Muti Nation by Monique Snyman Read Free Book Online

accumulate on my upper lip and snake from my hairline down the back of my neck, causing hair and clothes to cling to skin. The air is uncomfortably stagnant, dry, and hotter than seven levels of hell. The warm breeze carries an echo of exhaust fumes with it. Whenever a large truck or Putco bus roars past sputtering carbon monoxide into the atmosphere, nature’s sounds are drowned out.
    The strange symphony of nature versus man offends my ears as I stand in the shade of a feeble looking tree. Fat blowflies sluggishly float through the sky, landing on my bare legs for a quick reprieve from their flight. They move only when I do and return as soon as I’m still.
    The sun-bleached road is lined with sun-bleached buildings dating back fifty years or more. People swarm amongst the informal vendors, weaving in and out for a chat or a smoke or a quick purchase of whatever is on sale. Taxis swerve dangerously across the lanes to pick up or unload passengers.
    Marabastad is the type of place Americans would describe as being “downtown.”
    But Marabastad isn’t anywhere near as dangerous or as frowned upon as Jo’burg’s inner-city slum, Hillbrow. It is however, the closest equivalent Pretoria has. There’s a lot of history here; mostly forgotten history but interesting stories surround the township.
    Formal businesses are situated in the old rundown buildings, sharing customers with informal vendors on the sidewalks—often run by refugees from diverse backgrounds. Vacant lots have been turned into mini-shantytowns by the destitute, where corrugated metal gleams atop unsound structures built from plywood, plastic and cardboard. It’s a poverty-stricken neighbourhood where you can find knockoffs of anything. Here, drugs of every flavour are available if you know who to ask. Shops sell poorly made clothes at cheap prices, because South Africa has turned into China’s product dumping site. Chop-shops hide in the backyards of proper businesses, but everyone who grows up around these parts know what’s happening after the taxman leaves. You can find a new identity, citizenship, a hit-man, or anything black-market for a relatively good price.
    People eyeball me whenever I walk around Marabastad by myself. I can only speculate on their thoughts when unsubtle glances, filled with suspicion or surprise or curiosity, get my attention. Proper white girls don’t walk around here without a chaperone. Usually said chaperone is classified as a bullish Boer with a rattan cane lying somewhere in his oversized pick-up truck—a bakkie .
    Good thing I’m not entirely proper.
    Truthfully, the only reason I ever come to Marabastad is when I meet with one of my informants who trades between Marabastad and Hillbrow. Her name is Feyisola, or so she claims. I don’t care. As long as she gets me information on illegal human organ and body part trade, I’ll call her whatever she wants. Feyisola’s information is expensive but her tips pan out. The only problem I have with the arrangement is the risk we take every time we meet.
    She works with shady characters; the type who kill first and don’t give two shits later.
    I walk across the street to a small tailor shop located in a relatively busy side street. The shop is dark and smells musky when I pass through the front door, but the heat overwhelms all of my other senses. I greet the shop owner with a flash of teeth and a half wave but she turns her back on me to busy herself with clothes on a rack, like always. I don’t take it personally. Clandestine meetings frequently occur in the shop’s back room and this is her way of saying she doesn’t want to become more involved. I respect that.
    The back room, which is even darker, hotter and muskier than the front, is separated with a curtain of beads and a wooden accordion door. Not very secure if you ask me, but it’s not like I have a say in where we meet. Maybe she’d be open to meeting at the Casbah Roadhouse across from the Pretoria Show