The Boers left the Cape in 1838 because they were unhappy with the governance. We are glad to see you have learned your lesson now and are ruling a lot better, so we are coming back.
If we could march off in a huff, we can march back in a huff. It’s the Great Trek Back, baby! Are you ready? Stats SA guesses about 75,000 of us from Gauteng have relocated over the past 5 years, and the number is expected to increase. We are not moving cautiously in a laager this time, we are coming in a swarm. Conspiracy, cockup or murmuration; yes. It’s a de-colonised re-colonisation.
Jan van Riebeeck didn’t know what he was going into. We do. Don’t stand on the beach waiting for us to come by sea in the Reijer, Dromedaris and Goede Hoop. We shall be coming round the mountain in overlanders, Ford Rangers and Venter trailers. Add a few Eldo’s Coaches just to get a clear mental picture.
When I say ‘we’ are coming back, I am not talking about the Afrikaner, I mean all of us: the Zulu, the Xhosa, the Sotho and our brethren from Limpopo ‘North.’ Remember, we are integrated up here. So don’t call the police when you see black people driving fancy cars, ok? And if our Indians look slightly different it is because they are Pakistanis. We Simunye’ed each other a long time ago up here, so culturally, socially and economically we are one.
A sign of a backward people
Your lack of assimilation down there, to us, is a sign of a backward people who need to be educated. We are doing you a favour.
I don’t know how you guys administer your clandestine Group Areas Act down there, but start getting your mind around a few more curtains to go with the existing Boerewors and Lentil varieties. How about the ‘Spaza Curtain’? We can put them up at all the beaches.
The ladies at Clifton can learn a few words of Somali or Nigerian while buying a loose draw or two, and those fake packets of NikNaks are so cheap you can rub yourself all over and it will look like you’ve spent five hours at an expensive tanning salon.
Think of it as a hostile takeover with benefits, I mean an opportunity to work together and do trade exchanges. Judging by advance reports of my scouts, the indigenous population is relatively docile and sleepy so it should be pretty painless. What did you expect?
Going around telling everyone that your service delivery is better than anywhere else is akin to flashing golden amulets in the face of Cortès. You were basically asking for it. Well, no use crying about it. I am saying this as a politeness and an honesty: we are every bit as excited and entitled as a Zimbabwean entering South Africa for the first time (a much more populous migration, by the way. It dwarfs the semigration to the Cape.)
We see milk and honey and opportunity everywhere and we feel like we have a right to stake our claim to it. To us, Cape Town is like the Wild West, except everyone sleeps late. You snooze, you lose.
White picket fences?
Apparently, some of you want to make the Cape ‘independent,’ lol! How are you going to secure the borders? White picket fences with some muesli strewn around? The muesli might distract our brethren from Limpopo North for a bit, but I can assure you they will find a way through that fence, dismantle it and sell it back to you as wire sculptures on Greenmarket Square.
Just checking, I hear there is a notice at the Spar in Hout Bay asking people to not shop in their pyjamas? I bought my gown from Woolworths, so that should be ok, right? My Crocs are a matching beige colour so no one will even notice me.
Don’t bother reaching for the yoga mat and an Urbanol. Arguing that we will cause ‘infrastructure collapse’ won’t help now. Too little, too late. It’s done. Ke Nako. If you cannot stem the tide; rather learn from the fish who already know how to swim in it. We will teach you how to speed up traffic by everyone simply not stopping at traffic lights simultaneously at slightly delayed intervals. It is straightforward: either everyone follows the rules or no one does, they both work equally efficiently. We are also experts at cutting out red tape and paying traffic cops in KFC and fees directly, so watch and learn.
An invaluable skill will be when we show you how to operate your own electricity substation. What you still fail to understand is that it doesn’t help to have Koeberg as a power station if Eskom still administers the distribution. It’s like stacking money into a sofa at Phala Phala and putting Zuma in charge of it. No one is going to get anything and all you will hear is Msholozi going: “heh-heh-heh.”
Online tickets to Perth
Don’t worry when the wi-fi goes down and you can’t browse for online tickets to Perth – we have trained our hadedas to be carrier pigeons. They will beak-deliver a message to you as a reminder that there is no further South to go. They also offer effective wake-up calls first thing in the morning. Aikona, not 10h00 – 06h00. Not only will it energise you more than your beloved latte, but you might finally be able to shake off that nasty ‘Slaapstad’ nickname. We are busy orchestrating flocks of them into a travelling troupe called the ‘Flying vuvuzelas’ to grace Newlands Cricket Stadium every time someone bowls.
Well, I’ve given you enough warning. I advance at dawn. I am typing this missive on the porch of a Bed and Breakfast in Philippolis, after which I shall wind my way down via Napier. Good luck to us all. Bayete!
(PS: Please don’t take this article too personally. It was written half-jokingly. I’m not telling you which half. Heh-heh-heh.)
[Image: JMK, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30233865]
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