Gun shots and a Latte in the New South Africa
Life in South Africa is certainly different from most places in the world. It is a very strange place with all kinds of things thrown into the mix. I won't get into who I have noticed has changed since I have been here right now, but I will re-count an incident which woke me up fast.
The Pavilion, or the Pav as its affectionately know amongst the locals, is a relatively large shopping centre which we have always loved going to. Unlink most 'malls' in New Zealand, the Pav has movie theatres, interesting shops, parking and stays open late.
A few days ago we parked our car and noticed a television crew and some police standing outside talking. Leanne recognized one of her old study mates from her days studying video technology, but we didn't bother saying hello. In hind site, it might have saved us some trouble to get some inside gossip before going in.
As we entered we noticed that some of the escalators were closed off with security guards directing us to use a different route. I asked one of them what was going on, as I could see most of one of the levels was closed off with SA police tape. He said that he didn't know and that we should go down via a different place. The way he said it sounded like he did know and wasn't allowed to tell us.
We thought that it was probably some shop that got robbed of someone get stabbed or something, so we carried on shopping regardless. We later found out that a jeweller hand been robbed and there was a shoot out between a plain cloths police man and the robbers in an adjacent store.
At lunch time we met up with some good friends who we hadn't seen for over 6 years. We headed over to a cafe to have lunch together. As we were sitting down, Ryan said jokingly, 'We better sit inside the shop in case they start shooting at us.' Jokingly we moved one table closer in. We hadn't been sitting for 15 seconds when four shots rang out and everybody hit the floor in an absolute panic. We huddled up against a wall, thank God the buildings in SA are made of brick!, and tried to figure out what was happening. The staff shouted to everyone to get into the shop and go right to the back while they bravely closed the glass doors at the front of the store. As we got enough courage we got up as a and ran to the children�s play room at the back where we huddled and phoned relatives and the emergency number.
After a short time and some confusion the men came out and poked their head around the corner too see if all was safe and to find out what had happened.
Apparently one of the thief�s from that mornings robbery was still hanging around in one of the shops and the police had caught up with him and shot him.
In no time, everything was back to normal and people settled back to their half eaten lunches. I was surprised to find that I still had my menu in my hand which I had clutched through the whole event. Please react differently under stress. I was shaken and shocked. Our friends seamed to cope much better than us.
After a few sips of coffee I started to feel a bit better and we started discussing the differences between how it would have been handled in New Zealand. First of all, they would have evacuated the entire mall for hours while the forensic team do their CSI tricks. The armed defender squad would also have probably have come running in with itchy trigger fingers. All TV channels would have Breaking news - crossing live to reports on the scene, and the post mortem of what happened and how it could have been prevented would have gone on for days! In SA, it didn't even make then national news. It made the papers the next day, but that was about it.
At some point I hope to write a more extensive write up about our time spent here, but no promises. I am actually enjoying spending time away from the computer and getting into some super bike mags...
You can read more about it here
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