There's a tendency for a girl who wants to abscond to try and take a few others with her. Two is better than one when you "hit the road". Three is not a crowd. Whatever her reasons to run might be, she will often try to influence others into believing they have the same reasons too. Some refuse. ... and they are the ones who tell what the plan was if they are properly approached later. But then there are those who choose to run too.
"Running" behaviour seems to be categorised into four. "Running to", "running from" and "running around" and "walk abouts".
This was an instance of "running around" - adventure and excitement - pure and simple - having to live by your wits in the streets, with all the risks it entails.
If you are adolescent and intelligent but don't experience your intellectual capacity being challenged though some positive activity . If your life becomes dull, no adventure, no risks , no sense of facing some kind of danger .... then being "on the road" provides just the right formula for those adolescent needs to be met. There you are in control, you make your own decisions, you use your street wisdom, you face risk and you stretch that hibernating IQ.
Three girls ran.
The idea was to get from Johannesburg to Durban and the sea where one had an aunt but didn't know where she lived... perhaps they could find her in the telephone directory once that got there.
But first they needed some money.
About two blocks away from the group home was a place the girls knew through schoolgirl chatter. It was known as the "model House" Here if you posed for pictures you would be paid R300 (ZAR) each. That would give them a "start", a "boost".
That night, they danced. Photos were taken and they each got the promised R300.. Next morning, A Saturday, they "hit the road", hitching on the National Road to Durban.
The lift was in South African language, known as a "bakkie", and open van. There were three nice guys in the van who told the girls not to worry,"don't panic". The had booked an hotel room right on the beachfront . The girls can just stay there too, and the guys will help with food and drink.
Once in the room three nice guys changed. They locked the door and showed them the gun. The first instruction under threat was to lift their blouses.Gun, food, drink and duress. The scene changed.
Exactly how it happened I don't know but one got out and went to the beachfront where there was a beach patrol officer and she told her story. She was taken to a Place of Safety whilst the hotel room story was sorted out.
It took three weeks or longer before all three were back in Johannesburg and the legal procedures completed for them to be returned into the group home.
This was an adventure - wits and wisdom lost to the barrel of a gun... but an adventure all the same.told often over a school lunch to groups of eagerly listening black stockinged admirers vicariously living the adrenalin and the drama ... It may have gone sour, but maybe this was what they were looking for somehow.
One of the three ran fairly frequently even after that and was returned with stories on each occasion that were not much different.
For some young people "hitting the road" seems to satisfy needs that are not being met in the program. Its a great lure if the program can't match their need to exercise and experience adventure and risk taking, to think in the moment and on their feet. Adventure and risk taking is and adolescent need - a characteristic of the developmental period - a challenge to professional child and youth care workers and their programmes.
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