Border officials look kindly on pensioners Mnquma a disgraceful tip

IT WAS not all plain sailing on our recent trip to Botswana. There were moments of frustration and doubt, but all in all it was a wonderful holiday with many happy memories, and the upsides (for us anyway) far outweighed the negatives.

Border crossings are not fun, but the Chiels couldn’t complain.

At Martin’s Drift going out of South Africa, our hearts sank at the sight of hundreds and hundreds of heavy trucks lining the road. “Oh no,” we sighed. “This is bad!” And it was. Fortunately light vehicles have preferential treatment as trucks and cargo are checked and cleared.

Parking was a nightmare and when we finally got to the line that led to the immigration windows, we were horrified.

It was around 3pm and there must have been 150, maybe 200, people queueing and moving at snail pace.

After half an hour I said to Mrs Chiel: “There’s no point both standing here.”

She agreed and I went to sit in the bakkie.

On my return to swop places, the exit door from the passport checkout was open.

An official came out and, making myself look hot, tired, and “very old” I said to him: “Do pensioners get any special treatment? I’ve been waiting for hours.”

“Okay,” he said, looking me up and down. “Give me your passport.”

“My wife’s got that,” I replied, “can I fetch her?”

Well, you should have seen the delight on her face. Our passports were stamped and bingo, we were off to the Botswana side where they too gave us the same “pensioner” privilege.

We’d pre-booked all our campsites a year before through an agent in Maun who charged a very reasonable rate. It was so much easier than contacting individual camp operators, but it didn’t prevent a few glitches.

At 3rd Bridge, in the Moremi reserve, we were told we’d have to swop camps half way through our stay, but when we arrived were pleased to find we had the full four days in camp 2 (the one where a man was attacked by a leopard the morning we arrived!).

On day two a couple of English tourists pitched up to say they were booked there. “Oh no,” we said, showing them our booking, “this is ours”.

After much to-ing and fro-ing to the office, they were allotted another site.

There was an even bigger muddle awaiting us at Ihaha, on the Chobe River.

We booked in at around 3pm, drove to our site and found two trailers with tents on them parked there.

The occupants were nowhere, so we returned to the office and raised stink!

“Oh, those people asked if they could stay another day,” the receptionist replied.

“But it’s our site,” we countered. “They’ve gone on a game drive,” she said, “but will be back soon. We can give you another site.”

“No, we’ve booked that one and besides, we have ground tents, so we don’t want to move again.” “Oh!” So we returned to the campsite and waited. Four o’clock, five o’clock passed. At 5.30 they arrived back, full of remorse and apologies, packed up and left. We were fuming, and told them off.

Next morning they returned to apologise again and presented us with two bottles of very nice wine.

We all agreed, however, Ihaha was our favourite – birds’ animals and river were superb. But that wasn’t the end. The Schwulsts, Ed and Fee, and Jenny Farr, had to leave a day early for home for a medical appointment and were stopped at a police roadblock, only to be hit by a truck that smashed into their trailer and Pajero SUV, causing thousands of rands damage, but not enough to prevent them carrying on.

The police arrested the driver and slapped him with a 1 000 pula fine. He had no money. It was Saturday morning and he would have to appear in court on Monday, the police insisted. The Schwulsts would have to give evidence.

But they had to get home, Ed protested.

After much negotiating they decided the only answer was to pay the driver’s fine for him.

That wasn’t possible, the police said.

In the end, they slipped 1 000 pula to the man who then “miraculously” found “some money” and paid up.

It was the only way! — IT is hardly a month since the local elections where the ANC was returned to power in Mnquma municipality. But in a bizarre, disgraceful, disdainful and disrespectful show of arrogance and impunity towards the electorate, the ANC has started to do what it does best – which is fight and jostle for position within itself.

Immediately after the elections the cleaning of the streets came to an abrupt end. Litter has been piling up in the streets for weeks constituting a health hazard and Butterworth has reclaimed the title it lost long ago to East London as the dirtiest town in South Africa.

The town and townships’ roads and streets infrastructure is in a sad state of disrepair and all the powers that be do to rectify the situation is to patch up with “sabhunge”. Where there were tarred streets in the townships there are now deep dongas. The main streets and pavements are so congested that there is hardly place to walk!

The other day I saw the head of communications and the now beleaguered municipal manager planting trees. Subsequently I have, on occasions, had to fend off municipal staff intent on chopping up the beautiful trees in King Street for no apparent reason.

Meanwhile, Butterworth has become one big grazing field. Stray animals are all over town – cattle, goats and even donkeys roam around and eat up any green plants in sight. — Lungisani Ncoko, Butterworth