Table Mountain Tales: Fine...not fine.

Since I seem to get the most reactions when I post pictures, I will end this post with a couple of shots I took during early morning hikes. Some have you might have seen in on Facebook already.

I got up at 5 am a couple of mornings, to climb the Lion's head and see the sunrise. A very satisfying thing to do, I can tell you. And the hike allows to goback home, have a shower and still be in the office on time. I did the same thing last Monday. Although it was a national holiday, and we didn't have to work, I got up at 5!
I know what you are not thinking: what does the national holiday celebrate? I have asked a couple of South Africans that very question, and they didn't know. Heritage day? That student massacre thing? Day of independance? I looked it up for you, it celebrated "human rights day", and more specifically the fact that human rights were included in the constitution ("grondwet" in Dutch). Well, that sounds good enough to celebrate. But wouldn't human rights be a given? In the country that invented Apartheid, it sure wasn't. And now that country has one of the most progressive consitutions in the world.

Paying traffic fines is not really a human right, but more of a civil duty. And one I will have to fulfill since I managed to harvest two traffic fines. Not happy with that, I can tell you. One fine I got for not being able to produce a valid driver's license. I have an international driver's license, but I simply forgot to carry it on me that day. So after a lot of feeble searching, stuttering and blushing, I had to listen to the traffic officer explaining me I got fined. I could not think of any valid excuses, which made the experience sting even more.
The second fine was for not displaying that Shafeeka (my car) is registered. Of course she is, all her paperwork is absolutely fine. But it turns out I have to display that as well. One of the many papers you get at the traffic department, has a round disk with dates, codes and lettres on it. That disk goes against your window. If the officer can't see it, he'll fine you even if you are ok with your paperwork.
Now, I am sometimes quite gullible, blue eyed and overall not sceptical enough. As was the case now: I knew every car had a sticker on its window shield. So did mine. So when I got my papers, I asked if I didn't need a sticker. The lady answered that they were out of stickers.
"Ok, ma'am, but don't I need to stick anything to my windshield?" was my shrewd question. The reply: "We know you got registered". So I thought that was that, end of story. Very gullible, not sceptical. I had this mental image of tax voucher stickers (wegenvignet) you find in Switserland or Austria you know: sticker with details printed on it. I assumed that they would be able to key in a code in a system to check. But that is not how they roll here. Here they are talking about a sticker on the one hand, and a paper disk you cut out on the other hand. You get the stickers in most of the garages and gas stations, they are all over the place.
So it is only when I held the fine in my hands that I started asking myself more questions and uncovered that I simply had to cut out the dates, codes and letters in a nice round shape and stick it to my window with a normal sticker...

So what is a very human reaction in such a situation? You try to blame someone else! Try to dodge the fine, say you didn't know and mumble "no one told me". My colleagues didn't tell me because it is either common knowledge if they are local, or -for the other expats- because they bought their cars off a official dealer that took care of it. I didn't, I bought off a private person so I had to do everything myself.
But I would not have a good case in court because on the paper, right next to the disk it says:

Case closed... I'll have to pay. But I am now waiting for the reminder to come first. Maybe the adminsitration doesn't come through within these two years. A bit risky though because they actually come and arrest you, throw you in prison and all that if you don't pay fines...