Thursday, December 23, 2010

Life in the bundus


So I’ve moved back to my home town after 8 years of studying. I always knew I’d come back so I’m not THAT surprised. I love the country life. Sure, cities have their plus points (friends, services, convenient shopping…) but then there is also peak hour traffic which, I’ve noticed, extends noticeably into non-peak hours of late. I’d prefer Chinese bamboo torture over driving in bumper to bumper traffic behind a taxi covered in WWE wrestler stickers and blasting kwaito (music which is local, homegrown, ethnic and also utter trash!).


Country life should be chilled out. Wake up early go to bed early. Farmers in straw hats ferrying loads of cabbages to market in beat up old Toyotas. Fishing and fresh food. Home baked cookies and unsliced rusks. You get the idea, all rustic like…


Where I live, things are a tad more exciting though. Just yesterday a gang of armed robbers held up a local shop. Police in the area actually coordinated a road block and nabbed the bastards in a surprisingly well oiled operation. Well, when I say ‘nabbed the bastards’ I really mean ‘chase them into the mielie fields and shoot them to pieces’. If I was a criminal I’d definitely decide to lay low if I lived hereabouts. In fact some of SA’s most hard core criminals come from around here. ATM bombings and mall robberies in Johannesburg (who robs the mall!?) have links to rural Kranskop. Not to mention old Jacob Zuma’s posse down the road in Nkandla (which has recently overtaken Dubai as the world’s fastest growing city in the middle of nowhere).


Yes things do happen out here in the bundus. The best part of it all… NO TRAFFIC!