life on the street

As our time here approaches the end of the month and the moment of departure, the diary becomes ever more full as ends are tied up and each encounter has that feel of a goodbye about it. We have dived deeper, it seems to me. While Cape Town, in all its weird and wonderful manifestations, retains something of its mystery for us, we have become more intimate with its contrasting and contradictory layers of life.

For example, there is a layer on the street which is peopled by those with nowhere else to live. I went there with Julius from the Institute. He is a street worker and his job is to befriend the homeless youth and invite them to come to the projects where they can learn a trade, be fed and loved. Some of them live under the N2 and the N1, sleeping on grassy embankments or against safety barriers. You can see them – if you look – as you transit along Oswald Pirow Street. I realised that, as I walked around with Julius that I was intruding on their living room, or their bedroom or even their toilet. I saw them undress and carefully wash as they kept an eye on their belongings. I realised that up to this moment they had been invisible to me. I had so often taken the ramp onto the motorway without a glance to the right or to the left. I had simply never noticed them. We spoke to a small group in the corner of a wasteland. They were sharing a joint of cannabis. One of them said “it takes away the fear in my heart”, another that “it dulled the terrors of the night”. When the police move them on they confiscate their blankets. The nights are cold in Cape Town. Some of them are as young as ten.

There are places dotted around the city where they can eat. We drew up to an elegantly named, “The Dining Rooms” on Canterbury where they can get a meal for 5 cents. That’s less than a penny. Men and women of all ages turn up to join the line outside, some waiting idly on the sloping bank opposite. Some of the younger ones danced and flirted with each other. The whole scene is overlooked from the balconies of expensive apartments and the city traffic continues its remorseless ant-like shuffle in a parallel world.

Julius was familiar with all their haunts. I was surprised at how many there were, a corner of a petrol station car-park here, an unlit alley-way there, each with its own “family”. They look out for each other, feel safe with each other. The sad fact is the street is safer than whatever home they once lived in. At the end of a day with Julius, we were made welcome in their “new home” and not one person had asked for money or made us feel unsafe.

And you know what; it really makes me think about myself and my situation.

suffer the little children

Sally Weatherall from Appletreewick visited Dunoon with us. Below are her impressions.

"Children are children where ever you are in the world.

I was apprehensive about my visit to DuNoon. Michael said that it was nothing like Kwanokuthula in Plettenberg Bay, a Township I have visited on many previous occasions and he was right. On turning right from the main road into DuNoon, it is a sight which will remain in my memory for ever. I could see a school, and in the distance a large building which was the one we were heading for, the Sports Hall. There were lines, almost like Avenues of shacks, there were blue Portaloo’s, there were people, children, a few dogs here and there, but more than anything there was dust.

We were meeting Mary, a Canadian lady who gives her time and energy supporting the children of DuNoon in many different ways, and every Tuesday and Thursday she runs an after school ‘club’. One of the primary purposes of the club is to provide a ‘Safe House’ where the children can go until their female carers, be it their Mothers, Aunts, or Grandmothers return from work. They are safe from their male relatives, who sadly can often subject them to sexual and physical abuse.

We were there in good time, so spent a little time putting toys on the floor for the younger children, games, such as snakes and ladders, jigsaws etc., on tables for the older children, and checking that the food, bags of jam and peanut butter sandwiches were ready for the break, and that bottles of orange juice were prepared.

Henry, a 22 year old refugee from Zimbabwe helps whenever possible, and today he was writing the names and ages of the children as they entered the Hall. I asked him if he minded me sitting next to him, this for me was a way of meeting the children.

I was overwhelmed by emotion as they stood in front of him, some of them only 2 years of age, so many children. I thought of my family at home, they have everything, food, clothes, shoes, a home. I thought of my Grandchildren who have a warm bed in winter, and lovely homes with so many toys to play with. Then I thought of the words that Charlotte would have said, ‘Mum Get a Grip”. So I took several deep breaths, and began talk to them as they sometimes struggled to spell their names to Henry who coming from Zimbabwe speaks a different language, although all these children appeared to have some understanding of English, even the youngest.

They all smiled, and believe me, their smiles are so special. They played, just as any child plays, they argued, they pulled each others arms if they wanted something the other child had. They are just like any child, perhaps the only difference is that these children lack so many of the things that our children and we as parents take for granted

What can we do? There are so many DuNoons in the world, but if just one child’s day can be made a little better then it has to be worthwhile."

