VANISHING POINT

t is a few minutes shy of 9:00pm and I am in a Bolt ride home from Johannesburg Park Station. The driver is Eritrean and we are talking about African immigrants. He seems not to trust Malawians and Zimbabweans; the ones he has met so far are trouble. He likes Nigerians very much. He almost swears that he can tell them apart from other Africans once they open their mouths to speak. I reply that I can tell Eritreans apart, too – they sound a bit like Ethiopians. Ethiopians! Oh, he does not like Ethiopians; he was brought up not to like them. He cannot escape his upbringing, he says. Just before we reach my home in downtown Johannesburg, he confesses that he cannot place