AN ADVENTURE IN HOUSE HUNTING JOHANNESBURG 1988

As part of our package to relocate to South Africa, we were provided a company vehicle, an allowance for the cost of house rental, assistance finding a home and a great lump sum allowance for purchasing everything we would need. In order to furnish a home, top to bottom, including custom drapes for any windows we might have. Deysi bought right into this. “Where are the stores? Let me attem”. It was hectic finding a place to live and buying everything we would need from scratch. We also had a small shipment of personal effects packed and shipped to us from California. It was all very civilized.

So, first things first, we needed to find a place to live before the shopping could start. Private Schooling was also provided and in a very short time Ron was enrolled in Redhill Academy in Sandton. It was close to where we wanted to live, was close to work and close to the shopping. A little later Ange was enrolled, also, in the same school in a pre-school program. It was excellent. As usual I got stuck into my work immediately and Deysi got to work getting our life normalized. I believe her’s was the hardest work. The company was excellent and very aware of what we needed in order to establish ourselves in this new location. They were very helpful.

House hunting was intense. There was not a lot of available properties in our preferred area, which was in one of the suburbs of Sandton. The company agent helped, but Deysi and I also took matters into our own hands. In the evenings, after work, we would get in the car and scout out locations. The best ones Deysi had read about during the day. This included looking at neighbourhoods, shops, access to work and any number of things that she had learned during our previous relocations.

I fondly remember one of our earliest ventures. She had found a potential place and we set out to scout it out. In these days we had no cellular phones, no GPS and only some very simple maps to guide us. I would take one look at the map, fold it up and give it back to Deysi. Then I would get irrevocably lost. One of the main problems in South Africa was that not all of the streets (or even, newer areas) were shown, once you went outside of the very populated areas.

This time was no exception we head to the outskirts of town, a lot farther away than it seemed we should have been, and after about an hour driving around and turning left, then right, back and forth, I was hopelessly lost. Deysi is not helping. The map is useless because it doesn’t show the area where I thought we were. In addition she is giving me abuse. It’s now getting dark and I don’t even know how to get back home. And then finally, a road sign. We are saved! In big bold letters the sign announces SOWETO 1 mile (might have been 1 km I forget).

Dark thoughts start to flash before me. I can only remember the dire warnings of the media from home, stating all sorts of unpleasant happenings in and around SOWETO. My blood runs cold, my heart stops, and I am sure I’m about to be captured by a ranting mob of Zulu warriors brandishing spears and drooling from their mouths. Panic sets in. My brain has been so attuned to listening to the gibberish spewed by the media, that I could only think, the end is upon us. Then I see, on the bottom of the sign, another one announcing Johannesburg … miles pointing in the opposite direction. We are saved.

We go into a four wheel slide and spin around and I am headed for home. Hmmm strange, I thought, when I looked in the rearview mirror, no wild hoards were chasing us, nary a spear in sight and everything behind us seemed quite calm. Once again I fell prey to my own naivety and lack of understanding of the world. We returned to our hotel, my ears burning from the abuse and the non-nurturing tone of my copilot’s voice. A while later when Deysi was explaining her adventure to a local friend, the friend listens, gives her a look of disbelief and says “Are you mad?” Deysi asks me later what her friend thinks she would be mad about? I just crossed my eyes and tapped the side of my head with my index finger.