Expats stream back to SA, but no one returns to PE.

JOHANNESBURG. As the economies of Europe and the United States implode, hundreds of thousands of South Africans are streaming home to discover a country ravaged by a lack of Pauls and torn apart by a bitter history of voting for the wrong Idols finalist. However, some have expressed surprise at not finding all whites in internment camps alongside mass graves, as promised by News24 and Beeld.

Many of the young professionals returning to South Africa have spoken of harrowing scenes in their adopted countries.

Chrizelda Poggenpoel (not her real name, thank God), sobbed as she recalled seeing a woman’s credit card cut in half in a Greek bank.

“They just took our a pair of scissors and then there was this sickening sound of plastic being cut, and the two halves plopped down on the counter. Nobody could speak or move. And then the woman started to sob, and then everyone just started screaming and running.”

20-year-old Gazza Charlemagne said that he had realized it was time to leave London when the South African shop in Shepherd’s Bush stopped getting Mrs Ball’s chutney.

“Apparently the staff at Her Majesty’s Customs are eating it at the ports,” said Charlemagne. “They don’t have spoons so they use twigs, like chimps fishing for termites.”

He admitted that his decision had also been affected by the job market, saying that his career in investment banking had not gone as planned.

“At all the job interviews they asked me what qualified me for the post, and I’d tell them that I played 2nd XI cricket at Bishops, you know, the same way Father and Grandfather got their jobs with Anglo; but those British dudes would just stare. Almost like they hadn’t heard of Bishops.”

Most of those returning say they have been shocked by the absence of Pauls coffee outlets, but say they feel “slightly betrayed” by the apparent failure of black and white South Africans to have engaged in a gigantic racial holocaust while they were overseas.

“When we left for Michigan, the emigration consultant promised us that we were getting out just in time,” said Sparkles Cohen, 54. “We’d read New24 and Beeld every day to see how many millions of whites had been killed that week. Not in a ghoulish way, you understand, just to get that little thrill of being a survivor.

“For ten years we’ve been telling out friends that South Africa is a shit-hole, but now we see that it’s kind of pretty much the way it’s always been.”

Her husband, Bubbles, said he felt uneasy, “almost like we just wasted the last ten years living in a cold, unfriendly country, always whining about not fitting in, and now we don’t fit in here”.

Meanwhile Port Elizabeth has reported no returnees so far.

“But we expect our first one any day now,” said mayor Bradley Sewerseidl, standing at the end of the pier and gazing out to sea. “I simply refuse to believe reports that people would rather starve to death in the streets of Dublin than come home to our beautiful city.”

(www.hayibo.com)