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Travelling with a camera? You may attract more attention than you bargain for, warns ANTHONY HOWARD…
PART of the fun of travel is that the days seldom turn out quite as you expect, as we were reminded during a recent 6,000-km drive around South Africa. Approaching Kokstad, a country town in KwaZulu Natal, just across the provincial boundary from the Eastern Cape, we came upon a heavily manned road block. Driving in the opposite direction two years earlier, we had encountered a block at exactly the same spot. Then, police were looking for criminals and illicit firearms and, after checking our IDs very civilly, they quickly sent us on our way. This time the target was entirely different and the manner was much more abrupt. Waving us into the roadside, an armed officer in grey fatigues demanded: ‘Are you carrying any pork products?’ straight face After a millisecond’s calculation and trying to keep a straight face, I decided to own up to possession of half a dozen ham rolls in our picnic cooler bag. To have denied them and then be denounced for possession after a search of the car would have been time consuming, inconvenient and expensive. ‘They must be destroyed,’ the officer informed me solemnly. Could we eat them instead? And so, under his unblinking gaze, we sat and munched. When I emerged from the car with the remainder in a polythene bag, I was accompanied 50 metres back along the roadside and told I must disinfect the bag with a spray gun I didn’t know how to use – nor, I think, did they. I was then told I must place the bag in a plastic sack and then put the sack into a large drum, presumably destined for incineration. The motive for this palaver, it transpired, was to prevent the spread of swine fever from the Eastern Cape to KwaZulu. Laudable though this was, it did cross my mind to enquire delicately why I was expected to do all the dirty work. snapshots Was this the way South Africa welcomed its foreign visitors nowadays? ‘Don’t even consider going there,’ I thought, ‘or we’ll be here all day.’ Cleared to depart, I returned to the car, and decided to take a couple of quick souvenir snapshots. But the sight of my discretely deployed camera had an electrifying effect. Two grey-clad officers ran towards me, firearms aloft in their left hands and reprimanding with their right arms. ‘It is forbidden to take photographs.’ But what’s the big secret? Thousands of drivers see this road block every week. ‘If you wish to have photographs, you must apply to the appropriate authority in the department.’ As we hit the road 45 minutes behind schedule, I reflected that the rulers of the New South Africa have learned well from their former masters. But that’s another story.
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