Hi all

Today is New Year’s Eve and I am left wanting for the annual Twilight Zone Marathon. When I was a kid, I used to think this was the best thing about the coming of the next year. Lying there on my stomach, feet circling in the air, soaking up mysterious and gruesome stories of Rod Serling’s social morality. It’s funny how I can be here and miss such a thing. But the third world of South Africa in its first world shell has a way of lulling one into a false security making one think things should be like they are at home.

I’ve been here in KwaZulu-Natal for three weeks now. It feels much more like Africa here. The beginning of last week opened with an attempted car jacking south of Durban. My embassy friend, Deepti, and I were returning from diving at Umkamaas. We were almost into Durban, driving north on the coastal road, when we hit this section of highway without off-ramps for several kilometers. A car came up behind me in the fast lane and flashed its brights in standard SA fashion indicating a desire to pass. I started to pull over to the next lane when this yellow car came racing up from my left and zoomed into the space I was heading for. Swerving back into the fast lane to avoid a collision the car trying to pass me hit me from behind. My little Golf was forced forward and sideways, and then they bumped us again, actually pushing my car. I finally regained control of the car, but it took me a minute to regain my wits.

After a string of explicatives and with my heart in my throat, I looked in my rear view mirror. The red Toyota that had hit me had its left turn signal on. I've never been in an accident before… well, I've only hit stationary objects before… so I though, OK, yes, this is what I must do… we have to pull over and exchange insurance information. I moved over into the slow lane and the red car followed. I wanted to exit the highway, but we drove for 4 kilometers and no exits came. Deepti and I debated pulling over onto the shoulder. After what seemed like an eternity, I decided to pull over the painted line into the emergency lane. I stopped my car, but did not turn it off. The red car came up behind me and suddenly I could see that it was stuffed with 6 black people, all appearing to be men. Not liking that situation, and feeling incredibly racist, I peeled back onto the highway. The red car followed. I saw an off-ramp ahead and waived to it. The driver nodded. I figured that if we were going to exchange information, it would have to be in front of a lot of people, or at the nearest police station.

Deepti and I got off at the off-ramp and parked in front of a shop. Craning my neck to look behind me, I couldn't see the red car. We waited a bit, but they never came. After about 10 minutes of debating whether we were paranoid, or had almost been hijacked, we decided we needed a beer.

It wasn't until we started driving again that I really thought about it. Why did he hit me twice? Why didn't they follow me off? Is it likely that if they needed to stuff 6 people into one car that they would want to give me their insurance information for an accident that was clearly their fault? Deepti and I decided we wanted a South African opinion. At dinner we told the story to our waiter (or “waitron” as they call them here, which always conjures an image of our waiter in one of those glowing suits from the movie “TRON”). He listened and said, “well, probably a 50/50 chance. What are you driving?” I pointed across the road to my car with its new smash in the bumper. “Jaaaa,” he said, “two women in a white Citi Golf with Cape Town plates - definitely.”

At least the rest of the week was better. My advisor Peter Cranston came to visit for a few days and we had Christmas at Steven Johnson's house with his wife Kathy and their two young kids, Daniel and Amy. We had a very nice lunch, played cricket in the yard, and did some swimming in the pool. Of course this wasn't my first hand at cricket. The first time I went over to Steve’s house for dinner, we played cricket in the hallway of the house, with the door as the wicket and a small plastic ball. Apparently, Steve and Kathy used to do this frequently when they were in graduate school in Cape Town! Anyway, in the yard, we used a baseball and were able to do some real bowling. I actually started to get the hang of bowling (pitching), and got three people out by hitting the wickets. I was quite chuffed (which means ‘pleased’- my new word for the week).

