South African Trucker

The company was called VDW, and it was out of Pietermaritzburg. The assets were sold off after the old man died, and his knucklehead sons decided to do away with everything. I had.. I wouldn't call it an offer, but there was a company called Junior Smith which hinted that, if I showed up on their doorstep with an E+C in hand and valid work visa, they'd put me to work. They ended up leaving me high and dry. After VDW was no more, I decided to go home. It's not my country and no amount of time I spent there would ever stop me from feeling out of place. Hell, it happens to me just moving to a different part of my own country.
As for why... the short answer is that I needed to get away from things. I'd served in a Combat Medic in both Afghanistan and Iraq (A-stan, when I was a regular, Iraq, as a reservist) and wasn't in the best of shape after that, I'd lost my job in Raleigh (North Carolina) and the prospects there weren't better, plus I have an uncle in Pretoria... he did two tours in Vietnam, couldn't get adjusted, fought in Rhodesia, left after Mugabe got voted in, served in the SADF, retired after Cuito Cuanavale, and never came back. So, he could relate to my situation, and it was a chance to travel, so why the hell not?
It was actually more difficult for me to adjust after I came back than it was for me when I got there. I had to buy a car after I got back, and I'm standing on the right side of the vehicle... the salesman is giving me this funny look, and I realized right away where I'd erred as soon as I started getting in the vehicle.

 

Yeah. The whole experience seems surreal in so many ways. I never understood why he hired me.. the guy hated Americans. But I had varied experience.. flatbeds, low loaders, tippers, and I'd been an equipment operator, plus I could do maintenance on the vehicles and equipment. But he never missed an opportunity to drop one liners on me like, "I could almost like you... if you weren't a ####### American prick", and other such niceties. He did like my work ethic, though, so I suppose that helped. He had a daughter named Veerle... she used to try telling me, "he doesn't mean anything by it", which was nonsense. He meant every word of it. We had an understanding of each other, so I guess that's how we functioned. Guy was a bit of a hustler.. had his hands in all sorts of things. Ranching, freight haulage, construction... very strange character. I'm a good ol' boy from Mississippi, and he'd really get upset when I pronounced city names incorrectly - especially Durban. So I made sure to do it intentionally just to annoy him.
I miss it. I don't miss it. I loved it. I hated it. I'd go work for him tomorrow if he were reincarnated and said he'd put me to work. I'd find a way to have him exorcized and sent back to hell if he were reincarnated. I loved Africa. I hated Africa. The African Post wasn't worth a ####. I think that's the only thing I don't have mixed feelings about.

 

What an amazing and interesting life you seemed to have lived...

 

Pictures for Jack:

This is a typical B Train:



Close - My old Sunbury # was 9511 ... and it had a bunk ....


This is an LCV (long combination vehicle)

 

OTR over the road, long haul, v.s. local stuff as compared to resource trucking like logging, oilfield, mining, etc

 

Jack there is a thread here somewhere where a SA driver was planning to go over to Canada and buy a few trucks.
It has some useful info , Ill see if I can find it.