A miner and an au pair.
It was that moment when you meet someone you have never met before in a public place and hold your breath, wave all friendly in the vein hope that that is the person you are looking for. I think it was a Toyota of some kind, a gunmetal green shuttle; if that is a colour, and a driver waving at me across the zebra crossing.
A match! He was in fact from Blunden Tours who have the monopoly in the Eastern Cape for Airport trips between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown. I had been on a Mango Airlines early-bird flight from Cape Town International: Lock door, get into Uber, arrive at airport, thank driver, pull little case on wheels to the sign board, check the check-in counter number, check myself in, check my need to be controlling when I’m stressed, stand in a queue that is not moving despite gate closing in 5 minutes. Deep breath, bite bottom lip. It was not yet 06:30 and my heart rate was racing as I had downed 2 espressos to avoid airport coffee.
On the flight I opened my laptop, elbows neatly tucked in, and opened two windows, a work presentation (which I promptly minimized) and rather focused my attention on a word document asking questions about economy and feelings around money. A few weeks earlier I had started an on-line course by Vangile Makwakwa called Money Magic. A financial advisor and vipassana meditator she dug herself out of a big USA scale student loan and recovered her relationship with money. Her big claim is that our feelings and energy towards money are the major reason we block ourselves. And so if we deal with our relationship to it we can deal with how we are integral in the flow of it.
While I’m doing all these questions I hear via the intercom that I am instructed to open the in-flight magazine to page blah blah and take a look at the menu. I diligently respond to the prompt having predictably not had breakfast. I gaze at the pristine picture of a delicious crispy roll, fresh curly lettuce, nice plump piece of tomato, generous wedge of cheese and a hot steaming well brewed, of reasonable strength, coffee placed next to the breadroll. My eyes shift over to the price and in a split second justified that 75 rand was fine for a sandwich and 35 rand not bad for a good, if not my third, cup of coffee.
I am not making this up… at that very moment, a tiny Vangile appeared sitting on the top right edge of my open macbook and she literally just sat there. She never said a word to me. My eyes shifted from the cost of a sandwich and back to her. And reality set in: There was no way that roll was going to be crispy, the tomato would be soggy and the coffee was bound to be tantrum-throwing weak. I realized that 100 rand was extortion and despite being hungry I sulkily closed the magazine and returned to my questions inciting what kind economy I was willing to support?
Fortunately the flight to PE is not that long and as we landed my burning hunger was distracted by disembarking the plane, finding my way out into the bright light, letting the feeling of Port Elizabeth and memories of living in the Eastern Cape for 7 years sink in.
Sunglasses on; oh! there’s the guy with my name on a board.
Now, my mother is a very chatty person: Whenever we were out and about in public she would strike up a conversation with someone. Her posture would shift a little, her eyes sparkle, her dimples deepen and she would choose her words, incite conversation and even debate. It used to dive me into a frenzy of humiliation and hurrrrrrrrry up moooooooooom, me, blushing crimson.
I am in my forties now and front seat, seat belt on I turn into my mother: I start to ask about The Man, where He lives ? In PE or Grahamstown? How long has He been driving for Blunden? How many trips a day? What’s the state of Grahamstown these days? And we talk of Makhanda and the desperate fate of the National Arts Festival. As we get onto the N2 I notice his speed starting to increase towards the 200s. I take another deep breath and think, let me see if I can trust this guy.
Seems okay for now. I don’t feel insecure just a little out of my comfort zone and I go back to my questions. I ask him if he would mind if we make a very quick but very necessary pit stop half way, about 70km into the journey, at the Nanaga Farm Stall. He was hesitant and I offered him a pie – the pies are to die for. He agreed and we got back to our conversation, which by this time had shifted to Johannesburg.
The Driver had grown up in Makhanda and as an adventurous 18 year old boy made his way up to City Deep in Johannesburg to feel out his possibilities. Which at that time in the late 1980s in South Africa was going to work up in the mines.
He told me about what position he had, about the gumboots and overalls, and where he lived in the hostels explaining the living conditions. He elaborated that he is a runner and to this day he still runs long distance and is “that man” that you see running along the N2 early in the morning. Said it was a habit he established back then to get out of the hostel.
I asked him his current age and it turned out we were not too far apart. I told him that I was a young apprentice photographer in the mid-90s when I was 20 and had been in the hostels and could relate to his story in so far as I’d seen how close quarters everyone lived. He then asked me what I had done at 18 and I almost said “like all South Africans…”, but had a sudden jolt of perspective and I said “like most white kids…” I had taken the 2 year commonwealth visa and gone to work in London.
An English speaking white girl from Bryanston for a few years I worked as an au-pair, house cleaner and in bars feeding a gobsmakking amount of alcohol into the faces of the British. I said it was good for me to have to be a nanny and clean houses and he said it was about growing up and learning about hard work and freedom. Said that is why he is a driver now. He understands what he wants.
I did ask him to slow down a bit and said faster than 180 makes me feel a little insecure and as we pulled over at Nanaga - what used to be a quaint farm stall but is now a jam, vetkoek, biltong, fresh pineapple juice and brilliant pie supermarket with loos you pay to pee. I went in with the 100 rand I did not hand over to Mango Airlines and afforded to get both The Driver and myself lunch, a jar of jam for my host and I still had the 2 rand change to use the loo.
© Monique Pelser 2020
© Monique Pelser 2020
https://www.instagram.com/moniquepelserstudio/
Drawing is by it's very nature process orientated. You start with a mark which becomes a line and develops into an image. Making drawings you are therefore processing. Hi my name is Monique Pelser I am a South African artist, producer, researcher, educator, creative recovery coach and Chi Gong practitioner.
I teach drawing as a skill as well as a wellness practice to children as well as adults. https://www.facebook.com/doodlesdailydrawings/
On this channel I share the experiences and insights I have gained in my life and research process.
The methods I use are breathing, drawing and writing and are used to support self-awareness, mindfulness, self-development as well as creative problem solving. I am the co-founder of The Art Of Wellbeing, an organisation working with multi-disciplinary researchers focusing on well-being practices for individuals as well as the corporation.
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