Chicken, Kyiv, and the value of a good story

DA leader John Steenhuisen’s recent trip to Ukraine got me thinking of another life-threatening trip of dubious validity that I once took.

Mine was a hitch-hiking adventure, not a visit to a war zone, but I was nonetheless extremely lucky to emerge with my mind and body intact.

This trip happened on a weekday morning, because I was a very keen surfer, and I had few qualms about bunking classes at Rhodes University, where I was piecing together a journalism degree.

That morning, I therefore found myself with my surfboard and my wetsuit bag at the top of the road out of town, the R67, which traverses the 55 kilometres to Port Alfred. PA’s is, of course, the home of East Pier, the best wave in the district by miles.

The roads are quiet in Makhanda, though, so you’ve got to take whatever lift you’re offered. After a half-hour of fruitless hitchhiking, the first vehicle to stop was a medium-sized delivery van. The driver and his assistant were nice enough fellows, but with only two seats up front, they said I would have to ride behind in the cargo space.

Okay, whatever, I said. One of the guys climbed out and unlocked the door so I could climb into the cargo compartment in the back. The minute he slammed the door and locked me in, I realised I had made a massive mistake.

This was not just a delivery vehicle, it was a freezer van. I was left in the utter, impenetrable, pitch dark, and the temperature was well below zero!

Clad in boardshorts and a T-shirt, I clung to my kitbag for warmth. I was also a bit concerned about oxygen. I figured I would have to last an hour in that fridge, and I began trying to calculate whether there was enough air in this black, rubber-sealed cube to sustain human life for that long. I was able to reach no firm conclusion – because I had also been skipping maths and statistics classes to go surfing!

Then we drove off, and my troubles really started. Something hit me on the head. Something hard! I felt around in the gloom to ascertain what it was.

As hard as bowling balls, massive, frozen chickens had begun to dislodge from the racks above me and were raining down on my head. It was like having small boulders hurled at you in the pitch dark.

I thought my eyes might adjust to the darkness, but they never did. I was completely blind, and every now and then, I would be borderline concussed by another frozen chicken.

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All I could do was to take cover beneath my surfboard and wait for it all to be over.

I was sustaining significant damage to my precious wave-riding blade, but at least that was better than brain injuries.

Mercifully, we did eventually arrive in Port Alfred.

The chicken van ground to a halt, and the door popped open like a an enormous cooldrink bottle, while blinding sunlight poured into the compartment.

“You okay?” chuckled the guy, and I was too bruised, frozen and paranoid to even respond. I staggered out of the chicken van, and collapsed into the roadside bushes to defrost. The chicken guys chugged off on their merry way, while I stiffly unzipped my boardbag to inspect the damage.

I had broken two fins, and my board was completely unrideable.

I was still on the outskirts of Port Alfred. I crossed the road and began hitchhiking back home. There would be no surfing today.

Like a modern-day visit to Kyiv, my chicken-van surfing expedition was life-threatening, and largely pointless, but it gave me a story that I will continue telling for decades. Like a founding myth about how much I loved surfing, it transcends the practical.

And sometimes we need that.