I crossed the border with Mark into Zeerust Wednesday. Zeerust is a medium sized town, by the standards of rural North West province a small city, that serves as the shopping and banking and service center for the larger region, including many Gabaroneans like my friend who find Zeerust to be cheaper and more abundant in products than what they can find here in Botswana’s capital.
I have crossed lots of borders in southern Africa in just about every configuration imaginable. Sometimes those crossings have been nightmarish, sometimes quite smooth. Oftentimes it depends on which border one is crossing, though most often the key factor is time of day — any border entering South Africa on a Monday morning or leaving the country on a friday afternoon is almost certain to be rather chaotic as labvorers from neighboring countries tend to be arriving to or leaving from a week of work as migrant workers in mines and elsewhere.
The corssing yesterday was quite easy — we awoke early enough in the morning to get through easily and quickly, and we crossed in the late afternoon, which meant we ran into some commercial travel, but no real headaches. Except perhaps one — I have mentioned Botswana’s xeonophobia. Even taking into account that it is the job of border guards and officials to be fastidious and perhaps even stern, there is no reason for them to be rude at the point of entry.
If you are not going to allow someone in, that is one thing. But if you are going to allow someone from another country to cross the border, is there any need to treat this person uncivilly? Generally speaking I was treated fine, but Mark once again was met with surliness, despite having all of his paperwork lined up, despite his clear status as a temporary resident with a work permit, and despite the fact that Mark is simply a nice guy and absolutely unobjectionable in dealing with the unnecessarily cranky border potentates.
Now this is not to impugn African border guards exclusively — we all know how it is to deal with the person at the department of motor vehicles or at a city or county office or really anywhere in which the drudgery of paperwork and the actual machanisms of running a society are being carried out. But at a border crossing the stakes tend to be considerably higher and the headaches potentially more massive. Is there really any need to make the border corssing process any more onerous than it already is, especially given that when we passed the traffic was not even all that heavy?
Zeerust seems somewhat removed from World Cup fever, at least compared with the intensity of the host cities. Ther closest venue to Zeerust is in Rustenburg, not that far away, but by the standards of rural South Africa certainly far enough. The streetlights are still covered with flags of the particupating nations, and shops and sidewalk vendors alike are doing their best to celebrate the World Cup as a vehicle for commerce. people are talking about the games. But the vibe seemed a bit tempered, though my experience there was admittedly brief.
Meanwhile we are all dealing with football withdrawal right now. In the course of the tournament I had seen parts of every game and the entirety of most. Suddenly yesterday we were junkies without a fix. Today is more of the same. I really almost think that the world’s World Cup ends, or at least changes dramatically, after the all inclusiveness of the group stages. Now we are among exclusive company. The sport is no less enjoyable, but most of us now are mere observers, though I would suspect that Ghana’s appearance in the semifinals tomorrow night will be fairly electric, as will any appearance by Brazil. Argentina still looks great as well, so on the pitch I think there is lots of truly spectacular football to be seen. But I will be very interested to see how the crowds are back in South Africa on Satrurday when I fly through Joburg to end up back in Durban.
