Cricket: Humbled by kids in a time warp

By RICHARD BOOCK in South Africa

JOHANNESBURG - You don't so much travel in an airliner as a time-machine when you visit South Africa.

The nation which introduced the world to apartheid seems to be caught up in a type of 1960s conflict at the moment, with the much overdue freedom of expression colliding headlong with traditional conservatism and leading to debates we have not heard in New Zealand for years.

The place is a blast from the past in terms of political incorrectness, and if you happen to be a woman who misses the wolf-whistles in the streets and the growls of approval when you enter a cafe, then South Africa is definitely the place for you.

They even iron their jeans over here, with creases down the middle (cringe).

For all the talk of equality, the new legisation has not seemed to have changed the way people think, and even in the insulated world of an international cricket tour you do not have to go far to hear someone suggesting that the "blacks" were happier under the old regime, that they were responsible for the high crime-rate, and that white South Africans were being poorly treated by the new Government.

There seems to be more bigots per square mile over here than anywhere else in the world.

We were sitting in the press box the other day when someone was complaining about the lack of an open telephone line.

"Look," an Afrikaans local said (they always say look).

"The rugby ground used to have an open telephone line inside a locked room, and some black got inside and cranked up 5000 rands' worth of calls."

It might have been that the discussion was about the risk of having an accessible telephone, but whenever the skin of the perpetrator is dark, colour is always made out to be relevant.

It is ingrained, entrenched in generations of discrimination, and seems to be as South African as Die Stem and the Springboks.

It took a few weeks, but I soon learned that when a white South African tells you that somewhere or some place is dangerous, what they invariably mean is that black people live there.

You might have thought that with the abolition of apartheid, the term black would be replaced by names of ethnic origin, such as Xhosa, Zulu or Tsutu.

But this country continues to ignore the natural treasures of its different people, and remains staunchly black and white when it comes to identification.

At East London, where New Zealand played against Border, we were all told not to go left should we venture out of the team hotel.

"It's dangerous," they said. What they actually meant was that it was black.

There was a need to keep your wits about you, too, because nearby was a beach that sometimes teemed with 50,000 bathers on the Boxing Day holiday and contained some elements of dubious motivation, as well as a huge majority of fun-loving, sun-loving, and well-meaning folk.

Common sense was the key, and I was well aware of that old Ashanti proverb - "never test the depth of a river with both feet" - as I decided to hang a left against all instructions, and sample some of East London's indigenous recreation.

I had a ball, quaffing a bit of rum with a few Xhosa lads.

Like their parents, they always supported the All Blacks rather than the Springboks, and it must be said they were not entirely convinced that white South Africans had suddenly turned over a new leaf, and were now treating all people equally.

"That is kak," they said, in such a tone that rendered a translation unnecessary.

When you did discover a white South African male who was genuine in his hope for equality, who understood the devastation caused by generations of oppression, and accepted that his people had to make sacrifices to help the disenfranchised, it was hard not to treat him like an endangered species.

The paradox is that despite such weirdness, South Africa is an awesome, intoxicating country, full of natural splendour and with a massive wealth in resources - not just in minerals and ore, but also in terms of its indigenous people, who bring the same sense of colour and community to their land as Polynesians do to New Zealand.

When the New Zealand team travelled inland for 90 minutes from East London to play at the township of Alice, the cricket was of a fairly marginal standard in cold, windy conditions.

But the experience was breathtaking and the opportunity to spend a day in a Xhosa community was something that will be hard to forget.

The ground was awash with schoolchildren and minders who had taken the day off to watch this strange, Anglicised game, which many of them had not seen before, let alone played it.

If you decided to watch from the rudimentary stands for a while, you would soon find yourself the centre of attention for about 200 primary schoolkids, who clustered around you in an attempt - or so I thought - to study a strange white person with a foreign accent.

In actual fact, they were using me as a windbreak.

These children were no more than eight or nine, but in the space of about 20 minutes had made me feel completely inadequate - and never more aware of New Zealand's isolated and monolinguistic culture.

After I had attempted to communicate, looking something like a deranged semaphore instructor for about five minutes, waving my arms around and making what I thought would look like international hand signals, I discovered that these kids could not only speak to me in English, but also in Afrikaans and Xhosa, as well as having a passing understanding of Zulu.

They laughed at me a lot that day.