21April1998

Tuesday, 21 April 1998
My dear folks,

The British would kill for the sunny days that roll out effortlessly and endlessly here in Witbank; blue skies, green lawns & peaceful suburbs filled with bird-song & flowers. If all you wanted from a holiday was a chance to relax in the sunshine, Witbank would do very nicely. Ditto if you wanted a look at a typical working South African town. The suburbs remain overwhelmingly white - high fences, alarms & fierce dogs offering some protection against the high levels of crime. But most of these things you know so I’ll leave them alone.

The Benson residence at 59 Plumer Street is a typical old Witbank property. During the day its sole inhabitants are Lily the Dalmatian and Rosie the Rotweiler, except for the three mornings when Evangelina comes to clean. Lily and Rosie are an integral part of the household & worthy of some attention. Lily has green crocodile eyes & is about as astute as they come; she reads her humans like a book & knows exactly how far she can go. She is full of tricks & can be utterly charming or lapse into sulks. She has become a little stout since "her operation". Rosie is a softie whose muscular torso & blood-curdling howls hide a pacifist heart - not that passers by would get any inkling of this. She hates the threat of domestic violence & growls in dismay if Brendan raises an arm. She soaks up all the attention she can get. Unlike Lily, she is not a clever dog, but she is bright enough to know that Lily is the star performer & she gets very jealous. Both dogs sleep in the scullery except on rare occasions when they can be found on Micaela's bed.

Micaela attends the convent, just around the corner, where the majority of pupils are black. (White pupils almost became extinct but have recently been returning there in small numbers.) Micaela is not a morning person; during the week she rises reluctantly at 6.45 for the start of classes at 7.30. Sometimes, she walks the 100 yards to school with friends; at other times, Brendan drops her. He will not allow her to walk alone. She is fetched from school by a young woman teacher who (is currently raising a family &) oversees Micaela's homework & coaches her. Bren picks his daughter up from the woman's house in the evenings. The arrangement seems to work well. Micaela is going on 17; she is in the 11th grade & hopefully will finish school next year. She is an accomplished horse woman & has a flair for music but she is not academically inclined. Her hope is to do something with horses.

Conal is down in Nelspruit where he & another manager take it in turns to run Brendan's restaurant. We drove down on Sat. Brendan curses the day he ever went into the restaurant business & so does Conal, who hates the work & being far from home. He was sent down there to try to stem the losses arising from continuing corruption & fraud. Brendan, having fired the crooked partner who cost him a fortune, found that he was still being robbed blind by all concerned. The restaurant has been on the market for some time & Brendan is now negotiating with a potential buyer for a knock-down sale. He will be deeply relieved to get the place off his hands. He makes the five hour round trip to Nelspruit at least once a week. As his sole transport is now a bakkie, it is not a comfortable trip & there is seldom good news waiting for him when he arrives. God willing, Benson's restaurant will soon be history.

For the other six days of the week, for at least 11 hours a day, he has been struggling to keep his Witbank business afloat. It has been an exhausting, debilitating process. The problems have arisen as a result of widespread fraud & a downturn in the economy; sadly, his generally useless legal partners give him no backing to speak of. The problems have been exacerbated by the tedious bureaucracy that now hedges labour relations. No doubt that it protects employees interests; it also means that disgruntled employees can tie him up in hours of protracted hearings with labour officials - and they do. It drives him mad.

He came across mounting evidence of a syndicate to defraud him & eventually caught the main perpetrator red-handed. He reckons he was taken for hundreds of thousands of rands. The same is true for the restaurant. To stay afloat, he has mortgaged his house to the hilt, knowing that the collapse of the business would cost him his home as well. It has been a deeply worrying time. He has no friends to speak of, no social life, no holidays and no days off work. His entire efforts have been concentrated on trying to survive. A severe blow came some weeks ago when the coal mines - around which all his work is concentrated - indefinitely postponed a major project of his without warning.

The hardest part is that he has had no-one to turn to. His legal partners, with problems of their own, have been of little assistance. "I was trained as quantity surveyor and builder," Brendan pointed out, saying that these skills did not equip him for the legal, bureaucratic & economic minefield he walked. "I wish Kevin had been here," he said, speaking of Kevin's experience in these things, "he would have known what to do."

A month ago, he was close to despair. I am very pleased to say that things are looking up. First & foremost, he is hopeful of getting rid of the Nelspruit albatross shortly & of getting Conal back up to Witbank. He has also recently had welcome contracts for both underground and surface work. The latter entails the maintenance of hundreds of mine-owned houses. It is straightforward & pays it way but makes little profit. Underground is where his hopes lie.

His underground teams are involved in two specific tasks of which I knew nothing until a few days ago. In both of them, Brendan has been at the forefront of new technology & he has a patent pending. Several other mines have expressed interest & asked him to demonstrate the process which involves "stoppings", a means of blocking off passages for ventilation purposes. The other task involves "stone-dust barriers". These are bags of a fine, inert chalky dust which are hung in their scores in the tunnels behind the coal face. In the event of an explosion, they burst and the dust stops the flame which otherwise threatens to race through the entire mine. Because the coal cutting machines throw up a firework display of sparks from the rock interspersed with the coal seams & can hit a pocket of methane at any moment, fire prevention is a major exercise. Brendan waits day by day for a particular contract that would see him right out of the woods. He also has great hopes that his patent will be lucrative although the patent will not come through until next year.

As I indicated, he makes an early start. That meant that I found myself at home this week with no means of transport. Witbank does not run to public transport & distances are impratically large for walking. Nor is the visitor encouraged to walk. So I went out & bought a bicycle. If that sounds a bit extreme for a brief visit, it's not. I managed to acquire bike, pump, helmet, lock & gloves for less than the equivalent of £100. The bike easily gets me to the several shopping centres - or nearby downtown - as well as to Brendan's porta-office, situated on a site on the other side of town. Micaela has asked to inherit it & I have said that she is welcome to use it, at least until my next visit.

My arrival did provoke a small crisis. Brendan spent much of Sunday searching for the bank cards which I left with him & which give me access to my account & Mum's. He hunted through the numerous files which littered a desk, taking the opportunity to open dozens of statements which had lain untouched for months - some for years. Over a period of several hours, he went through every single file in vain. We then hunted around the house before Bren remembered another box housing Dad's old files - & there the cards were. At least, he got up to date with his mail. I have since brought him a simple hanging file system & installed his files in it. He is pleased & grateful.