At least some had a good time on the ridge

| Monday October 4, 2010 00:00

'Can you please tell that driver to move out so I can move on?' The man is in his early 30s. Toting a beer, he leaves his car and approaches the traffic officer to explain why he should be allowed to pass through.

It is no ordinary weekend evening, this one. The occasion is the 1000-kilometre Desert Race in Kumakwane. The traffic situation is simply horrendous. The Kumakwane section of the Kanye-Gaborone Road is clogged with stagnant cars, making it difficult even for a pedestrian to move.

So tight are the cars that a pin can hardly fall between them; it is as if some adhesive is holding them together.The officer's is a near-impossible task of easing the snarl-up. The left lane is car-logged with people heading east to Gaborone, Gabane and other places along this section of the A10 Highway. Some are going to a camping site a 600 metres down the road. The camping site is in a field a metre from the road.

It is filled with more cars and people in a mood for a picnic who are setting up camp after watching the race the day before.  The west-bound lane to Thamaga, Kanye and the diamond-mining town of Jwaneng has been taken over by cars going the 'wrong' direction - east! - presenting a mammoth problem for the officer. Worse; the shoulder of the west-bound lane has been turned into a fully-fledged road. The officer is in a jam.

A lot more motorists alight from their cars and hold court with the hapless officer, adding to his woes. Ideas come thick and fast, but the officer sticks to his guns and tells everyone that he will keep to his plan to remove cars on the west-bound lane so that traffic from the direction of Gaborone may move.

As they haggle a little, some take a swig of beer from their bottles.  The woebegone officer has apparently decided he will see no evil, having more than enough to contend with in blooming traffic!

Despite his efforts, the damnable cars go - snarl up, rather - just a few centimetres from his state issue boots.Everyone is frustrated. More motorists alight from their cars in the middle of the road and keep vigil on the road.Jwaneng-bound miners complain loudly - though to no one in particular - that they will get into serious trouble with their bosses, thanks to the hold-up. 'I am on standby,' says Sam. 'My bosses are probably looking for me.' An older bloke of Asian extraction who is travelling with his family is also getting the jitters.

He gets out of the car, walks about, then back into the car, scratching his head all the while. Others, perhaps inspired by the Desert Race, try to drive through the ridge by the side of the road to park their cars away from the maddening traffic.

Those with off-road machines make it, but only a few sedans do. Onlookers are not in short supply. They cheer and jeer in accordance with success and failure. It is a mini Desert Race, and it offers everyone a measure of relief from the endless stress and ennui.

Some people are actually camping on the crest of the ridge. Camping chairs are out and bonfires up as a cacophony of house, kwasa-kwasa and Afro jazz comes blaring out of cars, taking up all the sonic space. There is also meat on braai stands.

Suddenly a camp is created and people dance, drink and eat as they try to make the best of this hell of a traffic jam.

I buy a piece of meat from a makeshift butchery and make my way down the ridge back to my car. Down there, the poor officer is still trying his best to clear the traffic. It is worse, if it is possible to get any worse.

A good number of motorists have switched off their cars and are sleeping - head on wheels in the road! He tries to wake them up - another difficult task - but he keeps at it until he is rewarded with a crack developed in the jam.Cars in the wrong lane are moving out of the road. After downing some of my meat, I take a nap.

After a while, I am woken up by my travelling companions, who want us to stretch our muscles. We go up the ridge again and check out the busy camps as people dance, seemingly oblivious of the nightmare obtaining downwards.  Along the way, we encounter a group of what must be Manyora - young hoodlums - the waistlines of their trousers cutting their buttock in half 'hopping' in Grasshopper shoes! My fears are soon confirmed when we find them trying to rob a motorist whose car has broken down. Some chat the motorist up while the others pick his pockets. We have been here for six hours now. It is Sunday morning and we are back in our car. The unrelenting officer has somehow performed magic because the traffic starts moving.

We get back on the road and head straight for the capital. We have failed in our mission to go to the main campsite where people had gathered for the entertainment part of the 1000-kilometre Desert Race.

But not the motorists up on the ridge where they seem to be on another planet; if their mission was to have a good time, a jolly good time is what they are having!

They are still dancing, unmindful of their cars parked ON the road. It has been a hectic Mmantshwabise, as the race is popularly known.

People came from as far afield as Namibia and South Africa to watch this motor sport competition.  Even so, it is unbelievable that so many people, hundreds if not thousands, should get caught up in a traffic jam and fail to enjoy the entertainment of this popular show. And as has come to be associated with such big events, accidents and other misfortunes occur.

The police report that a 16-year old boy died after he was stabbed with a sharp object on Sunday afternoon in the area.

In our Mmegi briefs of yesterday, we carried the report of another sordid incident in which a woman was gang-raped at the main campsite in Kumakwane. Two suspects will appear in court in due course