Travel Writing

It’s a Wednesday afternoon at Park Station. Killer and I are on our way to Matatiele, in the Eastern Cape. We are going to bury one of our colleagues.

We decide to opt for the train, as it is relatively cheaper and the funeral is only on Saturday.

Killer is a punctual freak. He instructs me to be at the station two hours before the departure time. I protest that it is far too early to be at the station. Nonetheless, I decide to follow Killer’s orders.

Park Station, as Johannesburg station is commonly known, is teeming with hawkers, selling mostly fake goods to unsuspecting local and long distance passengers.

The train arrives on time. We load ourselves in. Everything looks perfect.

A message comes out of the loudspeaker that there is delay of twenty minutes. No reason for the delay is given. No one seems really worried about this delay. Twenty minutes pass by. No message from the loudspeaker.

Finally the train snakes out of Park Station an hour and half later than the scheduled departure time. There is a sigh of relief that the train is turning its back on Jozi. Our coach is packed to the rafters. Some passengers are standing as all the seats are occupied. Finally two ticket examiners arrive, accompanied by mean looking railway policemen. They check all our tickets. Those who don’t have tickets pay a fee, but no tickets are issued. This is nothing strange, says a forward young woman, christened Maditaba by Killer, for she answers questions not directed at her.

The next stop is Germiston, east of Johannesburg. A few people board the train. We wonder amongst the two of us if the train is as full as this every day of the week. A gogo (old woman) behind us quickly says, wait until it is month end, long weekends or the Easter Weekend, then you would hate train travelling.

Vendors and hawkers commonly referred to as smokesars, in township patois, are all over our coach, trying to sell soft goods. These are items such as vicks, lip ice hanker chiefs loose draws (cigarettes) Gold Dollar and Rothmans packs and airtime. They sell anything from mahog (brandy) to very hot beers. Their prices are ridiculously high, but who cares.

Then there are shady characters. They wear All Star takkies and trousers pulled down to their bums. According to Maditaba, these are luggage pilferers and pickpockets. They are the “clevers”. There is a perception that train passengers are “country bumpkins”, carrying a lot of cash than plastic money. So this unsophisticated lot becomes easy prey for these “clevers”.

The coaches have no designated smoking zones. Anyone who wants to have a puff has to find a place in between coaches.

All the windows are shut. There is an air conditioner, but it looks like it was years since it was used.

Then there is Malambane, wearing a loose Madiba shirt and three quarter pair of trousers, red socks with sandals, who asks for leftovers from fellow passengers. He eats anything, as if to justify that beggars have no right to choose. He regales anyone within earshot about his stint at the notorious prison called Sun City, south of Johannesburg. A real nuisance of a chap.

The coaches themselves need some refurbishment as the seats are worn out.

One woman with a small child is sitting not very far from us. The little thing seems restless because it cries continuously. When it cries, the men shout, faka ibele, (breast feed), so as that the child should shut up. This was clearly annoying. I suggest to her that she should have taken a taxi. “I cannot afford a taxi, it is quite expensive and makes a lot of accidents”, she says as if I didn’t know.

“Buti wami” she continues, “I went to Jozi to look for the father of this child, and the bastard gave a wrong address. He has also changed his phone numbers. I slept at Park Station for three days, and decided to return home”. Sorry to hear this sisi. I’m not really interested in her sob story. She would soon ask this or another from me, so I gently shut her out.

I am more irritated by the sound of the child crying that the crackling sound of the train.

As the train winds down the green valleys of Kwazulu Natal, we feel the pangs of hunger. We did not have food provision for the trip. We were advised to carry our own food. But the clevers we thought we were, we found the idea of carrying a food basket too feminine. And the food sold in the train is really. Their fried potato chips are ice cold. Their cool drinks are hot and only one brand, Sparletta orange, is sold. An inquiry about other brands or even cold ones is met with a belligerent, “Sold Out”. You would wonder when.

The kitchen coach, the only one reserved for selling food is also in a mess. It desperately needs fumigation as cockroaches do the latest dance moves on the tablets and cupboards. If Jesus would survive forty days without eating, I will not die for not eating for fourteen hour, I convince myself.

The toilets are really awful, judging from the stench that emanates from those cubicles. These are unisex. There is a long queue. An enterprising young man is selling a few rolls of toilet paper for R1.50 for a stint in number two in the cubicle.

Amidst all this, people still managed to put something under their noses. They give freedom of expression new meaning. Catching some nap was high on my agenda.

Just when we thought that everything about this trip was horrible. The young beautiful things provided the missing spark in our trip.

At around 2am, two girls suddenly entered our coach from the adjoining one. They were skimpily dressed. That is their trademark. They could be mistaken for abomagosha (sex workers). Pinkie, with a light complexion, caught my fancy. She had heavy makeup and hungry look (lip gloss) and her hair hasn’t seen a stylist for ages. She carried a small, red handbag. She wore a pink mini skirt and a black top that showed her belly button. Her worn out sandals were nothing to worry about.

My eyes were fixed on her like a lion is on its prey and my testosterone was pumping. Killer and I made the first move. As I moved to Pinkie, Killer pounced on Sweetness, whose face was smeared with what looked like Vaseline blue seal. Perhaps it was meant to hide her phuza face. They gave different versions of their destinations. Who cared? The thrill was supposed to last for the night. We ordered more booze from the smokesars. Suddely the mahog doesn’t taste like the real thing. We try to protest, but our new companions cool us down.

The strange thing was, all the change from the R100 and R200 notes that we ised to buy booze, went straight to Pinkie’s red handbag for “safe keeping”. We were the envy of young men in our coach. We certainly played “big” in a small coach.

Two guys play their own radios with different stations. On radio is locked on what sounds like talk radio. The other guy has a powerful radio that drowns the other radio. The music from his radio is a blast. Suddenly our coach is transformed into a mini disco. Sounds of Mandoza’s Nkalakatha and Brenda Fasi’s Vulindlela are played for the coaches’ appreciative crowd. There are no flashing disco lights and the instant resident DJ has become a crowd favourite. The resident J now plays crowd’s favourite tunes. The jiving is not in sync with the music, thanks to the effects of mahog.

The pungent smell from the armpits is devastating. My new found flame and I decide to take our seats and I retire my head to her comfortable bra-less bosom. Pinkie gave smooching a new meaning, what with her tongue all over my neck. But it felt great.

Killer started dozing off. All that Sweetness wanted was booze and the dance floor. Killer pulled a small rug over his head and it was game over for him.

As I also dozed off, declaring the “till death do us part”staff. Finally I fell asleep in the comfort of my “love”.

When we finally arrived in Sweet Matat, as Matatiele is affectionately called, there was no sign of our luggage. Our pockets had been turned upside down. There was no sign of our beautiful young things. Punch drunk.” Your drinks were spiked and you were duped” says “the know it all” Malambane. He told us that those girls are part of a syndicate that targets gullible and unsuspecting travellers.

We disembarked at the station sans our luggage and money.