On my first weekend here my friend German Dani drove to my place to pick me up. Being German she arrived early. I invited her in for a cup of coffee and to see my new home. As I was in the kitchen making a cupa all of a sudden the whole house burst into a scene from a World War 3 film. Sirens basted through the house from every conceivable angle and I rushed outside to see what was going on. Dani had saw the trampoline in the garden and had made a beeline for it. I hadn't warned her about the house security, nor did I realize it was on on a Saturday morning.
The house where I'm staying has quite a big garden and in the past they have been robbed as people crossed into the property from other gardens. So now there are two lasers that run across the garden. If someone walks through them....no, they don't get chopped in half, but it does trigger the alarm and sends a message to the Armed Response Unit.
Once I realized what had happened I found the information the land lady had left me about how to switch off the system. I couldn't figure it out though and the maid who was nonchalantly ironing in the kitchen as if nothing was wrong, didn't know either. So I called the landlady who explained and I managed to shut it off.
My heart was pumping and adrenaline flowing. I checked Dani was ok and told her not to worry about it, I should've warned her. Then I went back to the house to apologise to the maid for all the noise, not that she seemed to even notice. As I walked into the kitchen, the maid lifted one hand from her ironing, pointed to the garden, shifted her eyes sideways to the garden, then went straight back to her ironing.
At first glance I thought the man standing looking at me was the gardener. But then I realized he most certainly was not. I put my hands up and said, "it's ok, I have a password". The man in the garden didn't move. He just stood there looking at me, his hand near his waist as if ready to pull out his gun. This guy was a member of an Armed Response Unit, one of many security companies that South Africans employ to protect their property. Fully donned in a flak jacket, helmet and gun, he didn't look like someone to be messed with.
Once I had explained the situation - I've just moved in, I'm an idiot, etc, he agreed not to shoot me and we had a good laugh about it. Then I introduced him to Dani, the real culprit, and we laughed a bit more. The man with the gun asked me to let him out (there's an electronic gate at the front of the house. I asked how he'd gotten in to which he replied "jumped the wall", and true enough, outside the tall gate and wall was a little ladder he'd used to get up and over. I should've asked what he does when the house has electric security fencing, which so many of my neighbours do.
Once our heart rates had lowered, Dani and I set off to find a nice beach to relax on. The Sat Nav system took us on a long, meandering drive past a massive informal settlement (ghetto). And I mean massive. I've never seen something so big in all my travels. It was a bit daunting actually.
A couple of miles after the ghetto there was a sign for a beach. Dani wanted to go there. I thought it mightn't be so safe since we were so close to so much poverty, but I bit my tongue. Since Dani and I arrived, all we had heard from people was danger this and danger that. And I'd done my fair share of trying to warn Dani of the dangers here, but she was obviously sick of hearing it and felt that everyone was being overprotective (it's her first time in Africa). And I felt like a nagging old man chomping on deaf ears, so we drove into the beach, parked and went to explore.
The setting was spectacular. A massive expanse of untouched beach, surrounded by mountains and rough waters with only half a dozen fishermen staggered out along the shore. We walked along the beach smiling at the fisherman. The first two just ignored us. Dani saw a fish on the sand and went over to check it out. "I think it's a shark", I said, but Dani, knowing better said "It's just a cat fish" and started to pet it.
The third fisherman returned my smile and I approached him to small talk. He clarrified that the fish Dani was currently petting was in fact a shark, a young Pajama Shark and harmless enough, but still... petting sharks? Come on, Dani.
Fisherman number three and I chatted for a few minutes about fish and Ireland and then he suddenly said, "You seem like a nice guy, so I'm going to warn you. You're on the most dangerous beach there is." He said, "The Africans come over the hill and smash your car and take everything." "Really", I asked him to which he said "Yeah, we're all armed". On seeing the shock on my face he pointed to the waistline of his jacket and told me they all carry guns in case the "Africans" from the township come. By the way, all the fishermen I saw were "Cape Coloured", which means they aren't black African originally, but have a different origin and culture (I believe).
So I thanked him, grabbed Dani, and made our way back to the car before we got shot, robbed or bitten by a Pajama Shark.
A fairly interesting Saturday morning and probably good lessons to learn nice and early in my time here.
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