoulder and I ignored it. They
didn‟t follow me but the shouts were difficult to ignore. I did not push my luck and
was back in the hotel by 10.00 pm.

The next day the police told me that it had been a fairly reasonable day considering
the size of the crowd. The mobile charge office had recorded seven stabbings and
numerous cases of petty theft. There had been no deaths or violent robberies.

Although I was shown the sights and saw some of the upmarket facilities they have
at the Durban station I was not able to talk to members, as I would have liked to do.

I walked the 20 km out of Durban in searing heat. Much of it was along freeways,
so water was not available. Mine ran out and when I eventually saw a shopping
mall with a Milky Lane I spent R13.00 on two large fruit cocktails. R 13.00 would
have paid for two meals but was very little to pay for the sheer magic of feeling that
thick, sweet, icy liquid go down my throat.

The next day I started late and found myself walking up some big hills in
temperatures of over 40˚ centigrade. It was tough. I used liters of water. I drank a
lot but had to stop three times and sponge myself down as my body temperature
kept climbing. Eventually I had to knock on someone‟s door and beg a couple of
litres of water. People are justifiably wary of strangers and it was grudgingly given.
I arrived at the station at 6.00 pm after walking 36 km, which was very satisfying.
I had very little food of my own but was given a sandwich and a cup of coffee. I
thought of the R 13.00 I had foolishly spent on the juice but that did not help at all.
The next morning all I had was coffee but it was sweet and strong.

The day was easier and I had an interesting conversation with William. A fellow
prince of the road, he was headed for Durban to collect his pension. I asked if he
was frightened of robbers but he told me he was chosen by God and would be left
alone. However he pleaded with me to rather catch a train or a bus. He said I
would get killed for sure because he had been on the road for a week and knew what
it was all about. I had been on the road for nearly four months and knew he was
wrong.

Once again I was staying in a Protea Hotel. This time in a huge suite. One day
coffee and two litres of begged water, the next day a red-carpet welcome, fruit and
champagne in the room and a five-course meal under chandeliers in a huge dining
room.

Pietermaritzburg was everything that I wished all the stations could be. The
Station Commissioner is one of those women in whom gentleness and rigid
discipline have found harmony. The woman who chairs the community forum is a
dedicated go-getter who brings equal harmony to the needs of the community and
the police. It is a large station with many suburban stations scattered around the
town. I visited several of them.

The talks were well arranged and well attended. The response to them was
heartfelt and sincere. After the address I gave to the Pietermaritzburg station, a
man came up to me. He stood in front of me for a short space of time just looking
into my eyes. He was a captain and his uniform was immaculate. He seemed to be
looking for something in my face. He must have found it for he put out his hand
and I shook it.
“You are the first person in fifteen years to walk into my work and tell me that you
people out there actually care. I hope you are telling the truth! Because the things
you said just now have touched something inside me and it has been a shock. It
changes things – perhaps there is hope for this country after all.”

The community forum is an example of what can be achieved if the right people
with a positive approach can get through the initial stages of implementation. But
it requires a breakthrough in understanding on both sides. This understanding
grows from awareness and the awareness is created by contact. Contact is
maintained with great difficulty but gets easier as the understanding develops.

In Pietermaritzburg the community forum has a large room in the police station. It
serves as an office and a meeting place. It is just down the hall from the Station
Commissioner‟s office and the interaction is vibrant and meaningful. The
community forum chairperson sits on the station management meetings. The
meeting I attended demonstrated clearly the tight hold that the Station
Commissioner had on the way the station was run. It also demonstrated the
respect with which all the senior police officials responded to the community forum
issues.
PAGAD (People Against Gangs and Drugs) was a community organisation that,
from roots in the Western Cape, spread its sphere of influence through much of the
area that I had covered in my walk. Initially its approach was positive, but it had
been warped by greed and criminal opportunity to become notorious for its
involvement with the two issues it was created to address.

In the Western Cape PAGAD is a source of assassination and brutal intimidation.

So much so that a complete unit with huge resources and special powers had been
created to deal with it.

In Port Elizabeth it was a phone call in the middle of the night to the Police Station:
“The man you are looking for in connection with the murder of the shop owner from
Algoa Park…? You will find him in a classroom at the high school. Take an
ambulance, he will need it. Make sure you tell everyone PAGAD found him first.”

In Pietermaritzburg, it was differentiated by a phone call one afternoon to the

community forum office: “We want to attend your meetings. We will wear ski-
masks, we will remain anonymous and we want a guarantee that we can come and
leave without interference.”

This conversation created a huge test for the relationship between the community
forum validity and the autocracy of the police management. Fortunately the vision
on both sides was adequate.

The community forum chairperson fought for the terms to be accepted and PAGAD
attended. Within a few months the ski masks were dispensed with and soon
everybody knew exactly who was who. The influence of good management and the
sanity of principled people have sent tentacles of reason into the PAGAD structure
and, in Pietermaritzburg at least, it serves its community much as it was originally
intended.

I, who had seen much and took nothing about the policing of this country at face
value anymore, found this difficult to accept. A few short months ago, exposure to
drive-by shootings, entire families being executed in their homes, and now two men
from the same organisation sitting voluntarily in a room in a police station
discussing the possibility of bringing in extra units to a troubled suburb.

When I left this town hope had been given a wash and polish. It was good for me. I
attended a Christmas party for the children of the members at one of the stations.
It was warm and the families attending were just so normal. The men stood around
the braai area and scuttled off to help when calls came from their women or
children. The women sat in circles and laughed or got up to see to salads and
errant partners.

Only one thing was new to me; before we ate there was a minute‟s silence for lost
companions. 107 policemen and women died in Kwazulu-Natal alone 1999 and still
the public sees them as the enemy! People need to know the truth, to understand
that perceptions are so very unreliable.

The Station Commissioner gave me her card with contact numbers on it. Under it,
a secret gift, R 50.00 folded small. I looked up to say something but she smiled and
shook her head. I walked out of Pietermaritzburg accompanied by a horse unit,
bicycles and new friends. The list of people such as Joey Chetty, Claire Crawly,
Eddie, Hilary and hundreds of others that have confirmed my faith in this country,
grows daily.

The day turned into a hard walk but ended in Howick with another well-run
station. It was the last day I would be on the road until after Christmas and New
Year. I stayed in the Howick Falls Hotel, courtesy of the local tea boat. Next to the
Hotel was a small Greek restaurant. Looking at the menu I realized that I could
afford a meal and it turned out to be a good one. The food and two glasses of red
wine slowed down my mind and I was content.

This was a lonely job and I had been on edge for some time; was it worth it? Was I
making a difference? I had been driving myself hard, both physically and mentally.
I needed to get out of overdrive for a while. The next day I would get picked up by
friends and taken to Johannesburg. There I would spend two weeks doing nothing
but chat or shop with my mother and sister. Fortunately I would be starting the
break on a high note.
Chapter Five

Day 117 - 123

I arrived back in Pietermaritzburg on the 7th of January. I was met by Claire
Crowley and Gwynith. The two of them are a lot of fun. They took me to a
breakfast and then a Police Management Meeting. It was good to re-establish
contact with the realities of policing.

The station was very proud of its achievements over Christmas and New Year and
justifiably so. The entire period had been one of the quietest the country had
known. I had been able to explain to my family what this had cost the ordinary
police members in terms of extra hours and intensive input. While the rest of us
had been enjoying time off and other reasons to be festive, all leave had been
cancelled, members had worked double shifts and families went without their
parents.

I had seen the build up to the festive season include special operations that
searched for and reduced weaponry, follow-up campaigns based on intelligence
received from all kinds of resources and an intensive commitment to proving the
media wrong. It had paid big dividends and for once the Police Services were being
left alone.

Walking is not quite what I had remembered it to be. After two weeks on my butt,
my body complained bitterly. The end of the first day meant a cold, wet, camp deep
in the trees alongside a fast flowing stream. Everything dripped, sprayed water or
just sat there looking damp and miserable. My body ached and my feet warned me
assertively that if I continued with this unjust punishment they would raise
blistering protest.

The next day was a wet one – drizzle and sometimes steady rain. The blisters came
as promised and something new; the hard calluses that developed on my toes prior
to Christmas, were cutting into the flesh of the toes next to them. At lunchtime my
socks were soaked with blood and I had to do some innovative padding with gauze
and plaster to protect what was now both blisters and open sores.

I was now walking along the N3 and the stations around here were mostly taken up
with culpable homicide (car accidents), some of it pretty horrific, and the hi-jacking
of trucks.

When I arrived at one station they were full of a story that had occurred the
previous night. Two policemen in a van had passed a truck that behaved erratically
when the van was seen. They decided to investigate and pulled the truck off the
road. The truck stopped but no one got out. The two police officers both left the van
and approached the truck. As soon as they were out in the open they were fired
upon.
The attack was so heavy that they had no chance of returning fire and only escaped
by fleeing into the veld alongside the road and finding cover in the dark. The truck
pulled off whilst maintaining heavy fire and disappeared. No one was injured. The
front of the truck was found the next morning minus its fully loaded trailer. From
this area the clearinghouses of Tsolo and Qumbu in the Transkei are a four-hour
drive. The trailer would disappear but its contents would be on the shelves of small
grocery stores anywhere and everywhere within a week.

The truckers have a difficult time. In the new South Africa, many of them are
straightforward, honest people with a solid commitment to their work. At the same
time they are rough and ready, enjoying a free lifestyle that includes the enjoyment
of prostitutes and the picking up of hitchhikers as they see fit. Most of them
operate on a contract basis and get costs such as fines and fuel deducted from their
earnings. They like to travel in the early hours of the morning and the late
afternoons. The heat of the midday and fatigue of midnight send them looking for
safe parking. This is often provided at the larger service stations where the fight
for custom provides parking, cheap meals and showers…and above all floodlit areas
within fences that reduce the chances of hi-jacking or theft.

The huge, one-stop station in the area had recently decided to stop trucks from
overnighting in its courtyard. The Toll Plaza nearby had done the same. The
reasons are understandable; the trucks and their drivers are easy prey. Prostitutes
and hangers-on were becoming a problem.

The impact of such a decision was easily measured in the police reports. Hi-jacking,
loss of equipment and goods, even loss of life was climbing rapidly. The trucks were
stopping anywhere along the road and the vultures were thriving.

I stayed on a farm last night with two wonderful old people. The house is one of
those special places where books, music, photographs and other memorabilia fill the
space with a defined and full life of those it surrounds. The two are well known
international figures and have links to famous names of the past, he through major
contributions to agriculture and his country, she through her work as a beautician
for many leading Hollywood stars.

Their situation was about as secure as it can get. The few hundred square metres
of garden surrounding the house are fenced in by a sturdy close meshed barrier that
must be at least 4 metres high. There is a double gate in the fence and the drive
accesses a large garage within its confines. The garage houses most of the more
valuable farm equipment as well as the car. The house is protected on all its
windows and doors by burglar proofing and security gates. They live alone but are
connected by a direct line to their son‟s house a mere ½ kilometre away.

We had eaten and were sitting discussing the issues of the walk when we all heard
two people talking in Zulu right outside the window. No one was supposed to be
there, in fact, I understood that it was not possible for anyone to be there. The dogs
went crazy and the shock of what could not be was horrible.

She said, “Godfrey, there is someone in my garden!”

He replied, “I better go and see who it is.”
With that he got up and taking a torch, opened the front door. I was caught by
surprise and had no chance to intervene. There was no time to stop him and so I
had to follow him. He left the front door and moved around the corner of the house,
the beam of the torch making him a clear target.

My instincts have been sharpened to encourage concealment and observation rather

than confrontation. The sight of this seventy-year old limping into battle with
people that were possibly completely merciless, his position and his fragility clear to
all, was frightening.

I had to think quickly but there was not much I could do. I pushed in front of him
and led the way. Maybe the fact that there was a more aggressive and unexpected
addition to the household would be a deterrent.

At first we found no one and then, at the back of the house we found two shadows
moving through the garden. One was the lady that cleaned the house and the other
was the tractor driver. They were apparently living together close by. She had left
something behind the house and the two of them had come to fetch it.

We forced them, on pain of instant dismissal to show us how they had penetrated
the security fence and they finally showed us a flap in the wire that was easily lifted
up and replaced. It had been there for years and the pathway through the grass
was clearly visible in the torchlight. Godfrey was very surprised but it had
obviously been used many times.

Proper security measures were in place but not maintained or utilized because of
complacency. This kind of contradiction on the farms is common and is a
contributing factor to the high rate of farm attacks. The general feeling amongst
farmers that the attacks are racially or politically motivated cannot be ignored but
at the same time, the farmers must realise that the attacks are fueled by the fact
that it is just so very easy.

Farmers are too hospitable and many of the older generation still believe that the
criminal is an inferior sort of animal that you only have to confront to defeat. It is
not clever, or brave, to leave the safety of your house, your front door wide open
with an old woman sitting inside alone. It is being positively co-operative to expose
your position, your infirmity and the lack of a weapon, to anyone watching you, by
the light of your own torch.

After the fact it is easy to say, “if this and if that…” But if it had been criminals and
I had not been there, the murder of the two of them would have horrified people all
over the world. This is a situation that needs some high-powered attention from
both the communities and the police.

Politics and community stress are behind much of the violent crime in this area and
Estcourt has been in the centre of a great deal of trouble. It was a lovely but warm
walk into the town. My physical maladies were slowly coming to terms with the
fact that they get little attention from me, and so were slowly disappearing from the
field.

The community involvement at the police station had created some innovative
ideas. The central business district was monitored by surveillance cameras and the
co-operation between the town‟s municipal services and the police had been
harnessed to run the system. The monitors linked to the cameras were in the
control room of the fire department. The control room operators keep a watch and
call out the relevant units when trouble is observed. The Police simply do not have
the manpower to run such a watch. The attendance at what passed for a
community forum meeting here (it is run and controlled directly by the Police) even
includes representatives from the local associations.

