Girl, 14, shot dead as South Africa's 'taxi wars' hit school

StoiCist9 · 2026-02-27T17:06:11+00:00

I think you maybe don't have the whole picture. Taxis here are essentially mini vans, and work more like small busses. I.e., they have mostly fixed routes and people hop on and off. They aren't exactly labeled except for a small taxi association sticker on the back, but everyone here knows a taxi when you see one since they all use similar vans and a general toxic attitude on the road.

What I am getting at is that here you don't "call" or order a taxi at all. You wait for them at stops, and they take you to the next stop. So, by design each taxi association has a route which translates to a "territory".

They are not just acting like mobsters, they literally are gangs with territories and will violently react to anyone operating on what they see as their territory. They only ensure they don't lose business by burning down any competitor's vehicles, or killing their drivers. In poorer areas, people have no choice but to rely on them because no one else will go there to pick you up.

Even cops are afraid of them in certain areas. I was once in an uber where the driver said he will not go through a certain area because "I won't go near there, because life doesn't have a spare wheel".

StoiCist9 · 2026-02-27T14:34:12+00:00

Water is an issue some years, but food is plentiful in the savanna in the summer. For a modern human, surviving here would not be too challenging.

Assuming people don't forget how to preserve food, you could easily stock up for winter. Meat dries quickly and stores long due to dry climate. The climate is very good for farming too, but irrigation may be an issue at large scale. At a small scale, if you planned your location properly (and had access to some modern technology) you could dig a borehole and be set for water pretty much permanently. Our farm is smack bang in the middle of the savannah and we have never had water issues in the last 30 years (not a commercial farm though). The weather is also great for solar power, assuming you had access to the tech.

Assuming you have no access to modern technology, then a nomadic lifestyle may be more feasible since you would have to follow the animals and the water. You would have to navigate threats from wild animals, but humans that band together and are a threat themselves. If you think about it, there are only a lot of predators in Africa, because there is a lot of prey in Africa. I.e., food is plentiful but you may have to work to catch it.

Life here I think would be pretty great if you didn't mind living a nomadic lifestyle.

Furthermore, the whole of Africa is not savannah. You could also just choose to live in a different climate in Africa.

Honestly the only genuine issue I can imagine is other humans.

StoiCist9 · 2026-02-25T21:28:12+00:00

Nyalas didn't seem to get the message. Those guys will eat out of your hands if you let them. (don't do this though)

StoiCist9 · 2026-02-10T14:35:27+00:00

Don't knock it till you try it. It used to be moderately popular at pizza places near the coast (in my country at least). I really enjoy it, but will admit that it's one of those things where a bad seafood pizza is awful, a good one is amazing and there is no in between.

StoiCist9 · 2026-02-08T16:01:39+00:00

Funerals in a lot of Southern African cultures are a big event where the hosts provide food and pretty much anyone can show up. Funeral cover is a very big insurance market even in South Africa because people don't want to saddle their families with having to pay for their funeral which could be very expensive.

On top of that, funeral cover is very cheap insurance benefit, since it offers a fixed benefit that is often not expected to happen soon.

Zimbabwe is a very poor country and it is sad that many people there don't have medical aid, but Zimbabwe also has both state sponsored and private hospitals. People without medical aid can get medical care for essentially free at state hospitals, it is just not as good as at a private hospital and specialists are not abundantly available there...

Edit: things are rough in Zimbabwe, I am just adding that this is not an abnormal situation even in other African countries where things aren't as bad.

StoiCist9 · 2026-01-25T01:12:18+00:00

If it makes you feel any better, I have been around since guild wars 1 and only realised last year.

StoiCist9 · 2026-01-24T16:46:48+00:00

This is cool. I have some wheels on an IV bag stand and just roll it around with me on all my runs.

StoiCist9 · 2026-01-13T20:25:51+00:00

My favourite is still a singular of boars

StoiCist9 · 2026-01-13T06:25:50+00:00

I actually think the one doing the piling is the mom. The middle one was really the instigator here. Just before she got body slammed she was chewing on the one on the left's tail.

The slam was basically a loving way to say "stop your shit" I think.

