The many angels who have saved me
People who know me know I am not particularly religious. My belief system over the past several decades has shifted constantly, but since early adulthood I stopped believing that a divine force works to keep me safe or healthy just because I ask for it. I figure there are so many people out there that need protection, who ask for it often, and many of those people do not get that protection. Occasionally when traveling in South Africa, I found that sometimes I wanted to ask for protection, even though I sincerely didn’t believe (and still don’t believe) anyone (anything) grants it.
As I continue on with this story, one thing I really don’t want to do is portray Africa as violent or unsafe, or at least any more than anywhere else in the world. In reality, most places in Africa are very peaceful and you could walk around safely in most of the continent as a foreigner. But similar to America, there are places where safety is not a guarantee. South Sudan, where I have spent a fair amount of time, has dealt with civil war for decades. Nigeria’s security concerns are significant. South Africa has a very high crime rate, and Kenya has had tragic bouts of terrorism. Then again, so has America and Europe, and you rarely hear about mass shootings in Africa the way they occur in America. Overall though, when I travel, I feel safe, with one exception: I do worry about car accidents, which are much more likely to cause me harm in Africa than any crime or violence is.
That said, a fair amount of my more interesting stories do take place in harrowing situations as the hundreds of times I safely walked to the store makes for terrible storytelling. These precarious stories, when they happened, were quite scary, but later I can take stock and see all I did to stay safe. I have been a bit hesitant to write some of them because I don’t want to leave the impression of a violent place, but I also realized that in many of these cases, the person causing the trouble was not who I remembered the most. It was the person who stepped in to help me. These are the people I want you to focus on when I tell my stories. These people, often women, who stepped in to help a stranger who looked and talked differently then they did.
When I was in the Peace Corps in South Africa, to get around we took minibuses called taxis or kombis. These are public transport that usually hold eighteen people legally, but I have seen up to twenty-six stuffed in, although in recent years the police have cracked down on overloading the taxis so this is less common than it was twenty years ago. In the late 1990s, taxis were far from safe. Speeding, passing other cars and trucks on roads with no shoulder, sudden stops, and most importantly, a lack of anything resembling roadworthiness of the vehicles themselves, made taxi travel treacherous. I once was in a taxi with no steering wheel- just a wrench the driver had clamped onto where a steering wheel should be. I can’t count the number of times the doors fell off the taxi as we drove. A rear axle broke one time and the back of the taxi skidded along at 60 miles per hours, sparks flying, before we came to a stop. I rarely felt safe in a taxi. So even though I do not believe that some divine being is going to decide to keep me safe just because I ask to be kept safe, I started most taxi rides with a prayer to whatever entity might be listening. The prayer usually was something like “Universe, don’t let me die in this taxi today.” I, unlike the 14,000 or so others killed in road accidents each year in South Africa, did not die.
A few basics of this taxi system. If I wanted to get from my village to Pretoria, the capital, I would take a taxi from my village to the town of Ermelo, change to a new taxi that took me to a slightly bigger town of Witbank, then change again, and take one to Pretoria. There is a complex system of payment and determining the route you take. Taxis don’t leave the taxi rank until filled with people and prices are set for each leg. When you were in the taxi at some point the person sitting in the middle seat in the front collected the money from each passenger and passed back change as needed. This person was just a random passenger who ended up in this seat. If the fare was seventeen Rand, row by row the people would figure out the amount they put in and the change needed and the money would be passed up to the middle, front person, who determined the right amount was there for everyone. This system amazed me in several ways. First, it required trust. I never once saw someone short the driver. In fairness, if they did, it would not have gone well for them or for others on the taxi as taxi drivers were not known for their patience. It also required a fair amount of quick-thinking arithmetic, and in the rural areas many people had limited schooling but always seemed to figure it out. It also required significant interaction between you and the other passengers, as you figured out change and passed the money around. This interaction is how I was often able to start conversations with the people around me.
A few years after Peace Corps I was back in South Africa conducting my research for my master’s degree. I was in a community next to Ermelo and needed to get to Pretoria. I went to the taxi rank to make my way, but was told that I could not go through Witbank for some reason. I instead went through Secunda. Once I arrived in Secunda and started asking around to figure out how to get to Pretoria, it became clear that I would need to first go to Johannesburg and change taxis in downtown Johannesburg. This was not a route I knew and was not one I was comfortable with. Downtown Johannesburg is known for its insecurity. I also knew the taxi rank was huge, much bigger than I was used to navigating. I, however, had no clear other options as it was getting late. I took the taxi to Johannesburg. Along the way I started talking to the driver and to two of the women in the taxi. I told them I didn’t know the Johannesburg taxi rank and I would need someone to point me to the Pretoria taxis. They were clearly a bit concerned. Another quick side note- the Johannesburg taxi rank we were heading to was in a very precarious part of town. It was a place neighborhood I would recommend against traveling to for even the most adventurous unless they were with someone who knew the area well. It was a part of the country that when I was in the Peace Corps, was completely off limits due to the extremely high crime. I did not want to end up in this part of town but at this point had no choice. When we arrived one of the women told me to follow her. I did, and I stayed by her side even though it was extremely crowded. I was holding her hand as she walked me quickly from the taxi, down and across the road, and then up to a large gate, where hundreds of people were trying to squeeze through. It was the only time in my life when I understood how people can be trampled to death in crowds. As everyone tried to squeeze through this gate, you could have lifted your feet off the ground and not fallen because of all the people around you. At some point as we moved slowly past this gate I looked up and saw a white face in the crowd. He looked at me and yelled for help as he lifted his hand, covered in blood and said, “I’m from Australia and I was just stabbed.” As soon as he said that he was whisked away one way in the crowd and I the other way. I never saw him again. The woman I was with pulled me through and we finally had a bit of space. Soon though men were grabbing me. I had a backpack on and they were trying to take my backpack. Three other women joined the woman who was with me and they joined hands. They put me in the middle and walked me to a row of taxis. They stood there, surrounding me, till we reached the taxi. They put me on it and walked away.
The taxi took me and the seventeen or so others to Pretoria and dropped me off in a neighborhood there that was not considered all that great either, but that I knew. I called a friend who headed to pick me up. It was 10pm. I went into a small restaurant to wait for my friend. A police officer saw me and came up to me and asked why I was there. I told him I was fine and just waiting for a friend. The police officer waited with me. In many ways this made me uncomfortable- only my white privilege got me a police officer sitting with me. If I was black or brown he would never have asked if I was ok, even if I was a single woman in a part of town known for its crime. My friend eventually arrived and we went back to her place for the night. All safe and sound.
My friend and her wife told me later that they think I have angels. That I should have had more trouble that day but somehow, I got through that day and the many others. I agree, but I don’t think they are angels of the divine type. They are human angels. Humans who saw another in need and knew they needed to step up to keep me safe. Those women that day could have ignored me. They didn’t need to help me. They are just a few of the many people who have helped me while I travel. People who let me sleep at their house, who gave me a ride, who fed me, who gave me a heads up when something seemed off. They are my angels and occasionally I find myself in the position to be someone else’s angel. This is how I find divinity. In people. In the kind acts that most of us are capable of. This is my belief system.