In Colenso, a town steeped in local history and once a thriving community, I stayed
in the Battlefield Hotel. Something arranged for me by Kallie Landsman, a
policeman about to leave policing to become a parole officer. Another loss of
expertise and ability attributable to rigid adherence to apartheid values. He and
his wife are both good police members, but in the light of new thinking, redundant.

Colenso is a long, dusty street edged on both sides with two strips of abandoned
shops. The owner of the hotel was leaving too, her opinion of the police was
reasonably positive but she had little regard for the town council. The town is
basically bankrupt and with just a little more neglect will become a ghost town.

Yesterday an elderly woman was murdered in her small shop at a village close by
and I thought of Godfrey and his charges into the night. This is Africa now, not the
old western-dominated imposition on the tip of the continent, but my Africa. An
Africa with a traditional culture that was suddenly finding space to assert itself.

In this demise of the one and the flowering of the other there is great danger.
Predators roam in comparative freedom looking for the weak. To me this is part of
its great magic.

Huge landscapes and savage beauty are not created without carnivores and
bloodshed. This Africa that I love so basically and naturally has been built on roots
that wind deep into the primitive.

Back to bread and milk or handouts for food. The only thing I consistently spend
money on is vitamin supplements. Skin ulcers, flu and other weaknesses are not to
be contemplated. I was well received later in the day and provided with a coke and
a hamburger by the local Wimpy. This was very welcome indeed. In fact, thanks to
Rotary and other interested parties I was fed with a great deal of meat and beer for
the next two days. I believe that malt, hops and animal fat is what sustains the
human physiology so I consumed as much as was made available.

The day I spent in Ladysmith offered just about everything in the way of public
opinion about the Police. I was introduced to a man who, through a bullet in the
back as an active officer was now desk bound in an office but still a police member.
His spirit and ability to motivate was an obvious source of pride to his fellow
officers.

A policeman had been caught shoplifting the day before. Another officer had to be
rescued after he had ripped his exhaust off in a small stream just outside town. He
had gone there to investigate the report of a body in the river.
I listened to a heated discussion on the local radio station about an arrest the C.I.D.
had recently made. The police were enthusiastically defending their position whilst
people were phoning in and just as gleefully accusing them of lying.
Chapter Six

Day 124 - 129

The days are consistently wet and I am always cold. I stayed on a farm last night;
an opportunity afforded me by a passerby. The couple was good to me and
concerned about the conditions I had to deal with.

A long wet walk and miserable conditions made for a frustrating day. I was picked
up and dropped so did not have to deal with inclement weather at night. The
weather is consistently a problem lately. Others are suffering. I have seen and
read enough to know that this is one of the worst years in memory with floods and
crop losses that are crippling South Africa and some neighbouring countries,
particularly Mozambique.

It rained all the way to Newcastle but cleared up as I approached. Much had been
organised for me and I was met by children and various representatives of both
Police and the Community. I ended up walking along with the kids. One or other of
them always on my shoulders, sitting on my backpack.

The reporter for the Natal Witness had phoned me whilst I was still in the
Transkei. He asked when I would be in Newcastle and we had arranged an
interview. The appointment stood although I think he had originally been skeptical.
He wrote a wonderful article and called me openly what others had thought but
been too polite to say. The banner on the front page of the newspaper said: “South
Africa‟s very own Forrest Gump”. He actually asked my permission because he said
that Forrest Gump was obviously not completely sane. But I have often suspected
my own mental competence and had no problem with opening the subject up for
public speculation.

Newcastle was a good experience. The station is well run and well connected in the
community. The station management has been innovative enough to fly in the face
of national trends and desires. They have, with the help of local business installed
a computerized record system, which has for some time been placing a photograph,
arrest record, fingerprints and physical details on file. The system was cross-
referenced to statistics, modus operandi and other access information. It is perhaps
surprising but at the time that I walked through the country most stations did not
have technology of this nature. There was an antiquated cumbersome national
system that, in the opinion of most of its users, belonged on the scrap heap. The
station had also created a double charge office system; the one office deals primarily
with arrests and the other with documents and community issues.

In this area armed robbery is a lucrative business. So much so that the

perpetrators have created a small industry. Some very sophisticated lawyers
operate here. They effectively post bail at nominal rates and then charge exorbitant
fees to handle the court appearances. Many robberies are committed by suspects
that are out on bail. I was told that this is because they need money to pay for their
defenses.

Walking well I arrived at a small country station by lunch. Although I had been
offered a room in the barracks I decided to put in some more kilometers if I could
find someone to pick me up and bring me back. The man on duty easily agreed to
arrange this for me. All I had to do was phone him when I was ready and the van
would be dispatched.

At this station I met and spoke to about four of the members. The station is not
happy and conditions were appalling. I would not allow prisoners to stay in the
barracks, let alone my staff. The facilities were virtually non-existent. A decrepit
old washbasin, a stove that was only partially functional and toilets so filthy I
decided to use the great outdoors.

My calls to Cape Town complaining about the communications supporting this

project have borne some fruit. I was contacted today about the route ahead. A
promise was made that I would be met by a senior official in Volksrust to hand me
over to the Gauteng Province.

Again I made a special effort to get there at the appointed time only to find that no
one arrived. However I was met and hospitably welcomed by the local station who
were also under the impression that there would be some senior officials involved. It
was a well-organised function and I did get to address some of the members.
Eventually someone arrived to apologise on behalf of the Kwazulu-Natal
Communications Department. They were worried about who I was going to phone
next. In fact a conversational slip revealed that a very senior person in the
department had said that they would all breathe a sigh of relief when I crossed the
border into Mpumalanga!
COMMENTARY
FROM THE HORSE‟S MOUTH

The political issues that feed faction fighting in the Kwazulu-Natal region have
been made complex by its past. Historical solutions imposed by succeeding regional
authorities include the Boers and the British. British rule in particular was
marked by disregard for local realities and a focus on expediency for British
interests. Tribes and extended families were split up and relocated to other areas.
This changed the hierarchy of chieftainships and dispersed strong families in a
divide-and-rule campaign.

As a result present day policing of the faction violence is complicated by the

existence of strong groups of one family or tribe living within the rule of another.
The tribal chief system is so strong at grass roots level that informants and
communities cannot be utilized without going through the tribal authority.
Permission to canvas for a community forum must be negotiated. Families or
groups that don‟t belong are excluded so that whole sections of the community are
without a voice or protection. Protection is needed.

Police that are recruited locally or that have tribal or family links are not believed
to be impartial, in many cases justifiably so. Police from outside the culture with no
local ties need extensive training to even create a foothold. They are seen and dealt
with as strangers. It takes time to establish a fragile trust, which can be shattered
by one bad reaction to a local vendetta or inter-family murder.

As in most parts of the country, the South African Police are ignored by politicians
when negotiating peace or boundaries. However when the agreements break down
or flare up into violent confrontations then they are expected to resolve them
without resorting to physical measures. Inadequate familiarity with the history of
the issue, often restricted to unfamiliar tactics and operating in a hostile
atmosphere in which they are either biased to one side or the other or seen as
outsiders; the police in Natal are doing their best.
ALL IN A DAY‟S WALK

The town is reasonably large and the Police are housed in two buildings. The
administrative block is near the shopping area, or town centre, whilst the station
itself is deeper into the residential part of the town. I was picked up and told I
could sleep over at the station and I was relieved because I thought, “Barracks”, or
at least a room somewhere.

When I arrived at the station I realised that I would be better off on the road. The
building was in an appalling state. The plaster on the walls was full of holes and
the garden was wild and unkempt. The wooden floors were worn and neglected.
There were no carpets, no curtains. The charge office was a big room divided by a
dilapidated counter and some shelves. There was little furniture in front, less in
the offices behind. I was correctly told that it would not be a good idea to sleep
inside. They said I could sleep anywhere in the garden.

I chose a spot between two trees and next to a dilapidated, corrugated iron shed.
The grass was knee-high and the only washing facility, a shower at the other end of
the garden. But the air was fresh and I felt better. I was sitting there a little while
later when a door in the side of the shed opened and a man emerged. He was in a
pair of shorts and had a towel and a bar of soap in his hands. He greeted me and
we started to talk. He introduced himself as sergeant …….

The soap and towel inspired me to ask if there was a closer shower behind the door.
“No,” he laughed, “this is the barracks. My room is behind that door.”
After I had eaten I went inside the charge office and spent some time with the
people on duty. They were friendly and open and not in the least disturbed by the
terrible state of their surroundings.

I asked how it was possible that things could be so bad.

“Are you talking about those?” asked the one and pointed to the ceiling. The ceiling
had several round holes in it.
“The holes in the walls outside are from when we were attacked and they shot at us
with AK‟s. But there,” he pointed up again, “These are from a drunken policeman.
One night he just sat here and shot holes in the roof.” He smiled from ear to ear. I
wondered if I was being teased and asked, “When were you attacked?”
“About eight years ago.”
“And the ceiling?” I pointed up. They all laughed but did not answer. What
concerned me was not so much the attack but the fact that the walls had not been
touched or painted for at least eight years.

During the course of the walk I was exposed to over 166 police stations. The
hardest aspect to understand was the incredible contrast between the excellence of
the resources and infrastructure at a station on one day and the absolute
deprivation of the same at a station on the next. Literally in a twenty-four hour
period I would visit two stations on foot that could have belonged on two different
continents.
SPECIAL CONSTABLE

I came out of the building and moved towards the gates. I stopped and looked up at
the stars for a moment. They were sharp and clear. He approached me from the
darkness of some trees. He was in combat fatigues and had a rifle slung over his
shoulder. I asked if he was a soldier and he told me that he was a policeman. I
mentioned that it was nice outside and he replied that he was hardly ever inside the
building.
“Those men in there are desk men. I am a fighter, I have been taught to kill people
and work in the bush. I have chosen to do the work of protecting this place. Those
other police have not been trained to do this work. They could never do what I do.”

I told him that I was on my way to bed and that I had been told to sleep in the
empty house in the grounds. I pointed to it and moved away towards it. He made
me uncomfortable and I wondered if he was completely sane.

He followed me along the path.

“You don‟t have to worry,” he assured me, “I will protect you as well.”
We had almost reached the back door and I told him that I would be fine. As I
opened the door he pushed me aside and without any reference to me went inside.

I followed him as he went right through the house, looking into all the cupboards.
The house was empty, no furniture, and no curtains but better than sleeping on the
road. He looked at my sleeping arrangements, on the floor of the main bedroom.
“Will you be sleeping here?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
He walked over to the window and looked out.
“Yes. This will be alright,” he said and left.

I was now really worried and visualized him storming into the house with his gun
blazing. I pushed all my gear onto my groundsheet and draped a towel over it so
that it would look like I was sleeping there. I took my sleeping bag and mat into the
passage in the middle of the house and lay down to sleep there. If anyone came into
the house from anywhere, I would hear them long before they would find me. I
eventually fell asleep.

Something woke me up and I had no idea what time it was. I was instantly alert. I
lay still and listened. Then I went cold. I could hear the soft crunching of steps on
the gravel outside. I rose quietly and moved to a window. Although the moon was
lighting up the garden, I could see nothing. I moved to the door of the main
bedroom and saw him at the window looking at my sleeping dummy. I stood stock-
still and watched. After a few minutes he moved away. I crossed to the window
and he was standing under a tree about ten meters away. I watched for some time
but he did not move. I returned to my sleeping bag but had trouble sleeping. Much
later I went to the window again and he was still there. I slept better realising that
he was, in fact, on guard and not actually a threat. When I got up in the morning
he was gone.
BETRAYAL

The years between the removal of apartheid and the time of the walk had shown a
large increase in the amount of Police officers boarded or taken off active duty
because of stress-related problems. Suicides and outbreaks of violent behaviour,
always high, were higher than normal during this period.
Wessel was a casualty of this time. Trying to maintain his old-world values in the
new approach to Police Service was his nemesis. He had once been a well-thought
of and efficient Station Commander. His wife also served as a policewoman at the
same station. But his disciplinarian attitude and, to put it mildly, their
conservatism had brought about a strong reaction.

The more dissident of various organisations that stood up to defend the rights of
policemen is known as POPCRU. The union brought charges of racism against both
of them. The situation did not touch her as deeply as it did him. He became moody,
his effectiveness as an administrator was compromised and eventually he accepted
an early retirement package.

He is a physically fit man with a wealth of experience and proven ability. It would
not be true to say that he was a stereotype aggressive racist. Rather more just,
would be to say that he had been a reasonable human being within a warped
system. As were, if the truth were known, most South Africans. When the system
failed he could not make the change. This, of all the sins of apartheid, is perhaps
one of the least appreciated.

Wessel has a family and people that grieve the change in him.
He grows roses and he does it well, having won several local prizes. He is moody,
spending days happily tending and trimming subjects that are different colours but
get from him a nurturing he could not bring to his station. Then there are the other
days when he cannot bring himself to talk to even those closest to him. His children
never know when their enthusiasm will bring pleasure or a sharp retort. The loss
of his field of achievement took with it any hope of a harvest that would support
him and his family in the winter of his life.
 SECTION 5

MPUMALANGA / GAUTENG
Chapter One

Day 130 - 134

I spent the first night in the area with a family that consistently reminded me that
their friends had warned them not to take in a stranger and followed the comments
with remarks about how good they were. I never ask to be taken into private
homes. Guesthouses, hotels and police barracks are something else. I, like most of
us, enjoy a bath and clean sheets. But the fresh, solitary air of a drain with a view,
out of sight, self-sufficient and content with what God has on offer is better than the
wary hospitality that goes with hosting a complete stranger.

Accommodation in Perdekop was provided by the local hotel. I met the owners in
the morning, they have two children. The one is struggling with a syndrome that
held back his development when he was a baby but he is now, through the patience
and commitment of his parents, fast catching up with life. They told me how they
had taken over the hotel when it was in a terrible state. They had worked together,
always finding another hour, another task to tackle, a few more Rands to spend.
The hotel is not finished yet but the place gives out a healthy measure of their love
of life and commitment. It was a good place to be. If we can rebuild a child‟s mind,
turn a dismal building into a place of warmth; surely we must be able to rebuild a
common nationality.

