Re-entry
Betsy’s reluctant to drive into downtown Jo’burg alone, in this case to pick me up from Park station, where the Greyhound bus is supposed to drop me off coming from Maputo.
So I figured I might have the chance to hook up with some whiteys, tourists, on their way from Maputo to Jo’burg whom, surely, were going to spend a few nights in some backpackers and would have to get from Park station to their location lodgings. And, although the bus wasn’t nearly full when leaving Maputo (but filled up completely in Nelspruit), there were still two white travellers on board.
Shortly before Nelspruit, the bus made a snack stop. I started chatting with a young girl in a green skirt and a black shirt with Hebrew lettering. She seemed overly happy and travelling alone. What could be better?
Not a tourist, she turned out to be South African, returning to Jozi after a year in a Christian rehab farm near Maputo. Having been addicted to coke, she’d not seen her parents, gotten off the farm, seen any television or listened to any music for one whole year. At Park Station, she was going to be picked up by her parents, an emotional reunion.
The other whitey also just came back from a year in rehab. After an earlier relapse, this had been his second year.
Clearly, sharing a ride was not going to be an option.