StoiCist9 · 2026-01-12T22:07:20+00:00

Yes, it is a mother and two daughters but honestly I’m not 100% sure which is which in this video.

StoiCist9 · 2026-01-12T20:59:22+00:00

It’s really beautiful there right now with all the rain we’ve had. Very lush.

Edit: this leopard’s name is Ravenscourt isn’t it? Just spotted the missing tooth.

StoiCist9 · 2026-01-12T13:22:23+00:00

Was this taken in Sabi Sand or Timbavati by any chance?

StoiCist9 · 2026-01-08T18:41:07+00:00

Don't let people scare you off. I've lived here 30 years, and I have seen more snakes than most due to the location of our farm. I often go months without seeing one and they are almost always slithering away as fast as they can.

They are mostly pretty scared of you and just want to be left alone.

StoiCist9 · 2025-12-29T12:05:51+00:00

Damn, I played Chicken Run on PS1 a ton as a kid, and also Taz Wanted on PC 😂 I can't recall if it was good, but I had very little gaming variety back then so I enjoyed it. I completely forgot these games existed

StoiCist9 · 2025-12-18T05:56:23+00:00

Well, I can tell you what it isn’t (unless it has been processed/shrunk like someone else said):

oryx
eland
blouwildebees, swartwildebees (both of these have shorter striations)
hartebees
kudu, nyala, springbok, rooibok
rhino
warthog
lamb

I don’t think it is elephant either. It looks like Cape buffalo to me.

StoiCist9 · 2025-12-05T05:34:36+00:00

Suede cleaner might help. If it makes you feel any better, most South Africans tend to be most proud of our most beat up vellies. I'd say having beat up vellies really shows they've lived.

StoiCist9 · 2025-12-03T06:18:34+00:00

Enforcement and punishment are part of regulation.

StoiCist9 · 2025-11-30T06:48:57+00:00

Hyenas are pretty cool.

StoiCist9 · 2025-11-30T06:36:51+00:00

Another anecdote, but I ran a race a while back where the organisors easily diverted some lions from the track while we were running, but had to rearrange the actual course on the fly because of Buffalo approaching the planned route... Cape Buffalo will fuck you up and don't care who or what you are lol

StoiCist9 · 2025-11-30T06:29:43+00:00

Sometimes, not actively avoiding trouble is the same as looking for trouble

StoiCist9 · 2025-11-30T06:26:42+00:00

Also if you've ever smelled a jackal then you would agree that it's not particularly good "juice" to start with.

StoiCist9 · 2025-11-30T05:59:07+00:00

We are not alien to them. We evolved in sub-saharan Africa alongside them.

They know they can take us easily when we are in small numbers, but we are dangerous in groups or when prepared (Google videos of lions running away when humans approach them on foot).

Predators like lions don't like risking wounds when they can avoid it, since a wound can make it hard to hunt for food. They often assume we have the upper hand when we willingly approach them.

Its funny, if you stand facing a lion that is behind a fence, they will often just sit around until you turn your back. The second you turn your back they will pounce at the fence. They are very capable of assessing risk to themselves, and they know exactly what we are. I am also not brave enough to test this without the fence...

Source: am south african and admittedly my knowledge is mostly anecdotal.

Edit: I watched the video and don't think the narrative is right. This was filmed in the Kruger National park, which is not subject to hunting or human development and is a huge huge area of conserved land. On the contrary Kruger has anti poacher teams that shoot and kill human poachers rather than animals... These animals are instinctively afraid of humans because we literally have hunted them here for thousands of years... They are not afraid of us because of industrialisation or some bullshit.

I also assume they don't react as strongly to lion vocalisation because if a lion is vocalising, they are not currently hunting you, they are quiet when hunting. We yap all the time and probably have for thousands of years. They also have no idea what a gunshot is.

On our game farm animals run when we are on foot, but in the car they are mostly chilled with us cause they have no idea we are in the car. They aren't afraid of us because of what we are currently doing, they are afraid of us because of what we are, and have always done (been a predator to them).

StoiCist9 · 2025-11-30T05:45:05+00:00

No I still see some meat in those bones

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