The town was reasonably busy with local people sitting around under trees or on
pavements drinking and shouting to each other. The area around the bottle store
was especially loud. I saw several white people, including children, walking
through the area quite happily. There was no evidence of fear or distaste in view.

The Dutch Reformed Church looked well kept but I was told that the congregation
was so small that there was no money to pay the minister or maintain the church,
so the minister runs several small businesses such as selling CDs and a small
money-lending concern.

The police here have a bad reputation – they supposedly do not respond to call-outs.
They are poorly equipped and quite recently one of the stations in the vicinity had
to place a notice in the local paper asking the public to be patient as there was no
vehicle to respond to calls. Serious cases had to wait for a police van from
Standerton, some fifty kilometers away.

An easy walk and an arranged sleepover in another family home. Nick and Ronel
are Afrikaans to the core and Nick is in the South African Defense Force. Some of
their friends came round and we had a braai. As always racism came up and I was
told that black people were backward and had hundreds of years of civilization to
catch up with. I asked the friends if they had ever heard of Nelson Mandela or
Martin Luther King. The realities of what Africans have had to deal with in regard
to poverty and sub-standard education were not factors that were considered in this
conversation. Nick and Ronel were not entirely supportive of the conservative
views expressed and their humanity toned down opinions considerably. The
natural hospitality of the Afrikaners also keeps emotions under control merely
because of the respect required for a guest: me.

Nick was gone in the morning when Ronel woke me up. Ronel runs a small grocery
store that serves the local community. Over breakfast she talked to me about how
the shop had made her intimate with the lives of people she had never really
noticed before. She spoke of the courage she had seen. She then endeared herself
to me forever…she said: “You know what? There are managers and rich intelligent
whites in the thousands that would not have the courage or skills to deal with what
many of my customers go through every day.”

She understands the limitations and potential, which so many of us will never
appreciate, on a practical level. We maintain our allegiance to the old South Africa,
refusing to embrace the new. We hide behind our concrete walls and razor wire,
holding private conversations that almost always start with, “I am not a racist,
but…”

The shop has been broken into twice over the last few months. Nick believes that
the poor response from the local, almost entirely black police station is attributable
to his white skin.

It is, quite likely, in this new South Africa of ours that Ronel will be assaulted or
killed one day. The shop is lonely and already a target. Friends will say, “I am not
a racist but you see what happens if…”

The road was good to me last night; I found a spot under some willows on a
riverbank. Mossies rained twigs down on my cover. Water monitors stood glaring
at who knows what on the far bank of the river. I was tired of politics and wary
conversations. I sat and watched the unconcerned progress of an unspoiled
environment and wished I could take a few days off.
Chapter Two

Day 135 - 139

Standerton arranged a reasonable reception but again no talking to members. I
was taken on a tour of the outlying stations and gave a shortened presentation to
some members of the community and a few of the senior officers.

Afterwards I was taken to a pleasant guesthouse. The senior police staff from the
district were attending a luncheon and I was invited to join. One of them told me
that he had left the service because he felt he was being discriminated against for
being English. With the new regime he had decided it would be different and
returned. Now he believes he is being discriminated against because he is white!

My accommodation and the food were marvelous but a young white man at the bar
spoiled the evening. Dressed in khaki and with a gun on his hip, he was going on
about the „Kaffirs‟. He grabbed my arm as I walked past and pulled me to the bar.
He told me that he admired what I was doing but it was wasted on a lost country
and that the „Kaffirs‟ would kill me before I reached Cape Town.

I wondered what he would have thought if he had been with me that morning. I
had stopped under a railway bridge to wash and shave. A black man appeared out
of nowhere and talked freely to me about the job opportunities in Standerton and
where I could buy cheap quarts of beer. He treated me with easy familiarity, even
to the point of squatting in some long grass to go to the toilet, still talking away.
Life can be so much easier if we just relax. I think I stand more of a chance to be
run over by some arrogant white in his four-wheel drive than killed by one of these
people.

The Station Commander at Standerton is not permanently appointed to the

position. The position is, in fact, vacant and has been for some time. There are
problems in Standerton. The central business area has a Community Policing
Forum consisting mainly of white businessmen whilst the black area, Sikile, has its
own Black Forum.

The attempts at initiating the Service Delivery Improvement Programme have

failed. There are six separate departments in the Standerton service; none of them
co-operate, none of them are efficient. The young man in the bar the previous
evening was a policeman. After I had left he had to be forcibly removed by some of
his colleagues.

No one has applied for the Station Commander post in Standerton – no one wants
it.

A long walk ended with a poor camp in a fairly exposed position. I battled in a
strong wind to stretch my poncho between some trees and a farmer‟s fence. Once
under it I realized that it was sloping the wrong way and the run-off from expected
rain would go right through the camp, so I had to move it. At about 9.00 pm a
storm broke and the wind blew freezing rain right into what shelter I had. Stripped
naked and shivering uncontrollably I had to battle the elements again in order to
lower the whole structure. Once the sides were almost on the ground, I propped up
the centre with a stick and crawled back inside. Two more storms hit in the night
and the wind howled around me. The poncho flapped and whipped back and forth.
I did not think it would last the night but in the morning the poncho and I were still
there.

The entire country is still in the grip of an unprecedented wet season. Mosquito‟s,
wind and thunderstorms are a consistent part of my life lately. The next day I had
a miserable walk. I was tired because of sleep deprivation and irritated with the
refusal of area police offices to ensure that I talked to staff. Again I had a bad camp
but slept deeply. I woke up to the sunshine and birds singing. Breakfast hit some
very receptive senses and I felt much better. I am as bad as the Police – one-day
doom and gloom and then bright curtains, smiles and efficiency.

Greylingstad were understaffed and out of touch with their, mostly black and
coloured, community. I am really learning to appreciate that even when the will is
there, success is not assured. There have been efforts to involve the community but
the last two chairpersons of the CPF are serving prison terms for various crimes.
The town itself has never shown any interest in the Police Services.

Balfour was a day‟s walk away. I arrived in town accompanied by a member of the
Crime Prevention Unit and the CPF Chairman.

Bafana, the CPF Chairman, is a dynamic go-getter who serves on the forum, on the
farm watch and the business watch. He told me that he hates politicians and wants
communities to wake up and look after themselves.

Inspector Pretorius is possibly the most involved community policeman I have met.
He followed me into town in his police van. He was constantly whooping his siren
and waving at people. When I commented on this Bafana laughed and told me that
a small section of the community had complained about the inspector, saying that
he would arrest them one day and then wave at them the next.

The Station Commissioner was busy providing training for eleven reservists but
took time to come into town to meet me. I stayed on a farm that night. At about six
in the evening the police van arrived and offloaded six sheep carcasses. The story
behind the delivery is this:

About five days ago the two dogs on the farm died suddenly. Poison was suspected
so they were taken to the local vet. He said that the cause of death was not poison
but tick fever. Two days later when the owners were in town the farm was raided
and twelve sheep stolen. The owner went to the local police and asked that they
handle the investigation, as he had no confidence in the Stock Theft Unit at
Standerton. The police contacted members of the Community Forum and the word
went out. Acting on information they received as a result, they raided a house in
the local township and found the six carcasses. The sheep were identified by the
branding and suspects arrested. No one would tell me how, but the three men
caught admitted to poisoning the dogs and have given up information, which will
result in another house search, and, I was assured, more arrests.
The carcasses that were returned were already starting to smell and there was no
chance of using them. The dogs cannot be simply replaced. It will take eighteen to
twenty-four months to have loyal and protective dogs on the farm and in the
family‟s hearts again. The farmer was full of praise for his local Police Service and
says his town is different to the rest of South Africa.
Chapter Three

Day 139 - 143

I walked on the next day to cross the border into Gauteng. Again arrangements
were not as promised. No one from the area office turned up and I was handed over
by Inspector Pretorius. A superintendent from Heidelberg Station and a security
guard met me on the Gauteng side and started to escort me along the road. It was
silly, so I spoke to them and said that I would be fine. They agreed that it was
unlikely that I would get attacked and agreed to leave me alone. It was Sunday;
they had families to be with. And I, well it was Sunday and I had myself to be with.

When I arrived at the station the duty officer phoned the Superintendent. He came
down to the station and gave me a tour of the facilities. We went into the cells and
one of the prisoners claimed that he had been assaulted by a police officer. The
Superintendent listened and then instructed the officer on duty at the desk to open
a case. We carried on with the inspection. It was all very calmly done.

The tea boat paid for a night at the Heidelberg Guesthouse, which was a little piece
of magic in an unlikely town. I was welcomed by a very hospitable lady who
suggested that I sit on the porch and wait for tea and biscuits. This I did.

The house is old but beautifully restored. The garden was a picture book creation of
green grass and roses. The tea came and with it, the sunset and a realization that
the world is perfect. The balance is so fine and our perceptions easily cloud the
truth. We need not worry; we are in the hands of something that has complete and
concerned control. The pain, the losses, blood, sweat and tears are moving us to
some great purpose. It was one of the great moments of my life and I will remember
it forever.

The next day was hot. I had diarrhea and my water ran out before lunch. When
the Alberton police phoned I was only too glad to end the day. They came out to the
road to fetch me and took me to a braai that was arranged so that the members
could meet me. I was impressed by the vibrant camaraderie between all the
members regardless of rank and colour.

Alberton is a thriving industrial area and the businesses support the community
forum so the station is well equipped. Reservists are mostly part-time youngsters
from the more affluent sectors of the community and not job hopefuls from the poor.
The reservist contingent is expecting a donation of three vehicles from local
business. The team is motivated and proud of their achievements.

They need to be, the area is on the outskirts of Johannesburg and big city crime
starts here. The senior staff suggested that I did not walk as planned. They
wanted me to start at the border of the next district. One of them told me that he
would not walk along my route if he had two armed guards with him. They had put
up a roadblock a few days previously and had confiscated over a ton of dagga, eleven
unregistered handguns, two AK47s and several stolen vehicles.

The next morning I was allowed to address almost the entire station and it went
very well. After the talk I was called into the Station Commander‟s office and told
that they had all discussed my efforts and were impressed with the fact that I was
genuinely trying to do something for their situation. They had decided to donate R 1
000.00 from their canteen funds to the walk.

I was stunned. I do not like to accept money from people. Over the last couple of
months it had been necessary. My Spur vouchers, Pick „n Pay vouchers and private
funds were long gone. I had been living on handouts for some time. Diet, vitamins
and the occasional treat were not terms I thought of anymore. Without this money I
might very well not make it.

That day I would walk into Johannesburg city limits. The next, I would walk into
the city itself. I had been walking for 142 days, completed over 2 400 km and best
of all, just been given tangible evidence that many South Africans cared about what
I was doing.

I was met and escorted in as planned. My contact in the communications

department started off by trying to imply that the two days I had scheduled for
visiting stations in the area, of which there were many, should be spent having a
rest. He told me that because he thought I would need to be left alone he had made
no arrangements for any talks to or meetings with the members. I became a little
irritated. I had visited the communications office when I was in Johannesburg over
the Christmas break and explained the entire purpose and structure of the walk. I
had explained what I wanted to do over the telephone to this very individual. It had
clearly been a waste of breath.

The next day I started walking to Jeppe Station alone. While I was trying to find
my way through the rather confusing streets of the lower City I was helped by a
stranger. He came out of nowhere and said that he had seen me on TV. He wanted
to walk with me if I would allow it. I was only too happy to have a local person to
guide me. I walked into Jeppe Station and insisted on talking to the staff.
Eventually they got about thirty members together.

I left Jeppe and met up with a small contingent of Policemen who were wandering
around in the streets looking for me. It was my escort into the city centre.

We walked into the charge office at Johannesburg Central where I was met by two
Community Forum people and the Shift Captain. After a while the Station
Commissioner, a Director, came down to talk to me and apologised for not meeting
me, saying he was busy. During my Christmas break I had also called on him
explaining what I was trying to do and when I would arrive. He did not remember
any of it.
The day was rescued by a Superintendent from Crime Prevention who took me to
his unit. There I addressed about forty members at 3.00 pm and another forty at
4.00 pm.
Chapter Four

Day 144 - 145

I forced issues and was irritatingly persistent. Eventually I ended up with a radio
interview and a school visit scheduled for the next day. The interview was positive
and the talk at the school was rewarding. The group consisted of grade eleven and
twelve pupils. They were all young, black and proud of it, and responded with
feeling. The questions were pertinent and the answers weighed before acceptance.
At the end of it, the policemen who had brought me there wanted to know why I
was not talking to the Police members. I laughed and said that I was trying.

The police in this, the toughest of towns, are people like everyone else. Their
perceptions brand the public as either the criminals or people that believe the police
are criminals. My belief in them was appreciated even if it was considered a little
naïve. The crime prevention units here are mostly black and they looked like a
tough lot. They have to be!

The question comes up again: “How do you put a gentle heart and an effective
deterrent to violence in one body?” Often, the members I talked to were very careful
(and kind) about what they said concerning other groups; social or colour. However,
underneath, you can sense that they believe you are an ignorant outsider who will
never know just how brutal life really is.

I stayed in the Protea Hotel in Berea for the time I spent here. It is a castle in a
land of Dragons and Evil Sorcerers. In order to get into it you have to drive down
into the basement through a guarded security gate. The reception is not accessible
from the street. In the rooms patrons are advised to contact the staff if they need
anything. “Do not walk the streets of Berea and Hillbrow!” is the clear message.

I had come here from England in the early sixties. I lived on these streets as a
young boy – it was safe then. What had happened? What was it really like now? I
wanted to know.
So about 8.30 one evening I went for a walk. The security guard did not want me to
exit the gate but I convinced him that I was able to look after myself so he relented.
I walked for an hour and a half. I walked back alleys and busy crowded
thoroughfares.

Berea is dark and dangerous.

There are not enough people to provide security. Some of those that were there
watched me carefully. The perception is one of predators and victims but that is not
the truth.

There are people coming home from jobs far away. They return to a unique
apartment life. It is crowded and dirty; little warrens of shared rooms hidden down
deteriorating passages and stairwells. They walked quickly along the sidewalks
carrying shopping or other mundane paraphernalia. There were some children,
some couples and several small groups of young men. Most of them were too busy
to see me. From my hotel room, eight floors up, Berea at night was traffic, gunshots
and sirens. On the street it was late night shopping and young street corner
loungers.

