Who's the white kid?

Our morning bus rides to town are usually not all that exciting, aside from the occasional wildlife we see on the sides of the road or the drunk men (at 6am) trying to get our attention from the back seat. This week was a little different. We decided to go into town on Wednesday to escape the pension rush that would follow the Thursday and Friday pension days in the rural villages (this happens once a month). Town would be far less busy and we wouldn't have to deal with an overcrowded taxi rank on the way home.

We elbowed our way to the bus door shortly after 7am. We like to be some of the first ones on if possible because we have a better chance of getting to a seat before the driver takes off and we lose all sense of balance and accidentally find ourselves in the lap of a traditionally-sized African woman. This time we were lucky. The bus wasn't filled to capacity, so Rachel found two seats toward the middle. But just before I sat down, something (rather, someone) caught my eye. There was a white kid in the back of the bus ... I was sure of it. In South Africa, there are many colors (not to sound insensitive, but it's the truth) and sometimes we see light-skinned people in our area. But this guy was white like us.

That was a first. I sat down and nudged Rachel to find out if she had seen him too. She hadn't, so I quickly filled her in and we began to make our guesses as to what he was doing out in our area. The crazy thing was, he didn't look out of place. He appeared to fit in and was obviously chatting with a few guys in the back. We were perplexed. It became our mission to find out more. As we pulled through Boskop, the first village we come to on the tar road, this guy got off the bus! There goes our curiosity. Now he's getting off in Boskop (which confused us even more) and we didn't even get the chance to talk to him.

The 7am bus takes a long route in the mornings. It heads down the tar road to the Witpoort Hospital and then backtracks to Boskop and goes through Seleka. Sure enough, as we came back through Boskop, we noticed that he was waiting at the bus stop to get back on. I felt a feeling of awkwardness approaching, as I knew he would walk right by us. What in the world do you say? I made eye contact with him as he walked our way, but he was the first to open his mouth: "What's up?"

Really, he just said that. I don't think I've heard those words since being in Africa. No one greets that way, not even the white Afrikaner kids in town. He also didn't seem to have a very thick South African accent. From his appearance alone, I would have mistaken him for a guy from the States. He didn't look like the tourist type though ... more like he came from the inner city somewhere. He was fairly tall, his head was shaved, he wore a tight white t-shirt with shorts sagged below his waist line, he had a fairly large tattoo that was visible under his left sleeve, and he walked with a confident swagger.

Rachel and I were clueless. Nothing made sense to us. Our conversation focused around his existence on the bus and the only possibilities we could fathom as to why. As we came upon Motlasedi, the inspector in the white bakkie stopped our bus. We don't really know what this inspector guy does, but we always see him in the mornings. We think maybe he checks out the legitimacy of the passengers, and whether everyone has a slip, but he usually doesn't do that. He just makes us sit on the side of the road for 20 minutes as he talks to the driver. We were frustrated, as most everyone was, but it soon became apparent that this was the perfect opportunity to figure out this kid's story. He must have been just as curious though, because he was in the seat next to me within just a few minutes time: "What are you guys doing here?" My response wasn't probably the most respectful, but it was purely instinct: "What is your story ... what are you doing here?"

In the short exchange of words that followed, we caught a glimpse of who he was, and vice versa. His English was perfect, and he definitely wasn't from around our parts. He was from Cape Town. The short version of his story was that his dad died a few years before, his mom abandoned him, and he decided to go live in a village. Whoa! Every bit of pride and confidence that usually accompanies our story about being Peace Corps Volunteers quickly disappeared. This kid had an intriguing, yet terribly sad, story. Would it be rude to pry and express more interest? He seemed willing to talk, so we asked as many questions as we could. Before too long though, the previous occupant of his seat came back and made him get up. Our investigation was over, at least for the time being.

Rachel and I sat in near silence for the remainder of the trip to town, both of us sorting through our thoughts regarding the encounter. As we pulled into the bus stop in Ellisras, we made our way off the bus and started heading toward our errands for the day. For some reason, we both just assumed that he was getting off at a different stop. Not so. As we walked around the back of the bus, we heard a voice calling up to us. There he was with a companion, a black guy (but with lighter skin than the norm in our area) that he had been sitting next to on the bus.

His name, we finally learned, was Laurence. His friend's name was Fanie.

We began bombarding him with all of the questions that had been flooding our thoughts for the past 45 minutes or so. Fanie was the guy that he was currently living with out in the village of Rietfontein. They had met at a sports bar in Ellisras about four months ago.

Laurence lived in Cape Town his whole life. As we began to learn, he didn't have the easiest childhood. He didn't meet his father until he was 14 years old, and then his dad died when he was 17 (possibly murdered). Laurence was now 21 years old. He was "chased from Cape Town by guns" and had recently made the trek up to Ellisras (on the opposite side of the country from Cape Town) to pay a visit to his mother and see if he could stay with her. She said no.

So he had to figure something out, and on his own. That's when he met Fanie at a local sports bar. They must have hit if off as friends, and then Laurence moved out to the village to stay with Fanie's family. To date, he's been there for four months. He doesn't have a job right now, and he's in the process of dealing with lawyers regarding his father's inheritance. Supposedly his dad was pretty wealthy and he is expecting (hoping for) something to be signed over to him.

We learned all of this as we walked with Laurence and Fanie toward the Shoprite complex from the bus stop. Fanie had to go over to the FET (Techical) College to write an exam, and Laurence had accompanied him to town. As we continued to chat, we were constantly surprised by the things Laurence said. As an out-of-towner, his attitude and lifestyle were much more similar to ours than the Afrikaans population in Ellisras. We seemed to have a natural bond.

We shared several laughs together, swapped stories about our times in the village, and even talked about plans for a possible get-together in the next month. Laurence and Fanie might come over to our village for a braai some night. I gave them my phone number and we parted ways.

But honestly, who knows if we'll ever see these guys again. Either way, this was an experience that will remain with us for a long time. We feel a great deal of sympathy for Laurence, but his confidence and joy in the midst of the situation were encouraging. We hope things come together for him in the near future, and we'll be praying to that end. Who knew that an encounter with a white kid in the villages would impact us in such a way?