I caught a radio news story about a Canadian who has to be the dumbest tourist ever to visit South Africa -- or anywhere in the world for that matter!
To save him further embarrassment I won't mention his name but I am sure, if you really want to find it, a quick internet search will turn it up.
Let me just say, it is not the same Campbell who set land-speed records in a specially-built car.
This particular tourist came to South Africa to party, visit interesting places and meet and interact with interesting locals.
It seems the not-the-sharpest-knife-in-the-kitchen-drawer visitor hooked up with five men and women from a Bloemfontein squatter camp (or to use it's more politically-acceptable designation, informal settlement).
With expensive camera and lenses draped over his shoulder, iPod dangling from his neck, cellphone in his hand and...wait for it...this is the kicker...R67 000 (about US$8 000) in his pocket, he asked his new-found chums to show him around the quaint little tin cottages of the squatter camp...er...informal settlement. He also asked them to take him to the local nightclubs and taverns.
Though I have no evidence to support my conjecture, I would hazard a guess that he looked forward to swapping names, telephone numbers and email addresses with the friendly, dusky beauties of the squat...er...village.
I am going to assume my readers are way smarter than the Canuck in question and, as such will refrain from stating the obvious details and outcome. Suffice it to say, it did not end happily for the man who makes a maple leaf look smart, involved a stabbing and a much poorer but hopefully wiser (don't hold your breath on that) tourist.
A man was quickly arrested for the crime, tried and sentenced.
Screwing like bunnies
Justice in South Africa is swift and efficient. For World Cup visitors that is. For the rest of us perhaps not so.
Take the recent case of the Benoni businessman who made many desperate calls to the Ekhurhuleni Metro Police calling on them to save him from being drowned when his car was trapped on a flooded road.
In all fairness, the cops who ignored the calls had good reasons for doing so -- they were busy in the operations room, fucking each other like bunnies and, let's be honest, stopping sex, trying to find a tissue and pulling up your pants so you can go save a civilian you don't even know, is not fun. So let's cut 'em a bit of slack. It's not like they were having lunch or anything!
In an interview with the Star newspaper the businessman said: "At the time, I ended up trapped in my car in Benoni when heavy rains caused havoc. I realised I was not going to make it. My car's battery failed and water started pouring in."
According to the report: the dead battery prevented the man from operating the electric windows or opening the doors of his Chrysler. He then used his cellphone to attempt to contact his family, lawyer and the metro police.
"By the time I had finished making the calls, the water level in the car had already reached my neck. I managed to open the sunroof and pulled myself out of the car."
The businessman, now stuck on the roof of his vehicle, contacted ANC ward councillor, Valerie Taylor, asking her to organise to have the metro police sent to assist him.
Taylor and a Community Policing Forum member then walked into the metro police offices, allegedly catching the two officers having sex. The businessman's lawyer later said that the officers "were caught having sexual intercourse in their office by an ANC councillor and a CPF member, after they failed to respond to my client's numerous emergency calls".
Meanwhile, the businessman went about helping another victim of the flooded road just a few metres away.
"I was saying my prayers, crying and shaking," said the second motorist, who was identified as Tanki Rabela.
"God sent this man to help save me," Rabela said, adding that the water had rendered his cellphone unusable.
Metro police and paramedics reportedly only arrived after the pair had made their way to safety.
I contend, when he called he should have said he was a soccer fan in the process of being mugged. That would have brought the cops...fast.
Fast cars
Some may even have raced to his aid as fast as the Limpopo traffic officer who was this week arrested after he was caught driving at 274km/h in his personal vehicle.
Officer Joe Munyai, from Louis Trichardt, reportedly took his Mercedes-Benz C200 Kompressor (I'm not even going to guess how a traffic cop is able to afford that car) to well over double the speed limit of 120km/h on the N1 near Bandelierkop, where two provincial officials recorded his speed.
The section of the N1 where Munyai was caught has only one lane in each direction.
Munyai, who according to a Makhado municipality spokesperson has not been suspended, has since appeared in court and was released on bail of R1000.
It is no doubt purely coincidence that the Ekhurhuleni Metro was, until two years ago, commanded by restaurant-bomber, killer and maimer of ordinary citizens and alleged drunk driver, Robert McBride.
But maybe we shouldn't judge him too harshly, after all, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission let him off but not before they harshly slapped him on the wrist with the stinging admonition that the bombing that killed three women and injured 69 others was a "gross violation of human rights."
Not that it made a jot of difference to the SA Government, as Robbie was awarded the Merit Medal in Silver and the Conspicuous Leadership Star from the South African National Defence Force for his "service and combat leadership in Umkhonto We Sizwe."
(Read Ben Trovato's hilarious open letter to Robert McBride here.) It sure is a strange and sometimes fucked up country that we live in!
Posts
