Four months..

20 February 2009 - received a call from the vereeniging vehicle theft unit; a Captain Simanga. We have found your car. It is in vereeniging, can you come and fetch it? I was silent for at least two seconds. Yes, I'll come fetch it! What did he think? I like paying the bank back for a car I haven't seen for almost a year? What condition is it I in, asked. It looks okay, he says. When can you fetch it?

Hell, I would have fetched it right there and then if I had transport to get there, and if I knew that I was going to have to wrench it from their cold black hands, I would have. Since coming into contact with Captain Simanga I came to realize that all the stories were true; racism is alive and kicking in the good old, new South Africa.

It has taken four months and I finally have my car, but it is yet to be mine. So far it still belongs to the government, and if I don't go through the whole process, they can stop by and take it back any time they feel like. Much like the doctor advises you to go through the entire drug prescription, eventhough you feel much better after 3 or 4 doses.

Mostly I guess I should be grateful that I have my car back at all, and as Inspector Maloi put it; you've waited a year to have your car, what is one more visit to get it back? Six gone, one more visit indeed.

On the 20th of February i heard the good news. The following Monday I took leave and I was there(bright and early) to collect it. I waited an hour or so and finally got to see the car. Apart from changing from a perfectly respectable commuter to a township bling bling model, it was in pretty good shape. Nice new shiny chrome mags(which I was advised to say were mine, otherwise they remove them and you have to have your car towed home), A nice GT strip along the back and smashing new logos changing it from a Ford to a Mazda. Cool..

I was warned by B's father(who accompanied me, since the car actually still belonged to him, as it was stolen before I could change ownership) that I must list at least 5 things I recognise about the car otherwise this could become a very lengthy process(Oh Really?).

So now I stand at the threshold of my final visit. Inspector Maloi is the only fellow in the entire unit, including the tannies in archives, that went to school, and I was pointed in his direction by an old toppie who has been there many, many times. The inspector was very dissapointed and embarrassed that it had taken them so long to get this far. I was told by others that if you're lucky enough that your file was assigned to Maloi, you are out of there in two days max. That would be two days following each other. Like Monday and Tuesday of the same week!

So contrary to what I've been led to believe, Maloi tought me all the short-cuts in a matter of an hour's chat. 'Go home, punch the engine number back on the engine block(the old one was ground off), get hold of a certifified copy of the I.D. of the current owner(B's dad),and come see me when you're ready.

Let me just explain how things would have gone without this advise from Angel Maloi: 'you must come back on tuesday, the man who punches the numbers is not in on Monday' .. You return next Tuesday, only to find that there is a Police function in Vereeniging and they're only working a skeleton crew(which reduces the working force of 6 to 2, excluding the 'punch man'. So finally you get the number stamped. 'Okay we are finished now, do you have the certified copy of the owner's I.D. please' .. 'You didn't say I needed that' ..and he explains perfectly sanely for someone that has worked there for a hundred years; 'it is not your car, no? It dawns on me and I smile sheepishly. 'No it is not, I will get it for you. So you get through all that, and when you return it will be something else, and more, and more, until they drive you insane enough and all you want is to forget about the fuckin car. It would have been less stressing never going to the cops for a month, after which they send it to the crushers, and you're problem gets loaded on a truck destined for a metal smelter somewhere in The Vaal triangle.

Here's my advise: say mm and ahh, when the cops phone to tell you that they found your car, and then forget about it. Don't fuckin even think about it!