Kruger Pond

 

Some stories become legends, especially in the family-this one is ours. It was in the late 1970`s-we were still in Johannesburg, it was the time when I had met my husband Leslie. My father was always dreaming of making his fortune in South Africa in numerous ways-be that in business  or other strange escapades, like going to Basutoland into the mountains and  searching in dried riverbeds for diamonds. He had made a number of trips, and often came home with a handful of diamond, not of much value, as they were always flawed, and to polish them would have cost more than the actual diamonds. So, South Africa at the time was a land of opportunity for the dreamers of finding and making fortunes. But the following story is not about diamonds, but about gold-  to be clear about gold Kruger Ponds.

 One afternoon, my dad came home with a strange story. He was buying petrol  at the corner petrol station when he was made a business offer to make a fortune by the guy who was pumping the petrol. Though my father was very curious, the guy would not say what it was , but he would come around to the house that evening and explain in full detail.

 Leslie was also there that evening when the guy turned up. Excited at the prospect of getting rich, as at the time South Africa did hold a number of opportunities –often strange ones. This one was a strange one indeed.

 The guy was very mysterious,  at first he explained that –whatever he says has to be in the strictest of confidence, as nobody knows about what he will tell us-and we were the very  first people to have this tremendous gift of an opportunity to get rich. So he took out a small leather pouch and out of the pouch emerged, five gold Kruger Ponds-they were about the size of a 50 cent piece each. He told us that he had  at least five thousand or more-and assured us, “no, no they are absolutely not stolen as my father found them when he was digging in the veld. Way, way out in the country where I am from”.  Good enough. We each examined the gold coins-they were genuine enough including dates on  all of them.

 So, then once we had verified their authenticity-he enquired if we would be willing to buy them . “Oh –yes, very much so. But what would the cost be?” was the excited chorus from my dad and Leslie. “Well”, he said, ”it will depend on how many you want-let say a thousand will cost you five thousand Rand. And if you are happy with it-we I shall sell you more later”. Wow-we all knew that, that was a tiny fraction of its value, we could not believe our good fortune. At the time one Kruger Pond was at least three hundred Rand, so we all saw Rand signs as we all seemed to quickly calculate in our heads how much we shall make on the deal-. “But why so cheap? ”, my dad asked curiously. “Well” he said very seriously ,”we have so many, and we keep finding more everyday-so there are probably thousands still in the ground and right now we need cash”. Though it seemed a bit too good to be true- the answers were accepted. Don`t  ever look at a gift horse in the mouth is good advice, which we took.

 My dad would pay for half and Leslie for the other half-so they would each get five hundred Kruger Ponds each from the deal-at the time the amount was tremendously huge; my dad  made 400 Rand a month. It was arranged, because the gold was not on him, that the following Friday afternoon, my dad would pick him  up and –all three of us, my dad, my Leslie  and  I would go to wherever we needed to go-he would come with us take us  to where the gold was. “There is nothing to be afraid of”,  Leslie assured us, “for I have a gun”.  He did, my dad had a huge knife.

 We drove for miles though the veld-well over a hundred miles, then off the highway into the bush-the guy was  guiding us. I was really scared. Then we saw some huts in the distance-, “thank God”, I sighed with relief.  It was late afternoon already as we stopped. The guy got out and disappeared into the hut- in about ten minutes he emerged with three other  guys-one very old, bringing a big, metal tool box with a huge padlock, they put it down onto the dusty ground. “Here it is”, the guy said, ”can we have the money”.

 “Not so fast” Leslie said, ” we need to see the gold. Pour it onto this hand towel,” which he got out of the glove compartment and laid on the ground.  The guy opened the padlock, opened up the metal box-and there was all the gold-and he pored it all onto the hand towel. Yes-all was there, genuine enough- not counted, but who cared if it was a few dozen short-we just wanted to seal the deal and get out. The gold was pored back into the box, and closed and back went the padlock. My dad gave the piles of money to the old guy- and asked curiously, how did you find all this” The old guy answered in broken English-pointing to the sky, “Oh, I dig and  God give me” and put he the money in his pocket without counting and walked back into the hut.  Our guy put the metal box onto the back seat of our car-and as fast as we could we drove off like a bat out of hell into the dusk of evening. We were all very scared gun or no gun-we thought that they would come after us and take the gold back-they didn`t.

 We didn`t stop until a small town called Krugersdorp-under a street lamp to take an other look at the gold-but in the excitement we forgot to ask  for the key to the pad-clock-so on we drove home at a slower speed, very happy and filled with thoughts as what we would do with the money that would come from selling all this gold.

 We got home around   11pm-my mother was worried sick-but very relieved to see us all the same. Leslie brought in the very heavy metal tool box and forced open the lock with a screw driver and opened up the box-lo and behold we could not believe our eyes, the box was full of  pieces of small metal and screws and other such objects. We were being had-they somehow exchanged one box for an other without us noticing-and they put on the padlock so we could only open it at much later, so they had time to get away.

 But-in a way looking back-we were very lucky for we could have easily been killed-yes it was God who protected us, even though we were rather greedy. Later on we heard that the same thing had happened to a number of people that we knew. Moral of the story- If it looks good to be true, then it is.