BACK HOME IN SOUTH AFRICA
When I woke up the sun was shining and the captain was announcing our imminent landing at Oliver Tambo airport in Johannesburg. I had been dead to the world for the duration of the eight hour flight back to South Africa. I made my way to the toilet to brush my teeth and freshen up. This was the first time I'd had a good look at myself in the mirror in a week. The person starring back at me looked haggard and old. She had black rings under her eyes which looked somewhat vacant and sad. This isn't me, I thought. I don't want to look like this! We landed at Oliver Tambo and made our way through Immigrations. I wanted to kiss the woman behind the counter with the friendly smile. I had never felt so happy to be back on African soil. Despite being happy to be home, I couldn't stop trembling. We gathered our luggage and walked through to Arrivals where we met up with my daughter's father who had come to the airport to welcome her home.
"What the hell happened?" he asked. How do you tell someone exactly what had happened in a nutshell?
"Let's go grab a cup of coffee. It's a long story" I replied and we made our way upstairs to the restaurant. Half an hour later Michele arrived and I was elated to see her. Her hug was warm and welcoming and it immediately made me feel right at home again. We hopped into her car, relieved to be going somewhere where we could have a bath.
We drove through the familiar streets of Fourways, where we'd lived before leaving South Africa a mere two months ago. I felt strange. I had a huge lump in my throat and deep regret in my heart at having left this all behind for so-called greener pastures. We passed Fourways and headed out to Diepsloot Agricultural Holdings where Michele lived. Climbing into Michele's old bath felt like heaven. The water hugged me like a long lost friend. I didn't want to think about any plans, I didn't want to think about anything. I just wanted to relax and feel safe again. I tried to bring my thoughts to the present moment. I was tired of being stressed and tense. I felt like I had been walking a tight-rope for months, each day more challenging than the previous. I felt a strange sort of detachment lying in that bath. The entire ordeal kept playing over and over in my mind. I couldn't relax. I still felt like I was in captivity. An hour later I emerged from the bath feeling numb.
Michele then presented me with my next challenge. I didn't know if I was ready to deal with this. I didn't realize it at the time but I had begun displaying symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. How could I have known then? I was so focused on trying to get back on my feet again that I didn't realize how deep I had sunk emotionally. Michele handed me a copy of a letter which Janice had written to business colleagues of mine, as well as to certain of my friends in South Africa. She had become close allies with Hejris. From being crucified, I was now lying on the floor being kicked in the face. I couldn't believe what I was reading. She had embarked on a very damaging smear campaign against me and was contacting my clients, colleagues and other people in business. In retrospect I realized that she had been very instrumental in our imprisonment in Bahrain. Apparently Hejris informed her that we had been imprisoned, and from what I was reading she had appeared delighted. In the emails to her smear campaign list (of which Michele was coincidentally a recipient) she said she didn't give a hoot about me, my children or my animals, and that I was "getting exactly what I deserved". I was shocked and burst into tears. I couldn't believe what I was reading. How could people be so vindictive and cruel? As if spending 7 days in appalling conditions in a desert prison wasn't bad enough. I felt like I was reliving being in prison all over again. I felt completely violated. I felt like Hejris had completely got the better of me and that he'd won. Not only did he completely destroyed any chance I had of returning to Bahrain, but he and his ally Janice were trying to destroy my reputation in South Africa. I couldn't think straight. I knew I had to do something and fight back, but I had neither the strength nor the tools. I was stranded back in South Africa with the clothes on my back. All my filming tools were still over in Bahrain and I did not even have anything with which to earn a living. I felt devastated. My life, I thought, was completely over.
I let the situation lie for a day. My soul felt raw and my body felt old. I felt completely alone and I didn't see any way out of the situation. I'd been eaten and spat out by wolves in Bahrain and now I was being eaten alive by Janice who was hell-bent on destroying me. In the meantime I had posted up a blog about our prison ordeal on Myspace, a well know internet website which I was a member of. Busac in Bahrain read my blog and thought he was being a good Samaritan. He posted my entire story up on his organisation's blog site. Hejris somehow caught wind of my story and responded with the most abominable bunch of lies. I began sending the website administrator all my documentation substantiating the claims in my story. But the needle was in, the damage was done. I felt lower than I'd felt in days. Busac emailed me a copy of the letter which Hejris had sent to the website administrator and the contents shocked me. His evil knew no boundaries.
Later that day I received an enormous bunch of flowers from one of my suppliers in Johannesburg, who had read my blog. I was deeply touched. This was the same supplier who, incidentally, had flown to Bahrain to check out a business partnership with Hejris and had decided not to pursue anything with him. Slowly the emails and sms's starting drifting in from suppliers and students. People were shocked. There were warm words of sympathy and encouragement all around. But they did little to lift my spirit. Before bed I drew up a petition with the names of the girls I'd written down on the inside of the juice box and addressed it to the Ministry of Interior in Bahrain. The petition was a plea for their release. I emailed the petition to everyone I knew and asked them to sign it and fax it to the Ministry of Interior. It was the least I could do, no matter how pathetic it seemed at the time. My daughter flew down to her father in the Eastern Cape to celebrate her 21st birthday. I felt like a failure. I couldn't even give my daughter a decent 21st birthday celebration.
By now we had moved over into a small sparsely furnished cottage on Michele's plot. The cottage began triggering my memories of prison. Every time I looked at the concrete floor I would go into a panic. I couldn't sleep properly and began having violent dreams. Each and every tiny noise startled me and I over-reacted to everything. I felt like I was going insane and the only place I felt safe was in bed with the covers over my head. My son didn't know what to do. Watching his mother in such deep emotional agony must have been very hard on him. Driving to the shop for supplies became a nightmare. I didn't feel safe leaving the plot and driving the few kilometres to the stores was one long panic attack. Mostly Michele brought us food and her daughters lent me some clothes. I had an overwhelming urge to get out of Johannesburg and drive down to Cape Town. In my pathetic state I made the decision that I wanted to relocate and start all over again. I wanted to get down to Cape Town, as I felt being by the sea and opting for a gentler life would help me rebuild my confidence and self esteem.
"Wow, that's quite a story" said Prega. "Did the South African Embassy not try to get you out?"
"That's the strange part," I replied. "The woman called Zane was apparently representing the SA Embassy, and she had known all along about our imprisonment because she's a close friend of Hejris. Somehow I doubt she was commissioned to represent them. I think she just took it upon herself."
"You're a brave woman" said Prega. "Most people would have cracked in there." I just smiled. Little did he know how much I was cracking up now. Looks can be very deceiving. On the outside I looked totally composed and confident, but on the inside I was coming apart at the seams. I saw Prega and his photographer out. He turned around to shake my hand and handed me his business card. They thanked me for my time and left. The story was out of my hands now. I had either dug my own grave or I had begun to build a bridge back to life again. Prega phoned me a few times after the interview to check various details. Apparently he had called the South African Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to check on details and according to their knowledge we had only been in prison for two days. How could our embassy think this? They were either lying to the Sunday Times or they really were never interested in our case to begin with. Michele had written John Davies from the SA Embassy in Saudi Arabia an email when she discovered by chance that we were in prison (thanks to Janice boasting this to her smear campaign list via email) and begged them to do something about the situation, to no avail. My daughter also wrote the John Davies and never even received a reply.
