Jawellnofine. We South Africans are all too fond of thinking we’re unique, special, different. Uniquely scenic, uniquely crime-ridden, uniquely challenged, uniquely corrupt etc etc. The technical term for this is exceptionalism and it is a very bad habit, because it dupes us into thinking that we are more special than we really are. Think of it as national narcissism.
Nonetheless, there are instances where it becomes hard to imagine anyone but South Africans coming up with some of this. Such as the story of how TB patients are selling their spit for R100 a pop (as reported by the Daily Sun). Later the Mail & Guardian picked up the story. My favourite part is this one:
A 54-year-old man told a reporter that he makes an average of R500 per month from selling his saliva to people seeking to trick their way on to the benefits system. But he said business was “not good” because so many people were infected with TB in the township that he had a lot of competition.
Only in South Africa.
It’s hard to imagine another place in the world where the local government minister can come out with a request for citizens to check their “alive status”. Are we a land of zombies who don’t know that they’re zombies? This might explain the driving habits of most Capetonians and at least half the population of Gauteng.
(In South Africa, dead people can still collect their pension money. In Witbank, three women strapped a dead man to a wheelchair to claim his pension money from the Post Office. “He didn’t look so great,” a witness told Beeld. After the women said that they didn’t have money to bury the deceased, a supervisor made a print of the corpse’s thumb on a receipt slip and handed the women R960.)
Then there was the story of the cow that ran amok in an Mpumalanga shopping centre after a small dog clamped its jaws to her nose and refused to let go. “Witnesses said the dog — possibly a mix between a terrier and a corgi? or even a sausage dog — had latched onto the cow’s nose after finding? her grazing in his owner’s vegetable garden,” reported Oris Mnisi and Tshwareloeseng Mogakane. “The beast kicked and mooed — and ran, with the dog attached to her? snout, through the Thulamahashe shopping complex.”
Security guards locked themselves in their office to escape the cow. “When we first saw the dog we thought it was a plastic bag, but when the? cow got closer we saw it was dog hanging tight while the cow was bleeding,” said Vusi Shabangu.
The mongrel let go after it was called by a family member of the owner. Centre manager Nomsa Ngomane said damage amounted to over R2 000, but none of the tenants had laid charges of malicious damage to property. (This cow was very badly behaved, unlike the obedient, fried chicken-eating horse in Umtata who waited for two hours, untethered, while his owner visited the local magistrates’ court.)
Speaking of chicken, earlier in 2008, the Mopani News reported that two fowls in Nyanyukani village outside Tzaneen were abandoned in the bush to be killed and eaten by wild animals after they started walking upright like penguins. Their owner, Nomsa Mlangeni, was convinced they were bewitched. She finally got rid of the birds after neighbours accused her of being a witch, and vowed never to keep chickens or eat chicken again.
At least the chickens didn’t actually haunt anyone, as was the case with the unfortunate Mervin Senna of Benoni, who was tormented by a strange black bird that appeared in his kitchen after the lights went out.
“Mervin Senna and wife are living in hell,” the Daily Sun reported. “ … they are being tormented by a strange black bird … and the man needs help … FAST!”
Senna explained that the bird, identified by sangomas as a tokoloshe, had started haunted him and his wife about four months before while they watched TV. Mervin heard and saw a black bird moving around the house in the dark. It would come out to eat their food and play in the kitchen.
“This bird is violent. It recently attacked my wife and wanted to sleep with me,” he reported.
Not to mention the Afrikaans-speaking tokoloshe who attacked a woman in the Free State (apparently a world first — the Afrikaans, that is, not the attacking), the Free State rapist/prophet — the Free State evidently being a flattish brown version of Twin Peaks — who shaved his victims’ pubic hair before having his way with them, and the Ugandans in Pietermaritzburg who tricked a man into parting with R60 000 that they would magically increase by washing it in a river.
I was going to say, how could they be so stupid? But then I thought of all those very clever, rich businessmen who gave Barry Tannenbaum lots of money, money that he was going to magically transform into more money. And what he did was on a much smaller scale than people like Bernard Madoff in America.
Which makes me wonder whether, for all the zombies and tokoloshes and haunted chickens, we’re not so different after all.
You evil subeditor people removed my question mark!
Everyone knows that blog entries without question marks get fewer reads.
Superb, although I have to say that there is a scant outside chance that the Daily Sun might have made a few of those up
We ARE special!!!
especially bizzare.
I almost tore something! Thanks for this!
My favourite Daily Sun headline of all time is: “Gay tokoloshe gave me Aids!”
There’s a lot more material, but it will have to wait for another entry.
I hope and trust the department of health is taking this very seriously. There are major implication not only for South African communities but for the whole world.
