Incident in a Gas Station on the Road to the Cape

Into Cape Town
Originally uploaded by soucouyant.

As we got into the Western Cape and down into Cape Town through these awesome beatutiful mountains, where the weather became more Cape wintery -- overcast and rainy.

The Eastern and Northern Cape Provinces are mostly colored. Colored people are descended from Khoisan, Xhosa, West Africans, Indonesians (I think mostly from Bali and Java) and Europeans. They are mostly Afrikaans speaking and in Cape Town, many are Muslim.

There are some black/colored "issues"(use your imagination)and relations can be bad. In fact, Naomi had already had some rude treatment from colored people in Cape Town. Though we are both the same color as lots of colored people, we don't otherwise look like them. In fact, people are constantly talking to Naomi in Xhosa or Zulu.

So, given all of this, it was not really all that surprising as we stood in line at the Shell station fast food line to get some fries and drinks that, in a line that was otherwise all white people, the colored woman behind the counter skipped us entirely and went on to serve the white woman behind us.

I was lost in the sauce, staring at a sign and didn't even notice, but Naomi did. "Did you see that?" she asked and I peeped it immediately. "That's it!" She stalked away out the door.

When they noticed we noticed, there were some words exchanged in Afrikaans, and another colored woman came to take our order. When I asked her why her friend skipped us, she said she didn't know. "Yes, you do," I said. "Don't you?" She nodded. "You know that's not right."

"I know," she said quietly, "I'll take your order now."

"That's okay," I said. "Can you get the manager for me, please?"

On the way, she told her friend what happened in Afrikaans. The manager, a white man, of course, came out and said he saw everything on the closed circuit camera and that the women behind us had been there before us, and the woman had been helping her before...

"I'm not stupid, and she was here AFTER us. You should be ashamed of yourself. This is how you treat people? I'll be sure to notify the proper authorities and organizations." He blanched, just a bit.

"Come," he said, "I'll take your order."

"That won't be necessary," I said. "There is no way I'll be spending my money here, ever. This is ridiculous and you should be ashamed of yourselves. Disgusting." And I joined Naomi outside.

We were thirsty for the next two hundred miles, but it was a good and bitter thirst. Assholes.