In Hillbrow itself the streets were more active, there was more light and definitely
more curiosity. Several times groups of young men approached me, “Hey my Broer
– what‟s happening?” “Hey Whitey – where you going in Black town?”
I responded, “How‟s your life friend?”
They would invariably smile and reply “Sharp, sharp my Broer.” Sometimes lifting
a hand for a „high five‟.

It was not the Hillbrow I remembered. A Hillbrow where the shops were top class
and everything legal was available. Now the shops are dingy, the variety limited.
Now everything illegal is available.

In the shadows of corners sit men, not boys. They sit and watch as I walk by. It is
rough and tough and I am aware that I am being left alone because I am dressed in
old shorts, T-shirt and even older slip-ons. My hair is long and I am old. I have
nothing. It is true that I am white, but I am also weird enough for it not to matter.

The next day I was dropped off in Johannesburg city centre. I love this town, the
vendors, the taxis, and the bustle. I bought two chicken fillets and a cup of tea from
a street café. I sat on an upturned beer crate alongside another man eating his
mealiepap and fried meat. He also sat on a crate, the two of us on the pavement,
leaning against a shop window. We discussed the crime.

He had an easy view of gang lords and drug peddlers. “We are all scared of these
Nigerians,” he said. “It is because they are big and very black. We should not be
scared, they are a gentle people. They are good businessmen so if they sell dresses
they are at the top and if they sell drugs they are also at the top.”
The chicken breasts were a shocking pink colour but tasted great. The tea was
strong, hot and sweet.

Neither my liaison or Johannesburg Central had contacted me, so I walked to the

station and saw him. He did not seem to have arranged anything so I told him
what I intended doing over the next few days. He was not impressed and suggested
I should stay away from Alexandra Township. I decided to ignore him and continue
to visit every station within reach of my route.

Whilst I was walking back through the city I was furtively approached by a black
man.
“How are you, Mr. Roger?” he whispered.
I was taken by surprise until, despite his tatty clothes, I recognized him as one of
the Crime Prevention officers I had addressed a few days previously. Some of the
loiterers on street corners are there for a reason!
Chapter Five

Day 145 - 154

I talked to a management meeting at Johannesburg Central and then was taken to
Hillbrow to start walking. I talked to twelve senior staff at the Hillbrow Station. I
walked to Norwood and got lost trying to find the station. Eventually I presented
myself there to find that they had never heard of me. After trying to explain my
story to the third person in a row I realised I was wasting my time and left.

The next station along the route was Bramly and there I had a warm reception but
only very few people were available. They cooked some lunch for me and listened to
my talk.

I left and walked to Alexandra Township and the Police Station there. They too had
never heard of me despite my liaison officer‟s promise to arrange the talk.

The Director of the station was just polite at first. Once he realised what it was all
about he arranged for as many people as possible to attend the talk. Afterwards I
met each one personally – a long queue of wounded and beaten policemen who had
been at the rough end of the job for too long. They were knocked out by this white
man who had walked alone through one of the roughest areas in the world to tell
them that they were heroes.

Police from Midrand came out to pick me up and take me to the Protea Midrand
Hotel for the night.

The next morning the Manager of the Hotel arranged for the courtesy bus to take
me back to Alexandra to restart the walking. The driver refused to go into the
township. He told me that it was not his life he was concerned about, it was the
company vehicle. He just shook his head and dropped me on the outskirts. So I had
to walk in again and walk out. The people were generally friendly. One of them,
Terence, told me that if he could get off school, he would walk with me.

Later, in a more rural setting, I passed a man as I climbed a hill in what I call
constant velocity mode – just putting one foot in front of the other. Uphill,
downhill, tar, grass or gravel.
“Oshkosh!” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“Oshkosh… You look like an Oshkosh, those big trucks that come up this hill!”

Pretoria was better prepared than Johannesburg. I was interviewed by e-TV and
flighted on the news programme. Most dailies covered the event.

Best of all I got to talk to Police members at stations. I met several Senior Police
officials but the expected meeting with Steve Tshwete did not happen. I was
interviewed live by Radio Tuks. It is the radio station at Pretoria University and I
was intimidated by the radical intellectualism of their reputation. The station has
the second largest audience in the Gauteng region, approximately 65 000 listeners.
It went well, they were merciful and I think reasonably impressed.

I went looking for the real Pretoria that evening and found it friendly and full of
fun. In one of its seedier streets I walked past a hotel that must have been hosting
a working girls convention. The street and porch was full of young and attractive
ladies.
“Hi,” said the first I reached, “Need a good friend for a while?”
I laughed out loud and thought, “Do I ever,” but said, including them all, “Hi ladies
how are we?”
Some laughed, some looked away knowing there was no business and some said,
“Come over here.”
This is big business in the new South Africa.

Whilst in Pretoria I visited the Mamelodi station. I addressed a large group of

members and senior staff. The police district is 450 square kilometers and holds 1.5
million people. There are 300 policemen and women to serve this low-income
community. The Director of the station is an unassuming person and the Senior
Superintendent is a conservative Afrikaner. He is highly effective and well thought
of. I was told by one of the members that he understood them and they understood
him.

The community forum here is not rich but it is enthusiastic. The youth component
of the forum have painted out the cells with colourful murals. Bright ethnic
patterns and rural scenes prevent graffiti and possibly some despair. There are
some strong minds in this area even though there are no strong bank accounts.

The central authority of the South African Police Services has a rule that all
donations to any Police Station must go through them. They maintain, quite
justifiably, that some richer areas have a surplus of resources whilst other
extremely critical areas have very little. They reserve the right to redistribute
donations as they see the need. Also quite justifiably this results in would-be donors
in a community withholding their largess: what is the point of giving your local
station a BMW if the car will end up in Mamelodi.

There are no huge corporations to support this station which is one of the most
needy and deserving of help. It is typical of the argument presented by the central
management of the Police Services for the importance of all contributions being
distributed nationally rather than being kept in the districts where they originate.

I left Pretoria in pouring rain. It seems that the entire eastern portion of Southern
Africa consists of floods, deaths and broken bridges. I was escorted through sheets
of rain and trudged along streaming water alongside the road. One squad car
ahead of me and one behind. Within a short space of time water had soaked
through all the protection I could put on. I closed my mind to it all and withdrew
into that portion of myself that is warm and livable when everything on the outside
is total chaos. I was glad to arrive in time for a late lunch of hot coffee and
sandwiches at Wierda Brug.
Wierda Brug is just outside Pretoria. It too, has a district that covers 465 square
kilometers. The difference is that it contains 170 000 registered inhabitants and
two squatter camps with relatively small but unknown populations.
The area is rich and the Community Forum floated a non-profit organisation with a
start-up capital of R 1.5 million. Local industry and residents have donated
equipment and resources to this company. The company lends them to the Police
Station. The head office in Pretoria has no say over this. What is given in Wierda
Brug stays in Wierda Brug, so much is given.

The population reached its present level by growing 30% over the last few years.
Despite the increase in numbers, crime has dropped by 16%. The people at Wierda
Brug are proud of their station, proud of their achievements and best of all the
Police are proud of their community.

I walked back through Johannesburg for two days and never spoke to or was
contacted by any member of the Communications Department. I passed close by
several stations but was so negative about the entire issue that I made no effort to
talk to or visit them. I had been told not to visit the stations in Soweto, so I
thought, “Stuff you too,” and made the necessary arrangements to do so myself. I
am so glad I did.
Chapter Six

Day 155 - 160

I walked to the Dobsonville Police Station without too much trouble. I encountered
one or two surly faces but most people were friendly and many of them knew of me.
I stopped to ask directions from two people trying to fix a broken radiator on their
car and they recognised me immediately. As they were so friendly I told them I was
staying at the Protea Hotel in Berea and asked if there was a bus from the area into
the City. They told me that I must catch a taxi. They assured me that the taxi
drivers all knew about this crazy white man walking around the country and would
transport me free of charge. They were absolutely right. I visited Dobsonville
station, made arrangements to talk to the members and got on a taxi. The driver
would not hear of taking my money and spent the entire trip telling each new
passenger who I was and what I was doing.

The police at Dobsonville took me into their hearts. In the morning they were all
waiting for me at the taxi rank and escorted me into the station. The talk was
genuine and when I had finished a very large policewoman came out of the audience
and nearly smothered me with a hug that engulfed most of my body. She also gave
me R 20.00 which I was forced to accept. She turned to the others and said, “This
man has touched the soul of a hard-assed policewoman.”
All through Soweto people stopped me or walked beside me and talked until I
reached each station.

The streets were dirty and lined with sub-economic housing. Conditions were
crowded and the wet was obviously creating real problems for the people living
there. But more people greeted and passed the time of day with me in an hour than
had done so in a week of walking through the white suburbs of Johannesburg and
Pretoria.

The last station I visited in Soweto was Moroka. Here I received a very cold
reception and was really disappointed. When it was over two of the members gave
me a lift back to my original route in the van. I faced South and put Johannesburg
behind me.

Vereeniging was well prepared for my visit and lived up to the original concepts of
the walk. The station is active in the community and monitors car watch
organisations as well as actively promoting anti-substance abuse programmes in
the local schools. Their sister district station in Sebokeng also provided a good
reception and an opportunity to address members.

Vereeniging phoned ahead to a station on the Vaal River, known as The Barrage.
The Police at the Barrage are primarily River Police and they took me out onto the
river in the patrol boat. The trip revealed submerged houses and stranded
houseboats. We passed one of the hotel resort complexes. They had a crane
working awkwardly from what was once a terraced garden. They were busy lifting
a large cabin cruiser off of the roof of one of the chalets. The devastation was
tremendous. We passed by an island. On it five vagrants sat beside clothes drying
on the branches of a tree. We pulled up close to the bank.
“Are you all right?”
One of them shrugged his shoulders and waved at the piles of old wood and
corrugated iron around them.

I was told that they had been squatting on what was once a hill alongside the river.
The Police had tried to evacuate them from the hill that had suddenly become an
island but they refused. They preferred to stay with what meager possessions they
had managed to salvage. The young inspector alongside me shook her head, “We
brought them food yesterday but they won‟t move.”

In Parys no one had ever heard of me. I stood outside on the street trying to explain
to the sergeant in charge of the shift who and what I was. He was not interested.
In desperation I dug out some press clippings. He looked at them and said he would
try and phone one of his superiors. He disappeared into some offices. I waited for
about 15 minutes. He eventually came out with a cup of tea in his hand.
“There is no one available to speak to you,” he said, “you will have to move on.”

I crossed the border with no goodbyes from Gauteng and no hellos from the Free
State. I stood on one side and said, “Hello, Free State,” and then went across,
looked back and said, “Bye bye, Gauteng.” I laughed at myself, at the frustration I
had experienced on other occasions and walked into a land of huge seas of grass,
sunflowers and corn fields.
COMMENTARY
WHAT SURFACES…

Good news for conservatives: Racism is alive and well and living in Mpumalanga.
At a station in this area I stayed overnight with the station commander and his
family. Beautiful people with whom I could relax and be myself. The son plays
good rugby but is modest and well mannered. The daughter is a joy to be with – she
laughs from her heart and was concerned about real issues. In short a healthy
household with one small drawback.
We were all sitting in the lounge after sharing the evening meal. The father looked
at me.
“You were attacked in the Cape?”
“Yes,” I replied, “some youngsters with a gun took everything I had.”
“Kaffirs,” he said.
Everyone was sitting there, the two children, his wife and myself.
“You know I work with them and I have to do what I am told, but I will never allow
one in my house…even if he was an area commissioner.”
I tried to see how far he would go and later in the conversation said, “…of course I
am a Scot and we don‟t like the English.”
“You are right,” he replied, “there are two of them on the sports committee and they
are arrogant assholes.”

These sentiments were not always expressed to me so openly but in many places the
feelings were there; identified by an eagerness to find support in my opinions and
beliefs. Although Mpumalanga is not necessarily the site of concentrated
discrimination I encountered it more openly and more frequently than elsewhere.
„THE RONDAVELS‟

It was pouring with rain and I was picked up by a new addition to the “Let‟s
support Roger Russell” Club. We pulled off the road because he wanted to show me
something.
We entered a small building backed by several rondavels. In fact the place was well
known locally by that name.

Inside I found a cozy bar and a small poolroom. My companion and myself were the
only males present but there were six women; three at the bar, one behind it,
serving, and two at a pool table. They all looked up hopefully as we entered but on
seeing my companion relaxed. I was casually inspected and then, rather
deflatingly, dismissed.

It was warm, it was relaxed and the beer was good.

“I brought Roger to meet you,” my companion announced to the large but good-
looking lady behind the bar. “He is walking around the country supporting the
police.”
She looked at me and winked, “That‟s a bit different, my girls do it on their backs.”

It costs R 250.00 an hour, which, considering what I learned in the course of the
afternoon was expensive. I must make it clear at this point that what I learned, I
learned in the bar and not in the rondavels. I am glad about that.

This business has much romance attached to it and should be legalized. It is a fact
of life that will not go away and for the sake of the unfortunates that perform the
work, if nothing else, it should be lifted above the level of people that currently
manage it.

The owner had bought the place some years before and tried to start a Bed and
Breakfast. This had failed so he tried a restaurant and bar. This was also not
successful so he got in some girls, and a madam and started a brothel. Brothels are
currently illegal but business was good. Now the operation is well known to all
throughout the area including the police. I was assured that they take a very
broad-minded and liberal approach to the issue, frequently taking time to check the
quality of services provided.