The day after Christmas, Peter and I, along with a visiting undergraduate from Sweden, went to Amatikulu. This is a patch of Coastal Forest north of Durban that is in Zululand proper. The old southern boundary of Zululand was the Tugela river. It was, of course, drizzling all day and overcast. It wasn't long before we were completely drenched, but we had been told to look for orchids, so we chugged on through the patches of high, wet grass, and past the wet and dripping bushes overhanging the path. We had a very nice walk along the river, which was sign posted to contain both bilharzia and crocodiles. We found no orchids, but I had plenty of little ticks on me when we got back to the car. So many that my sock looked like some had spilled a bottle of pepper on them. I changed my clothes and put the wet set into a plastic bag. We then went further north to Umlalata, where there were mangroves and zebra and air breathing fish and fiddler crabs and more ticks. The fish, mudskippers I guess, were hopping back and forth along the waters edge. Peter told me they hold territories, regardless of the water level. So when the tide goes out in the estuary, I guess they go from guarding a volume of water to just guard their little patch of mud.

The next day it was off to the ‘Berg (the Drakesnberg). We drove up to Cathedral Peak and hiked the trail to Mike’s Pass. We had a nice break in the weather and a great walk. Pete was looking for Chironomiid larvae that occur in waterfalls that seep out of the mountain and come dribbling in thin sheets of water over rock. This is what we found here. As we were hiking, you could look up the kloof (canyon) and see these seeping falls, black and glistening, all along the shelves of exposed granite. Deep in the kloof, where the river was running below, was a patch lush greenery that Peter said would be relictual Gondwanan forest. Above this forest, the mountainsides were dotted with large, tree-like proteas, standing dark against the bright green grass. Again we were looking for orchids (and flies, or course), but Peter declared that he had never had any luck finding orchids, and that we would never see them while he was there.

Apparently, the Drakensberg gets more lightning strikes a year than any place in the world, outside of New Guinea? (I can’t seem to remember where the most are, exactly). We saw a fantastic lightning storm on the way to Winterton, where we stayed the night in a hotel that had just been taken over by a new owner a week ago. It had serious problems with running water. Pete took a shower in the rain outside.

The next day, Peter was off to Jo’berg to catch a plane to Australia. Since we were up that way, Erica and I headed to Giant’s Castle, a world heritage site that has the largest concentration of bushman paintings in sub-saharan Africa. Giant’s Castle is a bit south of Cathedral Peak in the 'Berg, and driving up to the entrance, the habitat looked a bit more xeric, and very right for my flies. We were very close to the park, when I spotted three huge, pink, Brunswigia (Amaryllidaceae). Steve had said, he thought it would fit nicely with the large, pink flower syndrome that seems to be visited by my flies. Against all advice about safety, I stopped on the side of the road and was able to catch two Philoliche flies! And Giant’s Castle was just gorgeous.

Like gruesome bookends, my story ends with another car-jacking attempt. The old Zulu homeland consisted of a large area in the northeastern Natal province, and a few patches here and there. The escarpment leading to the Drakensberg Park is full of these patches. Any access to the park must pass through old Zulu territory. We were driving back from Giant’s castle through one of these Zulu towns. Very much like the Trans-kei, there were people and farm animals wandering the roads. Many of them would wave hello, but unlike in the Trans-kei, most of them did not. A small boy made the motion of throwing something at my car. Then a young man walked in front of my car on purpose. I looked in my rear view to see him saunter back to the other side of the road. Because I had slowed down to avoid hitting this man, we had lost the series of cars in front of us, and there was no one behind us. We came to a hill with a combie (VW van) parked off the side of the road. As we approached the top of the hill, the combie moved across the road, blocking our way. We were about 100 ft away when this happened. I though, there is NO WAY I am stopping this car. I drove off the road into a ditch and around the back of the combie as fast as I could. Thank god he didn't have time to put it into reverse and smash me from behind!

When I got home later, another professor at UNP said that he had some Dutch students hijacked there. They were crossing a river on a narrow bridge when a combie pulled across the road. Then two men with guns came out of the grass, mugged them, and took their car. I've been here for four months without any serious threats to my safety, until this last week. All I can think is that it must be a combination of the type of car I am driving, the area that I'm living now, and the fact that it’s tourist season.

Steve said the area that we were at is notorious for car-jackings. I am now consulting with Steven before I go anywhere.

I hope all is well with all of you, and that you've had a wonderful holiday!

Shelah