What if the sellers of sputum stop adhering to treatment regimen so that they can prolong the period to sell their spit. What about the buyers what are they doing with the medication they receive at facilities? Is it surprising that Multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB)and Extremely drug resistant TB (xdr-tb) are becoming a problem in SA? What impact will this have on the region, particularly when SA is the hub for traveling, economies etc? I wish this kind of enterprising could be channeled into more positive business enterprises. Lastly we should also ask ourselves the question, do we do enough research before starting programs, it might be because we use so called experts who are in a different world to receivers of such grants. God bless Africa.
Tokolosh is bringing apartheid back, I guess. That evil dog must have been possessed with a lion spirit or is it carnivoral spirit. Let us leave this speculation to the experts.
The violent bird? eish… there is a state of emergency in this country.
God this is funny … can’t see out of my eyes … posting it to every living soul I know.
Thank you Sarah!!
Oh Sarah – what a lovely end to a mad Friday!
I believe you missed out one TL blogger that possessed by the tokoloshe, who now resides in China.
Anyway, take a break from reading the tabloids and fixating on the underbelly of SAn society. Lets speak about the unique greatness of a country that produced giants like Mandela, Gandhi, Tutu etc. – no surprise that we SAns regard ourselves as special.
Being more than five years out of SA really makes me miss hearing “ja well no fine”. Lekker dinge, ja, jolly good.
Lol – makes me homesick!!
Only in South Africa, nevermind taxis, Mercedes and BMW’s, in the northern suburbs, (the “smart and successful people”) driving on the wrong side of the road in traffic at a busy intersection today.. I mean we all forget sometimes roads are for everyone and that sometimes it has traffic in both directions…God help us.
Weird.
Could it remotely, vaguely possibly, be within half-inch of REAL?
Africa’s not only “not for sissies”.
It’s most emphatically “not for sensibles”.
Perhaps Africa really IS — as Kwame Nkrumah once triumphally trumpeted — for the Africans.
Amen.
Enjoy.
i was beginning to worry, but this one comforted me: I was going to say, how could they be so stupid? But then I thought of all those very clever, rich businessmen who gave Barry Tannenbaum lots of money, money that he was going to magically transform into more money.
excellent one! laughed my heart out!
What concerns me;
1) it’s of no concern to the author or people commenting that they are paying for this spit through the social handouts and tax…
2) that the department of social development allows this, the auditor general allows this, SARS allow this…
is this social development?
if so then I want my house built from cannabis!
Jon, I’ll have you know that a “one woman crime wave” was recently booted out of Sydney and sent back to New Zealand, whence she came.
So New Zzzzzilland isn’t for sissies either.
Well done Sarah! It really made me chuckle.
“Penis killers fired from Saps”: a headline you’ll see only in SA:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20090921035859524C219577
Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. George Bernard Shaw
I am not sure whether this comment will appear (seeing as most of my previous comments to your blog did not see the light of day).
Anyway, Ms Britten: This article would have been interesting if only you had not included the TB story. That story is exaggerated to barbarise Africans especially the poor ones who live in townships. People know that TB is deadly and the picture that certain members of the so-called liberal media are trying to paint is based on lopsided views. The few people who want to be infected with TB do so out of desperation for an income and they certainly do not ingest a TB patient’s spit but, as far as I know, sit in the same room with the sick person while s/he coughs. This happens very rarely. One or two people might have done what the papers claim (“selling saliva” etc) but the whole issue has been blown out of proportion. People who are well-off may not understand the desperation that unemployed and poor people face but please, have a little compassion; this is certainly no laughing matter.
Also, why don’t you make fun of white South Africans as much as you make fun of Africans?
You’re quite right Phillipa (by the way, what happened to your avowal never to read my blog again?)
Next time I will be sure to balance stories about selling spit – something which the Daily Sun picked up first, and they’re catering for the people you claim to defend so self-righteously – with suitably racially representative stories including people speaking in tongues at Rhema services, men longing for the good old days of women barefoot and pregnant at Angus Buchanan knees-ups, and skinner about popular white sports stars snorting drugs and canoodling with strippers.
The only problem is that wouldn’t happen only in South Africa, so I’ll have to include them under a different heading.
We also have media-’super star’ Julius Malema, who is in the news every week. He is a sight to behold when on stage…
Is “Phillipa Lipinski” a satirical creation?
Disgusted, Tunbridge Wells.
@Sarah: I said I would not read your blog if the story is not interesting or well-written. Over the past few weeks (months?) you seem to have improved your writing skills and upped your thinking a notch or two.
It’s only in South Africa that the guy who offers hair-raising flights in a Buccaneer could, without apparent irony, be called Mike Beachy Head.
only in SA