A good few beers and some laughs later the girls and I were talking openly about
how they work and what people like myself believed about them. None of them
were stunningly beautiful but all of them seemed nice enough. All of them live on
the property, including the owner and his wife. There is apparently plenty of
friction and the Madam, it seems, is not above dishing out some head shaking slaps
from time to time.
 One of the girls was six months pregnant. She was so very young and not the most
attractive of them.
The Madam turned to her and said quite sharply, “You will have to go you know.
We can‟t carry you and the bloody child.”
She turned to me, “We can‟t afford for the girls to get pregnant. People will think
we don‟t care. If you can get pregnant you can get AIDS.”
She must have sensed that I was not very impressed.
“We have the girls checked every month and examined by a local doctor.” She
laughed suddenly, “Me too, sometimes very thoroughly.”
“That‟s good,” I replied, “the more beer I drink, the better you look.” I regretted it
as soon as I said it, but no one turned a hair.

The pregnant girl started to cry, got up and left. One of the others said, “It‟s a
shame, we should all chip in and keep her here. It could be our baby.”
“Don‟t be bloody simple... She is simple up here”, the Madam tapped her head,
“Looks like it‟s catching. She‟s dirty anyway. We‟ll be well rid of her.”
“She‟s not as dirty as Josie,” retorted the other, “We have to keep telling her to
brush her teeth. You told her to wash her bum the other day because you could
smell her clear across the room.”
“She‟s not pregnant.”
The Madam turned to my companion, “Another beer, Mike?”
That was the end of that topic.

Like most businesses the employees reflect the standards of the owner or manager.
This one was not exactly my idea of a principled entrepreneur. I am convinced that
only someone with a very poor opinion of the human race could happily make
money out of people in this way. The girls seem cleaner and less affected by what
they do than he does. Most of them seem fairly straightforward but at a very basic
level. I cannot bring myself to allocate the same moral responsibility to them as I
can to their pimp.
SHEBEEN

He had been told to look after me. There was not much else in his in-tray. In fact
since he had created problems with his traditional approach to discipline there had
never been much in his in-tray. Once he had been in charge of the station. He still
held the rank of superintendent.

He took me around the town and explained some of its violent history. It was a big
town and served a large rural district. There were two taxi ranks, one for ANC
supporters and another one, far away, for IFP supporters. The two major political
factions of the area could not bring themselves to park alongside each other. There
had been much bloodshed in the past and a recent spate of killings indicated that it
would continue.

I stayed with him and his wife that night and we drove to his small grocery store
out near some of the villages. The back of his panel van was completely filled with
crates of beer.
“Don‟t mention this to anyone,” he said, “I don‟t have a license and officially I am
not even supposed to be running any business, let alone selling booze. It‟s all in my
wife‟s name so basically it‟s OK.”
He shook his head, laughing, “The Police don‟t give a shit about me. I am just
sticking it out for my pension. I paid for it so I am going to make sure I get it. Now
I use whatever I can. People owe me past favours, I gave them a little bit of help in
something embarrassing and still do, but they have to reciprocate. When I retire I‟ll
have a good little number going.”
He waved his hand around at the countryside, “Here, where my shop is, it‟s mostly
IFP. They look after my shebeen. I look after their good name. They like me
because I do what I can for them down at the station. If it were ANC around here I
would have to move. I never got on with them.

For some people this is no longer their country. They have no patriotism. They
might as well be an Englishman doing business in France. Let‟s make some money,
make sure I‟m OK and so what if a few locals kill each other.

The man was no longer a policeman. The uniform had become a convenience. Law
was not there to be respected and upheld – it was an incidental, something that
other uniforms kept up front while you got on behind the scenes manipulating both
them and it.

Once he had been in charge of the station, now he was not even in charge of himself.

As a postscript I was surprised some weeks later and some distance down the road
to hear this man‟s name. It was mentioned casually as a case which was known
and that was being watched. There are individuals that have lost the way but the
service has kept on track.
 SECTION 6

THE ORANGE FREE STATE

Chapter One

Day 164 - 168

I arrived in Kroonstad to an initially wary reception. After some explanation and
my obvious willingness to help, things started to improve. I was introduced to the
Station Commander and accommodation was arranged at a local holiday resort. A
Captain from the Crime Prevention unit took responsibility for my visit and I was
kept busy.

Some young children from a local school were visiting the station. In between the
demonstrations of dog handling and exposure to fire arms I was able to talk to a
group of bright, trusting young souls about the need to be friends with each other on
this side of the law. The difference between this station and those that isolate
themselves from their communities is what feeds my hope for the survival of the
faith that I saw in the eyes of the little ones.

The afternoon was taken up with visits to various business people that are involved
with anti-crime initiatives. The community is still growing its relationships and
there are problems. The farm watch will have nothing to do with the business
watch and so on.

I attended and addressed a meeting of the business watch in the evening. Lack of
government finance and cries of, “The Police Service is not a security company so
why must we pay extra?” are threatening its existence. The truth is that for a token
R 55.00 per month businesses that have joined get visited twice a day, are part of a
nightly patrol route and have a say in the management of the service.

Kroonstad also has several reservists that fall into the unemployed hopefuls
category. They have the heart of a police person but not the job. They carry on in
the hope that one day they will be accepted onto the service on a permanent basis. I
met one who is pleasant, smart and well trained. Unfortunately his education is
one year short of the required level. Some of the other permanent members on the
station are contributing to his private study costs. Initiatives like the business
watch night patrol allow him to earn at least something for his trouble.

The next morning I was picked up and taken to address two schools. The first talk
was to an entire school at morning assembly. I did not feel comfortable with the
usual, “Hey China… Ek sê” street talk approach so it was a bit flat and pleased the
circle of teachers behind me rather than the mass of skeptical faces in front of me.

The next school was a private one and the group very small. I was preceded by a
vibrant and enthusiastic young lady selling commitment to a religious programme.
I tried to build on what she had said and it went comparatively well. I was then
taken back to the station and addressed two separate groups of police members. All
in all a very satisfactory two days work. This in a station where I had not allowed
time for such interest. It meant that I did not get away until 12.00 noon but that
did not matter. I had my back to a positive experience and could face the flat blue
highway with purpose.
Chapter Two

Day 168 - 174

Despite the late start I managed 30km by the end of the day and it cost me. My
temperature was high and I felt very weak. Walking through the middle of the day
with its heat just does not work. Fortunately I was to be accommodated at another
resort for the next five nights. Protea Hotels had recently acquired the
management of Aventura Resorts and one of these was just the other side of the
next town. Barbara had made the arrangements and a very supportive manager
had agreed to run me back and forth to the road for as long as it took for me to pass
through the area. I had two free days in my pocket so the opportunity to exchange
the hardships of the roadside for the luxury of a chalet was not to be missed.

That first night I needed the rest but did not sleep well. The next morning I took a
light pack and memories of strange, vivid dreams to the road with me. Something
was wrong but cool conditions and an easy 20km into Ventersburg combined to
make the day bearable. Ventersburg was prepared for me. The work of the resort
manager and advance information from Kroonstad saw to that.

However Ventersburg is not a happy station and the racial split was obvious. The
Station Commander was very helpful but told me that there was no Community
forum operating in his area. One of his staff told me that there was. When I asked
around I found out that there was in fact a group but that it was comprised of
radical young members of the local township.

There had been friction and the communications between the Commander and the
forum had broken down. The town has an Afrikaner heart and a large body of poor,
like so many other rural towns in South Africa. The conservative community
measures the usefulness of its police service by the number of whites on the payroll
whilst the township residents use the same numbers to assess its lack of interest in
them. The black police members I spoke to at the station did not respond well to
me. I met few people from the community so was unable to confirm the little I had
been told.

Two days rest at the resort allowed me to work on an address to the Orange Free
State Farmer‟s Association. This was scheduled to be given in Bloemfontein which
was not far down the road.

Monday saw me back in Ventersburg where I addressed the children at the local
primary school and then some of the members at the station. I was taken to visit
the S.A.P.S. museum, which is small but well structured. The original police
station of this area has been completely restored with much of the original
equipment and documentation. I was shown around by a very lovely young
inspector who is obviously responsible for the magic of the place. I was reluctant to
leave and only started on the road at 11.00 am.
My bad experience with the heat forgotten, I walked through the middle of the day
and paid the price. The last few kilometers took more than an hour and were
punctuated by bouts of nausea and dizziness. When I was eventually picked up I
was really ill. I managed to keep up a reasonable front whilst I was in the company
of the manager but when I got into the chalet I was a wreck.

My temperature was sky high and my skin dry. All I could think of was getting my
temperature down fast. I stripped and got into a cold shower. When the water hit
me I started shaking and then convulsing so badly that I had to lower myself to the
floor. I stuck it out for about ten minutes and then dried myself off. I fell onto the
bed and, shivering uncontrollably, fell asleep. I slept for an hour and woke up cold
but feeling much better. I was definitely not well and would need to exercise more
control over my walking times in the heat.

I said my goodbyes to the staff at the resort in the morning. We had become good
friends over the few days I had stayed there. The manager has a son at Grey‟s
College in Bloemfontein. Grey‟s is one of the best private schools in the country and
his offer to assist in arranging for me to talk to the boys there was an exciting
prospect.

I managed the walking carefully and aside from feeling a little weak, the only
symptom I had remaining was a rash all over my legs and feet. I reached Winburg
at about 5.00 pm and reported to the Station. It is a neat and tidy building with a
pleasant and friendly reception area. The man on duty knew of me and telephoned
my appointed host. I was taken to the local hotel where I had been given
accommodation paid for by the Tea club.

That evening, after a meal, I went to the pub for a beer. There were some pretty
rough people there and the music was too loud. A very shapely blond was
undulating around the floor all by herself. She seemed to be lost in a world of her
own; dancing extravagantly as if dreaming. I watched her until she picked up on it
and started waving her hips in my direction. One of the men took this as a sign
that he should be paying more attention to her. She responded by coming over to
me and striking up a conversation. I bought her a drink and left; it was not my
scene.

A very strange morning indeed. I walked to the station but no one seemed to know
what I was supposed to be doing. My supposed host had gone somewhere and
everyone believed that the accommodation was all that was required. There was no
attempt to introduce me to anyone in authority.

I wandered into a tearoom where I explained that I should be talking to the

members. Four people were brought into the canteen and I was introduced as
Roger Rush who was investigating conditions at the station. They were told that I
would be asking them some questions, which they should answer as honestly as
they could. The inspector who had made this rather startling introduction then left
the room.

I looked around at the few sullen faces and apologized for the misunderstanding. I
then gave the standard address but it was not well received.
Afterwards I hung around for a while then wandered down the passage. I wanted
to send a fax to the Area office in Bloemfontein warning them of my arrival and the
morning so far, made it seem essential. I found someone to do this for me. Then,
saying goodbye to who ever would listen, I left.

The sad thing is that because the original objective of motivating the members often
got lost, the introduction was almost accurate. The gathering of information as I
walked had become the only thing that gave the project some purpose. I saw myself
as a member of the community and the way in which the stations responded to me
was the only measure I had of how they were responding to any member of the
community. Our relationship with our police is growing and for it to grow well
there must be transparency. I can contribute to what we both know about each
other…if I am honest about what happens to me.

The backpack was heavy and walking difficult. The culverts were better so my
nights were at least comfortable. One night the rain caught me at the wrong end of
a culvert and at 1.00 am I had to shift everything to the other end. Once back in
the bag, I slept well.

Water always remained a problem and once, finding none, I had to call in at a
farmhouse. As usual everything was open and the family friendly. Farmers are by
nature hospitable so their safety is compromised by their love of the open rather
than by the fact that they are victims of vengeance. It would be a great tragedy to
lose this quality to a need for security.

It is as bad an assumption to classify South African farmers as brutal land barons

as it is to classify black people as dishonest or lazy. The farmers and the price they
are paying for their open hearts was much on my mind and I decided to work the
problem into my address to them.
Chapter Three

Day 174 - 179

The Bloemfontein Police had not made any effort to contact me so I had no idea
what waited for me in that city. I could only hope that the fax I had sent from
Winburg bore fruit. Even if they had arranged nothing I had at least confirmed a
talk to Grey‟s College and the address to the Agricultural Association.
Patrick assisted me to find water today. Patrick was walking along the road and
caught up with me on the way home from school. Probably about nineteen or
twenty he told me he still had two years to go before he obtained his Matric. We
had a good talk and I learnt all about his girlfriend and her child by him.

He also told me that he had read about me in class when they had discussed the
newspapers. He took me to the little group of dilapidated shacks where he lives and
I filled my water bottles. He asked me where I would sleep and I told him alongside
the road. He did not believe me. A famous white man who had his picture in the
newspaper, sleeping in a ditch was not possible in his understanding of the world.

I arrived in Bloemfontein without having had any contact with the police there. I
decided to leave it until the next day. I wandered around until I found the Protea
Hotel and booked in.

The day started well. I was picked up by Peter and taken to address the farmers.
Most of the local press was there as were two radio stations. I did not use the notes
but spoke from my heart. I spoke of the need to work together with other anti-crime
groups. Of the need to tackle crime and to protect their lifestyle.

The perfect farmer lives in Sandton; he has razor wire, panic buttons and lives
behind a concrete wall. But he has no clue who his neighbour is. I asked if it was
O.K. to bring a Sandton City lifestyle to the country. I spoke about the hospitality
of the „Boer‟, which literally translated means „farmer‟, but in South Africa has
become synonymous with Afrikaner.

We have been given a sacred trust, our parents have handed the country down to us
with the principles by which we should live in it. No matter how the politics had
changed we should ensure that we hand the best country we could on to our
children; they would take it further.

What we handed on would depend largely on our involvement in its growth right
now. Were we standing back and saying, “The country has been given away!”? Or
were we making an effort to share in its potential. I reminded them that the
history of the Afrikaner is not one of hiding when there is work to be done but one of
fighting for justice and a place in the sun.

It was very well received and the press coverage was excellent. I had a very
positive reaction from the radio stations and did two live interviews over the next
few days. I was very pleased, despite the absence of the police, Bloemfontein was
getting the message.
When it was all over I walked straight to the S.A.P.S. Area Office and asked to see
the Commissioner. I was surprisingly well received and people seemed to know who
I was. However there had been no arrangements made for any kind of work or
meetings.

I explained the purpose of the walk and once again a Captain was appointed to
make it possible for me to do what I had come to do. I was told that I would be
taken care of, that I would be handed over at the border to the Northern Cape by a
senior official, in short, that the project was back on track.

