by Gaynor Paynter

G21 Africa Columnist

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Gaynor Paynter & her sons

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Good evening from South Africa -- a rather wet, rainy South Africa at that, as our first waters have come in force to wash our gardens, streets, rooves, fences, cars and souls (?) clean. There is something soothing about listening to the rain falling softly but determinedly onto rooftops -- however, the same source of peace can turn to one of stress if it is heard at 4.30 in the afternoon and you know that you have to battle through the ever-increasing traffic on Johannesburg's highways and that you are only likely to get home at 7pm, with the irritating fact that you only live 10km away sitting at the back of your mind -- this journey should not be taking you 2 and a half hours!

I had a saying which I repeated every time the weather was wet back in my teens. I was gaining experience of traffic for the first time, as a bus commuter to my school -- my sentiment was that traffic has the same properties as instant pudding, you just have to mix water together with cars and heavy traffic would, as if by the wave of the wand belonging to some mystical fairy godmother of Henry Ford, miraculously appear.

Well, today, ten years later, I would still go along with that thought. If anything, the traffic has become rather worse as more young adults have entered the marketplace and the age spread of South Africa's population has become more even.

There is another thing about rain that did not occur to me in high school but which has become ever more apparent to me -- with rain, South African drivers grow hair on their arms, faces, legs, etc. -- and in accordance with their appearance, start to act like the savages they resemble. We see road practices which leave a lot to be desired, and try as they might, the authorities have been unable to educate the general public how to drive safely in rain.

Not surprisingly, accidents are abundant on our roads (a factor which does not help is that in South Africa it does not rain in winter and the cars do not decrease!) By the first rains in summer there is a massive build up of grease and rubber on the roads. This, combined with the water of the rain, make the roads very slippery indeed -- sort of like driving on a skid pan only not nearly as safe!

It was, therefore, with some trepidation that I digested the news (as told to me by the morning traffic announcer on the radio station's morning show) a few mornings ago that there had been a major accident on the route I take to work. The traffic announcers "strongly recommended that commuters take an alternative route to work."

An immediate problem presented itself to me, in my foggy, half awakened mind: From where I live in the suburbs of Johannesburg, there are only two routes (by highway) you can take to the place where I work (in Sandton, a rather more upmarket suburb!). The first of these is the M1, which is a nightmare by anyone's definition of the word, even on a normal sunny South African day -- the people who designed these roads must have loved bottles, by the amount of bottlenecks they built into the road. This murderous highway is to be avoided at all costs. The second option I have in getting to work is to the N3, which is the highway that had now been sabotaged by some unfortunate truck driver who had jacknifed his vehicle.

This seemed an insurmountable problem. What was I to do?

I am also in the position of having to take my sons to the crËche at a certain time and am therefore unable to leave any earlier in order to get to work.

The thought occurred to me that I had better find another way to get to work. Not being the best map reader, and having the worst sense of direction in my family, I took up my map book with the cold hands of fear around my heart. I knew, vaguely, of a feasible way I could come out at my desired destination by travelling through the suburbs. I scrutinised my map book four or five times to double check the road I would take before starting my engine.

Well, I needn't have worried about not being able to find my way. I just had to follow every other person who had heard the same traffic report I had -- they too had all decided to take another way!

The most comical part about this scenario was that, as I travelled along, I pictured each and every driver before and after me listening to the radio, in which the traffic announcer told us every half an hour that the accident on the highway would be moved in half an hour (obviously, time was standing still at the radio station!)

The announcer also couldn't figure out why the traffic in the suburbs was so increased -- to me, the reason was obvious!

Anyway, the fact is that every cloud has a silver lining, and the silver lining to this particular cloud was that instead of being faced with the four lanes of highway that I see every day, I was faced with the most beautiful sight I have seen in the built up city of Johannesburg in a long, long while.

The streets in Houghton (one of the suburbs I went through) should be renamed avenues as the trees planted on either side of them touch high above our heads in the middle of the road, creating a leafy paradise through which we drove. I almost felt as though I could have been in a tropical rain forest, right there in the middle of my own home city. The road I took was a much more scenic one than I have ever taken in the last five years I have travelled to work!

You will be glad to know that I did find my way to work, and was only a few minutes later than I ordinarily am. Two of my colleagues who took the normal highway were on the road for over two hours.

I work in a recruitment consultancy and this work gives me great opportunity to study human nature in general. Some of my findings in my study are heartening, and others not. For instance, I have found that the younger the job applicant is, the more confident he is -- the more he feels he is the best suited person for the job, the more he feels that he knows everything there is to know about every aspect about his chosen field, the more he feels that he has something to give the world.

One young man spent half an hour explaining what his future plans are to me -- he was going to complete his degree, help his father run his company, and start his own big company. I wish him well, and I really hope that he does it. It is young men like him who are the future of our county, and this enthusiasm is heartening, but I find myself wondering, when I see older job applicants -- whose enthursiasm has waned -- what happened?

Why are they so sour with the world? Why do so few of us fulfil what we, as youngsters, believe is our promise?

I myself am no exception. As a teenager, I was going to be a published author of novels before I was twenty one. Reality check: I have written one, as yet unpublished, novel.

I was going to be a great graphic designer. Reality check: I studied one year of graphic design, got low marks, started to believe that I was useless at it, dropped out of the course and did a secretarial diploma instead.

I found a job as a secretary and was going to be the best one in the country. Reality check: I got retrenched -- and I began to sincerely doubt my own abilities, as a secretary in particular and, as a substantial contributor to the working world in general.

Is this what the problem is -- that all our enthusiasm is drummed out of us by what the world does, says and thinks of us?

For example, there is nothing more demotivating for a job applicant than going for an interview and not getting the job -- and in South Africa with our high levels of unemployment, there are a whole lot more applicants than there are jobs available, so this happens a lot -- or for a writer than for pouring heart and soul into an article only to have it rejected by editors many times over.

I implore people who are in the position to affect another person's outlook on themselves and on life (and I do believe that each and every one of us is included in that sentence) to think carefully before saying anything or doing anything to our youth. The youth have the belief that they can do great things. Nurture that belief, so that when the youth are older and more in a position to actually do the great things, they still believe that they can do them.