If you set off early on Saturday morning, Paarl is only 45 minutes from Cape Town. Our favourite coffee shop, the Monte Christo, was closed. At the rear, through a plain door from the shop that sells ornaments made in local townships, is a quiet room where people can pray and meditate. It is as unexpected in its simplicity and beauty as in its utility and popularity. But, Monte Christo was closed. We tracked back a little on Main described locally as the longest street in South Africa and had breakfast. It was good.
Paarl is a thriving industrial town, or at least it was until a string of factories closed down, ripping the heart out of the place. Nowhere now for the men and women, highly skilled in the yarn and clothing industry, to go in the morning. A pall of pessimism hovers over the once busy township.
We had come to be with the local St. Kizito group. We sat together in a decaying old structure awaiting funds that will transform it into a church centre. They talked about the children, the soup runs that never seem to bring enough soup, the teenage pregnancies, the great burden on grandmothers, the absent men, the new job drought.
After a while, Janette began to weep with great sorrowful sobs. There are many reasons for these tears, but the image that tipped her over was the one given by another, of the people still turning up at the soup-serving when there was no soup left. It seemed to symbolise their feelings of helplessness in the face of such need. Janette has been doing community work in the township for many years. On her own, before St. Kizito was formed. They are her people.
The tiny group of women shared her sorrow and began to dream of how one day they will acquire a container fitted with a cooker. How one day all the cups will be filled and no one will be turned away. How one day they will take more of the children on a fun-day out and see more faces filled with uncontainable laughter. Just for a day.
We left for Cape Town.
Bruised by the sorrows of these women.
Inspired by their hope.
We detoured to Franschhoek where we had a light lunch at the “Essence” restaurant. A young woman called Monise served us. Alone for a while afterwards, I began to write my blog notes.
She noticed.
She asked if I was writing a diary.
We spoke.
Into the quaint and innocent air of this small tourist town she offered her own sorrowful story. Her twenty two year old twin sister, Monique, was murdered in April by a boyfriend, father of their four year old child. They’d had a row and he shot her seven times over the course of the evening until she died. The child is now with an older sister, Carradine, and the boyfriend will leave jail when he is over sixty years old.
Monise wants you to know of her sorrow.
In a few words, here it is.
Sorrow, hope, grief on Saturday in a corner of the Cape.
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