I visited and addressed members at Central Park, Hoffman Plein, Navalsig,

Bainsvlei and Heidedal Stations. The address at Heidedal went particularly well.
After it was over I was told that there had been serious staff problems there, so I
had come at the right time.

The manager at the Protea Hotel invited me to attend the staff breakfast the next
day and I gave a short address about the walk. On Tuesday I spoke to the boys at
Grey‟s College. My reception there was everything I had expected it to be. It is not
the behaviour of the boys that is impressive, so much as the maturity of the
behaviour. I was able to promote the achievement of dreams, knowing that they
had the youthful vigour as well as the adult practicality to make the issues their
own.

I also attended a meeting of the CPF chairpersons at the area office. To my

surprise I was attacked by a radical individual using the walk as a political
platform. Everyone sat in stunned silence whilst he ranted and raved about the
fact that I did not represent the people. He said that if I as much as hinted that I
did he would go to the national press and his contacts in Parliament and get the
walk stopped. He made himself look a little ridiculous. I felt sorry for him and did
my best to appease him but without success.

Later, at about 9.30 pm, I was picked up by a patrol van from Parkweg. I rode
around the streets with them for a while. They are a rough bunch of people but
good natured enough. The city was quiet. The only call we had was to remove a
drunk from the foyer of an apartment building.

The drunk turned out to be a woman. Between abusing every one‟s family
connections in the foulest language possible she insisted on spitting at all of us.
The two policemen were a great deal more restrained than the complainant who
would have hit her if the police had not stopped him. We put her out onto the street
and followed her a little way down the road until she went into another building,
which was where she was supposed to be.

Back at the station I gave my standard talk to the members on shift. Afterwards I
was taken by some of the shift for coffee. We went to the Wimpy at one of the big
service stations on the bypass. Tea or coffee is always freely available to the police
on patrol at these garages along the national road. The garages are very exposed
and the system works a bit like a visible policing project. A van full of thirsty
policemen can arrive at any time, so would-be thieves have their hands full trying
to predict when they should strike.
Wednesday was quiet and I organised myself for the continuation of the walk the
next day.

I walked out of Bloemfontein on Thursday after giving a final address to the

administrative staff at Parkweg. It was well attended and the press was again
present. After it was over I was escorted out of town by the horse unit. I was on my
way to Kimberly.
Chapter Four

Day 179 - 183

In order to visit as many of the larger centres as possible I had planned to switch
from the N1 to the N12 at this point. This meant that I had to use a fairly minor
road through Dealesville and Boshof. The national roads are built with better
drainage and so have frequent and well constructed culverts. This road, like all of
the secondary roads, was not kind to a hobo like me.

The day was hot and in the early afternoon I had no water left. On passing a
roadside shop; bottle store, butcher and café, I went in and asked the owner
permission to fill my water bottles. When he refused I could not believe it. He said
that he only had water for himself and needed it for his kitchen.

I walked out of the shop and on passing the house next door asked the man working
in the garden if I could have some from the garden tap. It turned out to be the shop
owner‟s house. When I told the gardener the story he shook his head but had no
problem in giving me the water. I had even less of a problem in taking it.

The road to Dealesville was three days of little water, hot sun and thorn trees. The
variety of road kill had stretched to include dead water monitors and tortoises. The
culverts were virtually non-existent, as were trees I could hide under.

I was glad to reach the police station at Dealesville. They were expecting me and
had arranged accommodation at a guesthouse near the town.

“Lemoenhoek” as it was called, was a little bit of Free State Magic. I had better
food there than in some of the up market restaurants I have eaten in. The cost was
next to nothing and the place is worth a visit purely to enjoy the sincere friendliness
of the owners. The costs of my stay were borne by the station‟s tea boat, which is
surprisingly healthy for such a small town. However it is obviously put to good use,
as the station is clean and well equipped.

Back on the road the next day I was forced to walk 36 km to find a poor camp
behind some thorn trees. The road had virtually no culverts or safe sites for my
meager camp. A spider got into my sock somehow and I was bitten. It was painful
for me but not the spider as he died instantly from un-natural causes when I got my
hands on him.

Just outside of Boshof something really nice happened. A police van passed me on
its way into town and then pulled over. A big, smiling black sergeant offered me a
lift. I laughed and refused, saying something about the walk. The confusion this
caused made me realize that he had no idea who I was. His offer had been
completely spontaneous.
When I explained to him what I was all about his face fell. He asked me not to
mention the offer to anyone, as he was not allowed to use his van to give lifts. He
was sorry but had thought it was too hot to be walking. I assured him that I would
say nothing. He drove on, somewhat re-assured but probably cursing his own good
nature. I was impressed. Here in the middle of nowhere, the relationship between
black and white, police and community, was easy enough for normal, friendly
behaviour.

The station at Boshof lived up to this friendly contact. The Station Commander
spent time with me and told me a great deal about the policing of his area. His
attitude is liberal and receptive, the management of the station is relaxed and
everyone seemed to be happy.

The CPF was there to meet me in reasonable numbers. They represented most of
the groups in the community. The community policing officer was enthusiastic
about their work. There are regular meetings with shebeen owners. Information
flows freely and responsibilities are shared.

Soccer clubs play a major role in the community. The matches are social events
attracting nearly everybody. Because of this the management groups also attend
the CPF meetings. I addressed the few members available as well as the
community people present.

Boshof has no automatic bank teller so the few rands I had left were spent on very
basic foodstuff. My cooking gas was low so I was limited to food that I could eat cold
if need be.

Kimberly was close and I had three days in which to reach it. I had been told that
some senior police officials would hand me over from the Free State to Northern
Cape and this was confirmed by the Station Commander at Boshof. Cold coffee,
boring food and a painful, swollen foot, could not dampen my spirits. An excellent
visit to a happy and constructive station behind me and hope for our future ahead of
me. This was all I needed to eat up the day.

Surprise, surprise, Tina and Jackie phoned me today. They have not spoken to me
since October last year. They are meeting with Arthur Gillis tomorrow and need to
discuss my reception in Cape Town. This hammered home the pending completion
of the walk and started thoughts about what I would be doing when it was all over.
Back in a world of commitments, telephone bills, appointments and clocks.

Dark clouds, closing the sky above me, and a strong wind seemed to appear out of
the air around me as if summoned. I forcibly took control and focused on the fact
that this walk was successful. The story of it was full of good people and strong
hope. This did nothing to change the weather but helped the way I lifted my head
and walked into it a great deal.
Chapter Five

Day 184 - 186

I stayed on a farm last night. A man in a small truck stopped as light rain started
to raise the smell of dust from the road. He asked what I thought I was doing miles
from anywhere with night coming. He would not contemplate the possibility of me
sleeping under a bush and took me home.

His farm was at least 10 km from the road and lay nestled at the start of a small
range of hills. The next morning I asked if I could walk back to the road through
the farm fields. I had the time and the country was powerful in its raw beauty. I
was glad I did. I saw ostrich, blesbok, springbok and a variety of smaller animal life
including a snake of some length. It was a special morning of waving grasslands,
paths of red earth and loneliness of the best possible kind.

Lunchtime found me back on the road with the shade of a reasonable culvert to rest
in. I worked on my notes and dozed off. I was woken by the rumble of thunder.
The sky was black and flashes of lightning were approaching at frightening speed. I
foolishly wasted time taking some photographs and then started moving my gear
further into the culvert.

The storm could not wait and hit hard. The wind came roaring through the culvert,
pelting me with debris and mud. I threw all my stuff into a heap and sat on it. I
battled to open up the poncho and got it over myself and the gear but the force of
the wind threatened to lift me and the backpack from the ground.

The hailstones came next; blown through the culvert at a speed that carried them
like bullets, parallel to the ground. I hid my head in my arms and bore the pain
with my teeth clenched. Suddenly it was over, the wind dropped to bearable limits
as quickly as it had come up. Then the rain started in earnest.

Water was now starting to flow strongly into the culvert. My boots, which had been
standing against the wall, twitched and then started to float away. I had to grab
things desperately and throw them into the backpack. Somehow I saved everything
and got my feet back into the boots. I put the pack on my back, covered everything
with the poncho and struggled out from under the culvert.

The lightning had passed by as the storm moved on. I climbed onto some high
ground and stood facing the wind to keep the poncho under control. The water in
the culvert below me continued to rise as an immense amount of water flowed out of
the veldt around me and then under the road. A snake was swept past me, the
second one I had seen in the space of a few hours.

I stayed standing until the rain slowed to a drizzle. I moved out onto the road,
faced Kimberly and started walking. I did not even look in the bag. I did not need
to; I knew everything was soaked, including the latest batch of notes. I squelched
on regardless.

As could be expected I did not even look for a culvert to sleep in. I found a tree and
set up behind it. I put up camp in the rain, pissed in the rained and ate a cold
supper in the rain. I kept what little gas I had left for some coffee. I had lost my
teaspoon in the rain and had to guess quantities. The coffee was too weak and too
sweet. I drank it anyway and climbed into bed.

The sleeping bag had never left my backpack but was damp and cold. Just as I
started to feel it warm up I was woken up by a persistent scratch, scratch coming
from under the groundsheet where my head was resting. I dragged the sheet up
and exposed a large beetle digging a nest under it. He froze when the torchlight
struck him.

I had had enough for the day and lifted a rock to send him to beetle hell. He looked
so guilty that I burst out laughing instead and I put everything back as I had found
it. He was not so considerate and spent the entire night digging. Every time the
truck lights went past and woke me up, I had to listen for a few minutes to confirm
that it was him and not some new intruder. All in all a miserable night.

At 9.00 am I was on the border between the two provinces. The press arrived first
and then a superintendent with a community policing officer from Kimberly. To my
embarrassment no one arrived from the Free State to hand me over. I mentally
shrugged it off, Kimberly was just three hours walk away. Kimberly meant a bath,
laundry and some dry clothes. It was about time. I had only been wet for twenty
hours but it seemed as if I had been wet forever.
COMMENTARY
GENTLE GIANTS

Carla and Frik Odendaal are both in their sixties and have a sad and tough story to
tell. Their farm has been in the family for generations but they only took it over in
the early nineties. The farm is a haven of peace and lies between some hills that
allow the rain to fall more easily on the veldt around them. As a result the
farmhouse is surrounded by trees and grass. The bird and animal life is prolific.

When they first arrived there was a troop of monkeys resident in the hills behind
the house. They viewed Carla and Frik with a great deal of suspicion and only
showed themselves by mistake, not by intention. They have learnt to trust since
then and now come down to the house regularly. I sat in the lounge and two of
them walked a wide path around me to sit behind Carla on the couch. She fed them
grapes by hand while we talked.

She is constantly followed by a small peahen. The bird was found abandoned and
has been part of the household ever since. Frik is small and wiry and older than
she is. He is practical about all the animals but loves her. So he loves her ways and
the friends she makes.

I have a picture of the two of them walking down the driveway to meet me on the
road. They were holding hands, she with a sunbonnet on her head and Frik with a
basket in his hand which I soon found out contained a coffee flask and biscuits.
Alongside them were several dogs and, of course, the peahen.

Things have not always been so peaceful. Sometime after the first democratic
elections they employed an additional labourer. He was trouble from the start. He
showed little respect for Carla and when Frik was not around would not take
instructions. He was found drunk once too often and Frik asked him to leave the
farm. To their surprise he did.

About a week later he returned with a woman in tow and demanded liquor. Frik
refused and told him to get off the property. Some of the other workers were
standing watching to see what would happen. The woman swore at Frik and Carla,
telling them that their time had come and today they would die. Carla‟s dog, a
Rottweiler/Doberman cross was with her. Carla threatened to let the dog go. The
woman showed no fear and said that she would kill the dog too.

The atmosphere had changed for Carla. Previously it had been one of anger and
frustration, now it was frightening her. She sensed a real threat in the woman‟s
attitude. She let the dog go.

The dog did not hesitate, it knew instinctively who was dangerous and went
straight for the woman. Carla hardly saw the woman move. To her it seemed that
the woman had punched the dog in the side. The dog whimpered and collapsed on
the ground.

Then everything seemed to happen very quickly. The woman leapt at Frik and the
knife that she had stabbed the dog with was suddenly very visible. Carla tried to
help her husband and the woman turned on her, knife flashing. The man picked up
a piece of wood and continued the attack on Frik, beating him to the ground. Carla
felt herself fall and looked up to see the woman kneeling beside her with the knife
raised.

Then it stopped. Although the workers had done nothing, perhaps too shocked or
frightened to move, someone else had intervened. The farmer next door was away
and the black man that was looking after it for him had come to ask Frik‟s advice.
When he saw what was happening he dragged the woman off Carla and punched
her, taking the knife. The other farm workers then fled, as did the two attackers.

Although he wanted to help the two of them, Carla, now in shock, would not let
him. She insisted that they would be all right and chased him home. Frik was in a
bad way. He was bleeding from several places on his body and he could not talk
properly. He tried to stop Carla from sending their helper away but could not get
the words out.

Whilst Carla was trying to get him into the house he managed to convey to her that
she should rather put him in the car. She did this and then realizing that she
would be going to the hospital went inside to change her dress. It was covered in
blood. When she got back to the car she saw that the new dress was also covered in
blood. She changed again, and then again.

Frik could not understand why she kept getting in and out of the car. Eventually
he managed to get some words out and begged her to stop, to take him to hospital.
Carla was not in control, did not realize that the blood was hers and was more
concerned about being seen with soiled clothes in town than she was aware of the
situation. Finally she listened.

They both survived. She had been stabbed eight times. He had been stabbed
seventeen times and had his jawbone broken in three places. The attackers were
arrested and charged. There were enough witnesses to make the charges stick but
the magistrate decided that there had been provocation as Carla had set the dog on
the woman. The sentences were light and within a year the two were back in the
district. They are still there.

Another farmer, on the farm next door, has since been killed. He was lured out of
the house at night when someone switched off the generator and his lights failed.

