A few months back, I caught a taxi ride to Oliver Thambo airport after visiting my daughter. My youthful, restrained, bespectacled Uber driver played Gregory Porter’s “Take Me To The Alley”.

The young man and I chatted. Where was I going? How long did Google say the journey would take? What football team did we support? The bonding process sped up after we confirmed a mutual, obsessive devotion to  Manchester United. Inevitably, the subject of religion came up. The young man told me how he’d been raised in the church. I asked him how regularly he attended church. He told me, matter-of-factly, that he’d lost his faith. 

I’m not a believer. However, the obvious pain of his loss was uncomfortable to experience. I felt sorry that he was no longer participating in Sunday service and enjoying celebrating his religion with family and friends.

I asked him what had brought this spiritual crisis on. With the same deadpan, professional delivery he’d employed since our journey had begun, the young man told me that the ANC had made him lose faith. 

The ANC!  My head spun. Full disclosure: I’d been expecting to hear a typically blood-soaked Joburg tale of random brutality, his beloved grandmother being attacked, his innocent sister being abused, and his family home being burnt down. Not this. Not the corruption of the ANC. 

Naturally, I asked precisely what the ANC had done to bring all of this on. 

The young man turned down the volume and spoke to me in a slow, thoughtful, measured manner that was intended to leave me in no doubt of his sincerity.  He spoke of having no job opportunities, of watching brainless ANC members get well-paid jobs they were incapable of performing, of having to pay money to civil incompetent civil servants and government officials for them to even breathe in his direction, never mind performing essential job functions, He had wasted good family money on going to university. He would never be able to repay his parents. His sister had a good job. However, she was worn out from the corruption she dealt with and suicidal. The corruption of the ANC had ruined every aspect of his life. 

The taxi continued towards Oliver Tambo airport at a conservative pace. Hell, everything about this young man was conservative. If I’d passed him on a crowded Joburg street, I could have easily identified him as a devout Christian who’d been the star performer at every bible class he’d attended. I checked my watch. A solid forty minutes remained until we reached the airport. Outside my window, only long trenches of black were visible. Another power cut? This far from my daughter’s home? I’d arrived in Joburg during a blackout and was leaving within the same “I Am Legend” apocalyptic-worthy atmosphere. 

The traffic slowed down. Had there been an accident? Finally, we came to a stalled line of stationary, upmarket-brand cars. At the head of the line, a group of police brazenly collected “fines”. The young man apologised to me for the behaviour of the police. He was embarrassed that a foreigner should see such behaviour. I explained to him that I’d had children and friends in the country and had lived in and repeatedly visited South Africa since the early 1990s. Surprised, he asked where I had lived. Yeoville and Hillbrow, I replied. He blew out his cheeks. He never visited Yeoville. Yeoville was filled with foreigners. He didn’t know anyone who lived there, and Hillbrow was a No Go area.  

This was not an intellectual debate, so I spoke to the young man of my South African memories and truth. I recalled being in London, with my lips glued to the TV screen, as Mandela walked free from prison; of coming to South Africa, playing billiards in a club in Hillbrow, and watching close white friends physically clash over the merits of voting to allow blacks the vote; of Johannesburg being locked down after Chris Hani’s shocking murder, and of the growing fear of this carefully calculated execution driving the country into a bloody civil war; listening to scared friends calling from Yeoville phones to reassure distant parents they were okay, and looking on in awe when the first democratic election passed without an outbreak of mass revenge killings. I couldn’t speak for others, but for myself, the breathless period in the 90s, when the country had experienced an unending straight flush of historic firsts, has never been surpassed. I’d been blessed to spend this portion of my life in South Africa.  As the son of Jamaicans brought to the Caribbean as enslaved people, I was proud to have South African-born children. And that my postcode, in my head, would always be my former Yeoville address.  

The young man asked me a few questions. I listened to his words carefully and soon realised my little talk had left him utterly mystified - A Hillbrow with billiard halls, dance clubs, restaurants, hotels and cafes! A Yeoville replete with ANC lefties filling up cafes and laughing at the jokes of stand-up gay Afrikaner comedians! Clearly, I’d been describing an alternative history, a fantastical South Africa with the saintly Mandela as Gandalf and the villainous Boer as the Orcs. I’d invoked ancient ghosts and broken relics whose dreams had no bearing on his life.

The car became silent as he considered my words. I quickly broke the non-verbal deadlock by saying, “I  am aware this sounds like Wakanda.” We laughed together. The laughter felt good. There was no reason for everything inside the taxi to mirror the bleak darkness outside the cab. I asked the young man if he’d ever been to Sun City. He had not. I suggested it might be a good idea if the owners of Sun City, what with its giant lion statues and over-the-top jungle motifs, apply to rebrand the place as “Wakanda in South Africa”. The young man did not believe anything could be done to rebrand or save the country. 

On we went. I asked the young man where his strong sense of right and wrong had come from. He answered, from my church and my parents, I liked him - a lot - and would have been glad to have him as a son or son-in-law. He wasn’t angry or despairing. He’d accepted this was the way of life, and it would always be so. I asked him if he genuinely believed he didn’t have the power to change things. What about his vote? When were the next national elections? He said that no matter how bad things became, the people in the countryside would always vote the ANC into power. His vote was pointless.

On we went. The airport came into view. Thank God, some light. As we parked off, I realised that although the young man and I had shared the same journey, we had effectively occupied two different periods, two different Johannesburgs, and two different South Africas. During the early 2000s, I left the country. Many of my friends left Johannesburg, and a few also emigrated. Collectively, we took our memories and our time with us.  

We collected my bags from the car boot.  I had the young man’s phone number and promised to call him the next time I came to Johannesburg. He was OK with this. I wished him well and paused to take my last look at him. I found myself thinking:  It’s your time, your fight, over to you. 

The young man looked like he had something on his mind that he wished to tell me And he did. He reminded me that I hadn’t paid him.  A few days later, my driver contacted me. I’d left my phone charger on the backseat. I agreed to call him when I returned and collect my charger. Until then, then.

samjhere@icloud.com