Thanks to the explosive growth in Houston during the early Eighties, school at Clear Creek started before 8 AM and with a 45-minute bus ride, this meant I had to be at my stop before 630 AM. Getting up around 5-530 AM wasn’t too new for me, my previous year attending Strake conditioned me for such exhaustion. I just now had the opportunity to take a brief nap when I got home instead of being stranded on campus for three hours. This also meant I was the only person in the house who was awake this early. Most days I don’t even recall anyone else getting out of bed before I left. Either I was very stealthy (not likely) or my parents and brother were heavy sleepers.
One morning in late October or early November, I was going through my routine for school. It was a bit after 6 AM and the phone rang. Not wanting anyone to wake up, I answered it quickly. There was a male voice on the other end with an unrecognizable accent asking if he could talk to Steve Maggi. I replied “that’s me.” The guy then said he was calling from South Africa. “Oh, I think you want my dad,” (he’s Sr., I’m Jr.). As Dad was rushing into the living room, saying he was expecting this call, I was telling him, “hey there’s some joker claiming to be in South Africa wanting to speak to you.” Dad wasn’t too amused but I had a bus to catch.
Later that evening, I found out it was a recruiter trying to see if my dad was interested in working there. This was before Botha declared the national state of emergency but South Africa already had a pretty bad reputation in 1983. Either way, we had just moved to this other side of Houston over the last several months, I wasn’t keen on moving yet again, and across the world to a country neighboring some hostile Third World dictatorships.
The whole experience was still a great crash course on the nation and its state of affairs. My opinion remained negative over their government yet I was now intrigued…because my knowledge of geography got temporarily suspended. I stupidly thought Australia was closer, thus I could visit there during school breaks. This was rectified in a week by glancing over an atlas; imagine how the Internet would’ve solved this misconception instantly. Besides, I had never been to another country which wasn’t attached to America. South Africa was going to be a hell of an adventure so I wanted to go, especially after I learned of my parents’ plans if this job came through. Dad would go while the rest of us returned to Springfield. After attending the infamous party during our month there, I preferred to take my chances in a volatile land.
Alas, it fell through. Dad said the interview was a mixed bag. Some of the details he was given warned him of how unpleasant the place could be. When you think of cities in South Africa; Johannesburg, Cape Town or Pretoria come to mind. Welkum is where this job was. It’s some coal mining place about the size of Peoria, IL that wasn’t close to anything interesting. If I came along, I’d be living in a compound where all the “foreigners” stayed, never getting to see much of the real Welkum. The recruiter said not to bring the TV neither since state television was boring to Americans. Never mind the PAL v. NTSC issue.
Not going was for the best. As I mentioned earlier, President Botha declared the infamous state of emergency which demonized the nation even further. Reagan didn’t do much yet I think we’d be forced to come home for our own safety. Thankfully, South Africa didn’t meet the same sorry fate Zimbabwe did as so many “activists” in college hoped for.