Carla and Frik are vulnerable and find it hard to trust the poorer community
around them. They decided sometime ago to run the farm without labourers. Carla
runs the house and the domestic animals. Frik works in the veldt with the cattle.
When he has to lift heavy equipment or needs a helping hand he fetches Carla and
she does the same.

Carla told me of an afternoon when Frik had gone to work at the far end of the
farm. A black man walked into the garden of the farmhouse and called out to see if
anyone was there. She came out onto the porch with a rifle and asked him what he
wanted. He asked if she was alone and started to walk towards her. She lifted the
gun and he put his hands up, but kept coming. She asked him to stop; he did not
listen so she fired a shot over his head. This was too much for him and he turned
and ran. As he went down the path two more blacks appeared from behind the
trees and ran with him.

Carla was now very frightened. Frik was alone and unarmed. It was more than
possible that he was already dead. She took the gun and ran for the car. When she
arrived at the place he was working he was fine. He had not even heard the shot.

But the problem goes beyond the fact that they might die on the farm; they are
worried that they might lose it to a re-settlement bill or have it taken away by the
locals. The farm is everything to them and without it their life would not be worth
much.

Since they have been alone on the farm they have frequently lost animals to stock
thieves. The local police told me that they had not had much success in catching
anyone. But they also told me that they do not pay much attention to minor stock
theft.

The night I slept on the farm I woke up in the night to hear shouting and screaming
from somewhere far in the distance. Early in the morning one of the workers from
a nearby farm came to the house. He asked Carla to phone the police as one of his
family had been stabbed in the night.

A little while later a police van arrived to pick me up. On our way into town we
attended the stabbing complaint. We arrived at a small cluster of shacks to find
everyone making breakfast. They were cooking on an open fire in the middle of the
shacks. Children and adults were walking back and forth.

The man that had been stabbed was lying in the way with a blanket over him. The
family was stepping over him as if he did not exist. We went to look at him. He
was alive but still very drunk. The stab wound was halfway down his chest on the
left side.

He was not able to make much sense so the policeman decided to leave him there.
The radio did not work as we were too far out of town. Once we were back in range
a call was put through for an ambulance. No one showed any real concern. Life is
cheap here and for stock thieves it is even cheaper. If Frik and Carla are in the way
one day, the death of a white farmer, even if he or she is gentle and caring will not
mean too much.
JUST ANOTHER DEAD FARMER

Her husband had committed suicide two years before. She was advised to leave the
farm by friends and family. The local police, because it was a small community,
lent their weight to an already overwhelming argument to sell.
“Move into town”.
“The country is in turmoil.”
“You should not be alone.”
“Another farmer was murdered yesterday…” The logic was solid.

But she would not, did not. She did agree to phone the neighbour every afternoon
and tell him she was OK. Mostly she remembered but sometimes she forgot. She
was well into her seventies.

The only time I saw her; I saw only her two feet. She was wearing cheap boots and
thin black socks. She was lying on the floor of a police van. A blanket covered her
head but not the cheap boots. The blanket was too short and she was too dead to
care.

She did not phone on the Wednesday afternoon. She did not phone on Friday. On
Saturday her neighbour told his wife he would call in on his way to town and see if
she was all right.
When he arrived at the house everything looked fine but no one answered the door.
He went around to the back to find the back door open. The silence disturbed him
and he called repeatedly. No one answered.
He started into the house and saw old food on the kitchen table. He stopped,
backed out and called the police.

They found her sitting fully clothed on the toilet. Her hands were bound with wire
and she had been shot in the neck with a small caliber revolver. On the kitchen
table, on a plate, were some thick slices of buttered bread liberally spread with jam.
Beside it, a large mug filled with cold tea.

The evidence suggests that someone came to the door and asked for bread or money.
She prepared what she believed would be appreciated. It was not even touched.
Instead, whoever it was, took all the bread and teas she would ever offer to anyone
again. He took the farm from her and he took a little patriotism from all of us that
know the story. He left the refrigerator door open but took nothing from the
shelves. He took the guns in the house but nothing else. Perhaps what he wanted
was her humanity. The farmers have plenty of that whilst predators like him have
none at all. The real question is, “Will our humanity eventually become the price of
stopping him?”
 SECTION 7

NORTHERN CAPE
Chapter One

Day 186 - 195

Two great things happened to me in Kimberly; Firstly Milanda and Tim from
Grahamstown detoured off a trip from Johannesburg to come and see me. They
spent a night in a local hotel and we had lots of pasta and a great deal of red wine
at Panarotti‟s.

But I also had friends in Kimberly. I abused their hospitality and spent a day in
their garden cleaning all my gear. The six months of walking, rain, dust and ditch
dirt had taken their toll. Most of it looked disgusting. It was nice to be in a normal
home with people that understood my needs.

The next day I went to visit Hospice. My friend runs the facility and she walked me
through the rooms introducing me to the patients. Suddenly everything I was
doing, the police, the walk and all its problems were pushed firmly aside and I
revisited a broken part of my heart. Memories associated with the hospital smells
and sounds flooded my awareness. The need for my wife overwhelmed me. The pain
of her absence from everything that mattered cut me like a knife.

This is what started it all. The walking, the belief that people are essentially good
and the sure knowledge that every event, no matter how appalling, has a purpose.

Now I was only doing the work, we had paid the price a long time ago. It had been
devastatingly expensive. I would not, could not let the inefficiency or disregard of
others stand in the way of achieving what I believed I had been left behind to do.

Modderivier came and went. The roads are hot and the air laden with moisture
from the rain drying up into the atmosphere. My knee is starting to give me trouble
again and the distance between towns is increasing, which means a heavier pack.

On the road I saw a sign that said Belmont Police Station. I looked across the dust-
heavy landscape and saw a small town in the horizon haze. I decided to visit it.
The station was really nice, pretty and well cared for. They had no idea I was
coming so I did not expect much but they treated me well.

The officer on duty took me to the local grocery shop. There are only two shops in
the entire town, and the owner drove home and brought back sandwiches for my
lunch. The officer was black and the shop owner and his wife white. From the
friendly banter between them I knew that the relationship was solid. Back at the
station the policeman told me that when they get called out for serious incidents,
the shop owner comes across and runs the station.
In Hopetown I heard a new story. They were expecting me but seemed at a loss
when I started to ask about the station. Finally I asked the inspector what he had
been told about the project. He did not hesitate for a second.
“I was told to arrange accommodation and a meal for you. You are on a fundraising
walk for the National Cancer Association.”

I was given a room and a meal at a motel next to the bridge over the Orange River.
Supper was a mixed grill; lamb chops, tough steak, a Vienna sausage, some polony,
bacon, fried eggs and a huge pile of chips, followed by strong dark coffee.

A constant stream of cars, caravans and trucks stopped and started from the apron
outside. Some just for petrol, some coming inside for take-aways or cigarettes. The
entire scene was defined by the country and western music in the background.

To the tune of “Promise me son, not to do what I have done…” I wondered about the
importance that people place on their images. Here was the life we had structured
in South Africa, a BMW driver with a bulging wallet, impatient but tipping,
nonetheless. The pump jockey who would probably spend the tip on some cheap
wine but get more out of the few rands than the original owner ever would have. A
dog wandered in from outside and plonked himself down beside my chair. He looked
quizzically at me and then, an instant bond established, immediately fell asleep.

The owner had his three-year old sitting on the counter in front of him. He seemed
happy enough – and I? I know that I was part of it all, a traveler moving into and
then out of the picture. I did not see myself as belonging but the walk was getting
close to the end and I knew that I would have to start learning to fit into society all
over again.

This was supposed to be the Karoo but the rain just kept coming down. My camp
was wet and miserable. I tried to phone someone but the signal was bad. So I just
lay there lonely and confined to my burrow.

The days sort of flowed one into the other. Some of them were wet, some were dry,
mostly they were wet.
Chapter Two

Day 195 - 205

The national road bypasses Strydenburg. At the turning to the town I came across
five women all gathered around a young girl lying comatose beside the road. When
I asked what had happened they told me there had been a funeral and it had all
been too much strain on the poor girl. In fact this was the second time she had
passed out.

I knelt beside her to check on her breathing and the smell of booze nearly knocked
me out beside her.
“Has she been drinking,” I needlessly asked.
“Yes, that too,” replied one of the women.
“I told them,” screamed another, “she‟s fucking drunk.”
They started yelling at each other and seeing that she was sleeping soundly I moved
on.

I walked down to the station in the evening. Next door to it is the telephone
exchange. It is the old-fashioned kind and manually operated. All the phones in
this town have wind-up handles that you turn vigorously to get the operator‟s
attention.

The operator and the duty policeman were sitting on a bench in the station garden.
I joined them and we discussed the fact that aside from shopkeepers, very few
people worked in towns like Strydom. The rest got drunk whenever possible. The
crime rate goes up when pensions or child welfare is paid out. The money goes to
the head of the house and he drinks it up then hits or rapes someone close to him.
It sounds terrible but it is very close to the truth.

This afternoon I stopped at a roadside stall to avoid a thunderstorm. For about 30

minutes it came down in sheets and then suddenly cleared. I left and decided to
take my time choosing a place for a night camp. At about 5.30 I found the perfect
culvert. Despite the storm earlier it was dry so I figured that it would remain dry.
At the same time I decided to play it safe and hang most of my gear as high up on
the walls as I could. I rigged up a makeshift sling hung on some re-inforcing wire
that was protruding from the concrete of the culvert wall

I finished the preparations and stopped to make coffee. It started to rain softly. By
the time the coffee was ready there was a small trickle of water down one side of the
culvert. I realized that this was not going to be OK. I went to the end of the culvert
where the water was entering. To my horror I saw lots of water rushing out of the
hills and rapidly filling gullies and depressions as it approached. I just had time to
throw a few things into my pack and into the sling I had made against the wall
before the water was rushing through the culvert. Within seconds it was over the
top of my boots.

Minutes later it was above my knees and threatening to sweep me down the culvert.
I grabbed a piece of steel re-inforcing and hung on. My feet lifted from the ground
and one of my boots came off. I hung on to the steel for over 30 minutes and then,
as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

The water slowly subsided and as I started assessing the damage it quickly
darkened. Everything was wet and the mosquitoes were out in force. I could not
find the insect repellent or anything else for that matter. I found a mud free piece of
cement, climbed into the sleeping bag, zipped it closed over my head and went to
sleep.

The next morning I found most of my stuff scattered along the sides of the gully
below me. I spent the morning drying everything out and generally feeling sorry for
myself, but I should have known better.

I was well looked after in Victoria West and impressed with the community
involvement. I left there to walk across the border into the Western Cape. Again
no one handed me on or received me. It had been nearly seven months and the
novelty had worn off. I was starting to look forward to getting the whole thing over
and done with.

I spoke to someone from the Cape Town Communications Office and was told that
someone would meet me at Three Sisters, just across the Western Cape border. No
one was there. It was cold and I could not get good cell phone reception. Eventually
I got through to a station at Murraysburg who told me that they would make sure
that I was picked up.

I waited until long after dark. As I was preparing to find a hole to crawl into for the
night, a police van pitched up. They were from Nelspoort.
“You can‟t sleep alongside the road…” Music to my ears. It had been a long time
since I had last heard that. Nelspoort is far off my route but they promised to bring
me back in the morning.
COMMENTARY
DE-HUMANISED?

Callus – a thick layer of skin built up by exposure to a consistent irritation. Some of

the incidents that come to light through the media and other avenues of exposure
shock the sensitivity of people that are not used to blood and brutality. The
unfortunate truth about feeling is that no matter how sensitive you are originally,
with constant exposure to ugly death and warped motives, you will become
hardened. It is necessary or you will find yourself emotionally crippled.

The police are, as a function of their work, exposed to the worst of the human spirit
and the most devastating physical trauma there is. The accident statistics and
death on South African roads are amongst the highest in the world. Brutality; in
child abuse, domestic violence and various forms of murder; farms, gangs, ritual
killings, are of a nature that almost defies acceptance as of human origin. Young
policemen and women deal with the worst in human nature on an almost daily
basis.

If a young woman, chic and pretty in her uniform, talks to you pleasantly across a
charge office counter it is hard to believe that she could, a few hours previously,
have been picking up a severed hand from the road, or pushing someone‟s entrails
back into their now inert and useless body.

An inspector, desk-bound in an office, explained to me why he was no longer

working the streets.

“I never used to care, I had seen it all. Shit all over the walls, brains on steering
wheels, children in pieces all over the road. Once I went to a house where gunshots
had been heard. I found a man sitting on a couch crying – he was too scared to kill
himself, but he had killed everyone else. The wife was dead in the kitchen, two
little boys dead beside her – all shot. The little girl I found in the toilet, she had
been shot in the kitchen but had tried to escape. The blood was all down the
passage to the toilet. He got her there and shot her again – half her face was
missing. You know what – I didn‟t even hit him. I just arrested him and put him in
the van. Nothing could touch me.”

Then he smiled and showed me a photograph on his desk. It was of a little girl with
red hair and freckles.
“This is Janine. She is my daughter. My wife and I have just the one child. She
changed me. She got through to me.

See, the other guys used to call for me when it was really bad, you know, when it
was young kids and so on. One day I was called to an accident. The kids were on
their way home from a church function and a truck hit the car. When I got there it
was about 3.00 in the afternoon. I can remember how hot it was and how the strong
smell of petrol was everywhere. Most of the people were out but there were still two
kids in the back.
The metal had come down from the roof and crushed them into the seat. I forced
the door away and pushed my head inside and I saw Janine. I started tearing at
the car with my bare hands and screaming. I was told that the paramedics gave me
a shot – I can‟t remember any of that part so well. But it wasn‟t Janine – just a
little girl who looked like her. For months afterwards if I saw Janine I would start
crying. I refused to go out there after that and they had to give me another job. All
those other children that just came and went. They all have fathers – it‟s not OK
for people to die but you get so used to it. It becomes just another thing that
happens.

Now it‟s different – I can‟t take it anymore. So I work here”

Some weeks later I gave a talk at a busy urban station. Because it was a good talk
several of the members crowded around me afterwards to express their thanks and
their support for what I was doing. One of them waited until nearly everyone else
was finished and then approached me.
“It is nice to see that someone appreciates what I do,” he said.
“I think there are more people that care than you realise,” I replied.

