When God draws crooked/wrong lines in your life

Saturday evening, 6pm… furiously working on something that’s due Monday, and planning to go grab some dinner at the only grocery store open this late before they close at 8pm. I get a call from a guy I haven’t seen in a while, and after a quick internal debate over whether or not I want to speak to him, I pick up. He says he’s 10 minutes away from the campus local, he’s coming to watch the Trinidad/Tobago vs. Sweden game with a couple of buddies and would I like to join them for a drink? I hem and haw then decide, sure why not. I figure I’ll go and socialize for half an hour before I return to my business.

We meet up, chit chat while paying scant attention to Sweden and Trinidad/Tobago (except to note the awarding of the red card). The half hour turns into an hour and when I check the time, just 30 minutes left. Burn rubber to the grocery store which is about …10-15 minutes away and as I pull into the parking area… something doesn’t look or smell right. Two police cars, the “armed response security unit” car parked badly… the small groups of people milling around, police and security guys standing around talking… and the distinct smell of firecrackers. Since it’s nowhere near Diwali, it can only mean one thing in Jozi…

My first thought is “did they finally rob the bottle store?” The grocery store has a liquor store adjacent to it and there’s always a rifle-toting security guard at the door. Have never really looked at the make of the gun (definitely not an AK47 though – sure we can all recognize the ubiquitous AK47 even if only the muzzle is exposed), usually rushing past him on my way into the store, always fervently praying that he wont go postal while I’m in or around there. I’ve wondered on more than one occasion, how effective he and his rifle would be in the face of an assault. Ladies and gentlemen the results are in: he did not do very well when faced with a large gang of automatic rifle-carrying men. Clearly some security measures are to discourage the chancers, not the professionals.

For obvious reasons, they are in the process of locking up the bottle store, though the main grocery store is still open, with two small groups of about 5 people each milling in front of its doors. Everyone looks shell-shocked. I approach one of the groups and listen in as a young man of about 25 exchanges tales of his experience in the bottle store, with a woman, about 50, who relates her experience in the grocery store. Her husband and daughter stand there quietly with eyes wide open with far away looks. She says they were told to lie down in the grocery store while the cash tills were emptied. He says in the bottle store they took everything: money from the cash tills, wallets, phones and handbags from customers (and I’m sure they weren’t averse to helping themselves to some spirits). Someone says "I think we should sue the store". I ask how long ago it took place, they answer: about 20 minutes ago. As a friend said when I shared this with her, “you may think that God has drawn a crooked/wrong line on the map of your life, but in the fullness (or in this case, the shortness) of time, it yields good things”.

I walk up to the deli section: they’ve already packed away all the food, and there is no chance that I can charm anyone to fetch anything for me... they’re all too busy marveling their narrow escape. At both the grocery store and the bottle store, the cash till attendants are black females, and they are all looking shocked and disgusted at how close they came to losing their lives. Thankfully there are no blood stains, blanket draped bodies, or ambulances that I can see, which means the worst that happened this time is psychological trauma. I forever get frustrated that most stores here close at 5pm, but in times like these it's easy to understand why.

As I exit the store I hear the manager tell the police “one man came over and threw me onto the floor…” Outside the doors, there’s a white woman crying and leaning on her husband telling him what happened and I catch the tail end of his comment “… that’s why I don’t want you out at this hour of the night dear”. The group with the young man and the woman with her daughter and husband suddenly breaks into Afrikaans. They have been waiting for a reporter from the Beeld newspaper which targets the Afrikaans-speaking population. I leave him busy scribbling down notes of the incident.

Can’t help thinking that come Monday there will be that many more white South Africans seeking to emigrate to New Zealand and Australia, there will be yet another story to relate about how things are just getting worse and worse, another metre added to our security walls, another security guard added to the perimeter of our high security apartment complexes [security guards have just ended a 2 month strike over wages. They are paid peanuts but are expected to face death daily in the line of duty, for those living behind the walls of upmarket, exclusive, world class complexes]. Too bad black South Africans don’t have a country waiting to welcome them with open arms. I’m sure judging from the looks on some faces quite a few people would choose to leave. The only option currently available though, is to stay and strive to make things better. But how?

I won't come back to SA, Irish cyclist says