“How are the police looking after you? I mean, do you get places to stay and food?”
I nodded, “Everyone is very good to me. I get treated like a VIP. I get shown
things, taken out in patrol cars. Sometimes I attend roadblocks or management
meetings. I am finding out exactly what it is like to be a police member.”
“Would you like to see something interesting now?” he asked.
“Yes, sure. What is it?”
“I‟ve got a little girl in a bucket. Right outside here, in an empty room. She‟s about
four years old. She fell into a bucket of water headfirst this morning and drowned.
She is still in the bucket and everything. Come with me, I‟ll show you.”

He seemed surprised when I changed my mind. To him a curiosity, for me a brutal

reality I did not want to face. But we expect them to do it and then we are shocked
when we realise that they don‟t care anymore.
A STATION NOT LOVED

When I arrived at the station, the station commander tried to tell me that no
arrangements had been made. I told him that I had been present when the area
communications officer had phoned him a few days previously. I told him that I had
heard her tell him when I would arrive and what I would need. He looked exactly
as he was supposed to look – caught out! He was almost angry but admitted that he
could more or less remember such a call.

Eventually he agreed to let me sleep in the courtroom. No one offered me so much

as a glass of water. I could not find an open toilet and the only shower available
was one that was used by the cells. It was filthy and had two piles of dried excreta
on the floor.
I asked in the charge office about facilities and the inspector suggested that I walk
down to the local garage; they all did.

The station looks reasonable from the outside but on closer inspection is badly
managed. There is a satellite station in the nearby township and the nightshift
team for the entire area consists of three people; one in each station and one in the
van. If they get a call-out, the man in the van picks one of the others up and they
close that station until he can return.

I sat in the charge office last night talking to the man on duty. A young girl walked
in the door and picked up her blouse to show marks on her back. She told us that
her cousin had beaten her. She carried on to tell us that she had run away but that
he was looking for her to finish the job.
“He has a knife,” she added.

The policeman asked where she had been beaten and she named a local liquor
outlet. The policeman told her that she is a lady and should not be at such a place.
She asked if she could lay a charge. He suggested that she wait for the next shift
and then the van could give her a lift home. The shift apparently changes at 7.00
pm so she waited, no one layed a charge.

The next shift duly arrived and when all the formalities of handing over had been
completed she repeated the entire story. The new sergeant told her that she must
wait. He said he would be back soon and left in the van. He never came back.

After a while the girl‟s family arrived. They told the new man in the office and
myself that the offender was now threatening everyone in the family in his
attempts to find the girl.
The new man listened to the entire story again and suggested to the family that
they take the girl home and keep her off the street. The entire group then left the
station in disgust, mouthing abuse at the police. The policeman watched them go
and shrugged. “Tomorrow they will have forgotten all about it,” he said.

The next morning I presented myself to the Captain‟s office to give my talk. He was
abrupt, telling me that he was holding a meeting and I must keep the talk to a few
minutes and then let him get on with his real work.

It was a sad little station where little works and service is not part of the
vocabulary. I did not find many stations like this and this was definitely one of the
worst. But there are enough of them to feed the newspapers all they need.
LIZETTE

Lizette came to Pretoria from South West Africa. She came as soon as she was old
enough to join the Police Force. The police were still a force then, by name and by
nature. When she joined, she joined as a loyal South African; happy with the
politics of the country, happy with her culture and convinced of the good in the
system. She believed that she would be serving her country in the best way
possible.

Lizette is dark and attractive. She has an open face and brown eyes that express
her feelings clearly. Her description of her first year in the force is filled with words
like „lonely‟ and phrases like „nights of tears‟.

She told me that one night she was on shift at Pretoria Central when a female
suspect was brought in. Her shift leader told her to work the suspect over prior to
questioning. She had never hit another person in her life, let alone a woman. She
refused. She, herself, was then pushed around, ridiculed and finally struck several
times. The others forced her to watch whilst another policewoman beat the suspect
for her.

She was told to harden up or find another career. Eventually she was transferred
to an administrative post. She was told that she was unsuitable for the street.

A marriage and her husband‟s transfer brought her to the small town where I met
her. Her years amongst people that cling to prejudice because they fear the loss of
their identity has not touched her belief in what is decent. Like so many Afrikaners
that I met along the road she is taking the new South Africa seriously. She has
worked hard to be accepted by the black people that she works with. Almost as
hard as she has worked to be accepted by the community.

Her black partners on the shifts tested her attitude sorely before they would accept
that she was genuine. The path she has traveled moves out into the open with vast
distances between her and her kind. It takes courage to walk towards an unknown
place when the one you have grown up in is left far behind.

Her determination and willingness to be involved has earned her a Sotho name,
which means “Can be trusted”. Amongst those that have learnt to trust her are the
prostitutes that work the many trucks that pass by her town. These prostitutes
board the huge vehicles when they pull off the tarmac onto the dusty white grass
between the road and the squatters‟ shacks. For a small consideration they provide
quick and cheap pleasure. Too often they receive harsh and brutal treatment
instead. They can quickly become victims rather than perpetrators. She works with
them, often in the small hours of the morning, alone except for an interpreter, in an
area where few of her white, male colleagues would venture, even in daylight.

She is, single-handedly, doing more to improve the image of the service that she has
worked for all her life than most of the pamphlets, so well financed and laid out, but
so far from the reality of the poor. She represents the new Afrikaner. A person who
has turned her back on the conflict between her heritage and her expanded
responsibilities; focusing instead on her commitment to the principles of community
policing and service.
 SECTION 8

BACK IN THE WESTERN CAPE

Chapter One

Day 207 - 233

A brilliant walk on a crisp day under clear skies. I had little food and two days to
go to Beaufort West. Beaufort is a huge milestone for this walk. After Beaufort
there are seven days of hell through one of the worst parts of the Karoo to
Laingsburg, but after that, it is all downhill to Cape Town.

It was a bitterly cold night and I felt it through everything I could wrap around
myself. Supper was made up of whatever scraps I had left: a portion of strawberry
Pro-nutro, a packet of vegetable soup and a small tin of corned beef all mixed
together to make a stew. It was probably the most nutritious meal of the trip but
tasted like you-know-what.

The next day some good friends phoned to say they were going back to
Johannesburg from Cape Town and would meet me on the road. Frank and Ouwie
pulled up in front of me at about lunchtime. Frank handed me a bag with two tins
of Boddingtons Draught beer and Ouwie gave me a hug and a box of Kentucky Fried
Chicken and chips. I immediately drank all the beer (energy restorative) and ate
some of the chicken, putting the rest away for supper.

In Beaufort West the police did everything they could for me. I was given
accommodation in an International Police Association guesthouse and two meals a
day. I rested and built up strength for the seven days to come.

I was taken to do a presentation to a large local youth group and I also addressed a
management meeting at the station. The Communications Officer here takes the
transformation of the Police Force into a Service very seriously. He is a thorn in the
flesh for many of his more conservative colleagues but is doing a great deal to
improve the image of the station in his town.

The town cannot afford to lose the national road that runs right through its centre.
Towns that have had bypasses built, like Strydom, have in effect, died. Beaufort
West is still as wild and woolly as it was when it was a frontier town, but it is wild
and woolly in an older and somehow more human way than the vicious brutality
and fear of Cross Roads or Hillbrow.

I spent some time here on the street and at the charge office. It is not a high crime
area but the tourists, truckers and other traffic bring their fair share of predators.
There are prostitutes and con artists, plenty of beggars and vagrants.

In the charge office I sat and watched a young boy of 13 years being charged with
shoplifting and assault.

He had stolen 22 bars of chocolate and had been arrested by a security guard. The
guard was there. He was a big man. He was dragging the boy to the police station
when the boy bit him. He had broken free and then, instead of running away, had
picked up a brick and attacked the guard. The bite marks were clearly visible on
the guard‟s arm as were three stitches on his forehead from the blow with the brick.
The boy just stood there with an innocent look on his face but the guard was really
angry. Twice the police had to stop him from attacking the boy.

At the same time another young man, possibly about thirty years old, blonde and
well dressed was being charged with assaulting his wife. The process for both
arrests was long and painful. Statements, forms, listing and signing for
possessions…it all took ages.

The time for the great trek arrived and I faced the reality of seven days through
tough country. The first few days were difficult. My pack was fully loaded with food
for the entire week so it weighed in the region of 20 kg. I knew that these would be
long, hot, lonely days, one following the other with little human contact. I stayed
one night in the barracks at Leeugamka. Other than that the daily trudge was
uninterrupted. Knees were suffering and the blister kit was being used twice daily.

The phone waves were getting busy. Barbara from Protea Hotels was often on the
line to discuss final arrangements. Today she asked if I would agree to have some
young lady do a pedicure on my feet on the afternoon of my arrival in Cape Town.
The powers that be, probably the „Girls”, Tina and Jackie wanted to have
photographs of my feet.

The hard part was done. I arrived in Laingsburg escorted by Traffic police and a
patrol van that had come out to meet me. The station knew everything there was to
know except that I was supposed to address the members.
I got my hands on some money and went mad. I purchased, ate and drank 3 litres of
milk, a huge packet of soggy chips and thick greasy Russian sausages. I really
needed to have vitamins but decided to worry about that some other time.

The walking was really going well. I was excited about finishing and easily turning
in 36 or 40 kilometers a day if required. Matjiesfontein, then Touws River passed
quickly by and I found myself at the top of the Hexriver Pass. The pass is the
gateway to the Cape. Behind it the Karoo. In front of it, the Hex River Valley, the
Breede River Valley and the Cape Peninsula.

I was nearly home. Hospitality and reception by the Police Stations was back to
normal and I was pleased with what I had achieved.

Until De Doorns.

No one knew of me and phone calls went back and forth. Eventually after some
hours a message came through; let him sleep in the courthouse. There were only
two policemen on shift and one went missing at about 5.00 pm. I found him in the
kitchen cooking the prisoner‟s food. There was something wrong at this station.
The kitchen was dirty, there was only one hotplate working on the stove and the
food being prepared was nothing like the quality I had seen in other parts of the
country.

Later I was writing up my notes at a desk in the courtroom when I looked up to see
a coloured man quietly enter the room. I recognized him as someone I had seen
sitting on the steps outside the station earlier. He looked around and was obviously
surprised to see me. He asked if he could empty the ashtrays. I was not sure about
him and suggested that he went and talked to the men in the charge office.

Then I saw him quickly pick up something from the table against the wall where I
had cooked my meal. He held whatever it was concealed behind his leg. I checked
the table as best I could from where I was sitting and realized that my knife was
missing. He had my knife in his hand and was stupid enough to think I didn‟t
know. He started moving towards me, talking as he came.

I said very calmly, “If you don‟t put my knife back on the table I am going to hurt
you very badly,” and stood up.
Slowly he replaced the knife.

“Now get the hell out of here.”

“Yes Baas, OK Baas,” he said and bolted.

He ran straight into trouble. I heard someone shout, “You bastard, come here.”
Then there was a huge commotion and the sickly wet sound of someone being hit
with a fist. This lasted a few minutes and then the charge office sergeant came in.
He told me that they had caught someone who had climbed the security fencing
looking for something to steal. I said nothing.

The next day I strolled happily into Worcester and some good treatment. Two days
later I climbed the Du Toit‟s Kloof Pass to stand at the top of one of the most
breathtaking views in the world. There was nothing that could stop me anymore.

This walk had allowed me to see, to hear, of so much despair and woe that had been
turned around by a person‟s or people‟s attitude. The recognition of my
achievement waited for me down there at the end of the N1. The achievement had
nothing to do with walking - I had believed in this country and its people and they
had justified that belief. The arrival in Cape Town would demonstrate my
determination and ability to walk but, so much more important to all of us was that
it would show the world there was enough stability and care here to allow me to
walk.

Triumph is so satisfying and really good to share, but the hard and stony road
traveled to get there cannot be shared unless you are on it too. We deny ourselves
something when we refuse to walk such paths. It is the hard roads that build and
secure the magic of our lives. Our country is leaving behind the tired and
unsuccessful town it has been stuck in for too long. The road ahead and our
traveling companions are strange and so we are wary.

If some of us can put the years of a conservative culture behind us, if many of us can
wipe away years of mistreatment and smile warmly at a new friend, can we not all
greet each other and walk the road as a team. A city awaits, it could be a triumph
for all of us.

The lessons I had learned had to be shared. The piece of country spread out below
me contained representations of all the varied peoples I had met everywhere else.
They did not all understand each other, but every one of them had a heart and a
country in which to use it.
I knew in a way that few other people did just how hard that heart could become,
but knew too that the concern and faith of millions of people along the road behind
me was more than enough to soften it and put the country back into the lives of all
of us.
POSTSCRIPT.

I walked into Capetown with the hype and pomp revived. Someone, pretty and
pleasant, rubbed my feet which were in excellent condition anyway. I made a good
speech and was given an amazing gift by Arthur Gillis and the Protea Hotel group;
an open invitation to stay at any Protea Hotel free of charge for the rest of my life. I
appreciate that and do not abuse it. When the function was over I disappeared back
into my life.

I maintain contacts with the police and try to help where I can but their problems
go far beyond the resources of a single individual and yet the progress they are
making shows that many individuals are making the difference. I watched the
Springboks play rugby recently and the colour of the jersey is still green and gold
but the colour of the team is no longer just white. The spectators sang the National
Anthem, all of it, with enthusiasm, many of them waving the new South African
flag over their white heads. I believe with all my heart that if you wanted to attack
a South African today, regardless of his or her race, then those that would leap to
their defence would come from any and all of our different peoples. We have become
a Nation and are proud of each other. I think that I have contributed to that in a
small way and this makes the seeing of our growth as a country just so much more
personal.

The walk was an unexpected success and it was not because it was widely
publicized but because those that leaped to my aid were from any and all of our
many different peoples. Without this incredible input, things would have been
vastly different. I would love to think that we will all at times in our collective
future be able to look at our country with this personal joy because of our
involvement in its achievements.