Thank you, Sally.

our friends in Mozambique and the life they have

Two years ago Karen and I visited the city of Durban. In transit we met a missionary by the name of Eugene. We became friends and have been in touch with him and his wife, Tina, ever since. Below is their latest newsletter. I include it here, partly to honour them, but also to give you a picture of the life they have. They gave up a very comfortable existence in Cape Town to live amongst the poorest of the poor. Those who can pray, pray for them and those who can wish, wish for them.

“The feeling, at times, is that my life in the mission field is like the man who could be called, “The silent, invisible juggler.” We had a S.A. team arriving to work on the appalling electrical system in our home and they had scarcely arrived when the leadership of the local church came to ask for help in a situation that was nothing less than a nightmare. While attempting to appear calm on the outside, we juggled furiously on the inside, to resolve this.

We send a few selected student families (Husband, wife and child) to a long-term Bible training school in Beira. These young families live and study there on a full-time basis for a period of three years, after which they are placed as full-time church workers in Moz. On the day they were due to graduate one of the young wives collapsed and died in the bathroom. The family were obviously tremendously distraught and wanted to bring their daughter’s body back to Zambezia province for burial. The costs of doing this were absolutely prohibitive (equivalent to about 3 years’ salary for a Mozambican) and so they approached us for help. We gave them what we could but the costs kept on spiralling up as the governor’s office became involved, post-mortem procedures had to be paid for and to really crown the crisis, the refrigeration unit of the mortuary ceased working and the body was simply allowed to lie on a slab for three days in Mozambican summer temperatures of 38 degrees!!! We finally got Joanna’s body back to Quelimane a full five days after her death.

We strive so hard to avoid creating a “dependency culture” mentality among the locals, and yet at times such as this, the question remains, “What else could one do?” The juggler juggles on – time, resources, people, finances and wisdom flow through his nervous, clumsy fingers, guided only by a supernatural power, not by his fragile abilities.

On a much lighter note, the team from S.A. were awesome. The pic on the right shows three men in a body of water. The scary part, not shown, is that the body of water is actually the crocodile infested Zambezi River. Judging by the abandoned joy on their faces and the happy immersion in chest-deep water, they appear ignorant of the fact that many Mozambicans have become the main meal of the day for the local crocodile population in the very spot they chose for their midday bathe.

This same carefree joy came to permeate our home and we have been revitalised, refreshed and more motivated than we have been in years. Victor, João, Vincent and “Matches” – Thanks guys, not only for the huge job you did in making our home liveable and free from “death by electrocution”, but especially for the fellowship and the fun we had together. Your sense of humour and fresh comments were like a cool shower on a 42 deg. day.

We live in a brutal environment; life here seems to be heavily focussed on simply having the strength to make it from sunrise to sunset. Our view from the apartment is filled with ugliness, and you guys brought in the fragrance of His Spirit. It all helps to make it bearable and provides strength to carry on. Thank you.

Our living space has also been remarkably transformed – we have new ceiling fans in the lounge, working plug points in the kitchen, an automatic veranda light with a day/night sensor so that we no longer have to struggle up a darkened staircase in order to reach our front door. The icing on the cake was an automatic float-switch for the header tank, so, no more stumbling naked from the shower, body covered in flaking, tacky soap, hands groping for the switch that turns on the pump. Ah! Such is life, to appreciate the wonders of electricity, automated air-cooled living and freedom from the technological perils that once stalked our humble abode.

We have been working hard toward the creation of that mystical state called “a weekend OFF!!!” and are proud to announce our third successful weekend off for 2010. Well, in reality, perhaps it wasn’t an entire weekend, it was in fact just a day, and it never happened over a Saturday or a Sunday. Springing forth from the fellowship of the nuts came the fruit of their labours. The team finished before the appointed time and so on their final day with us we decided to take everybody for a short drive up the coast and go to the beach at Zalala, about an hour’s drive north of Quelimane. For all the guys out there who drive Toyotas, I thought that I would sneak in this one quick pic as a small bit of unsolicited advertising. As the old advert goes, “There are many, many vehicles that will take you off-road in Africa, but only Toyota brings you back!!!”

Another Nissan/Mitsubishi/Land Rover/..etc safely rescued from the burning clutches of the shifting sands. I am mature enough now, not to leap forth from the driving seat and place another notch in black koki pen on the front fender. We did have a great time at the beach though and the guys were quick to forgive me for leading their lesser vehicle into sandy danger. Finished up with a superb meal of local, freshly caught Rock Cod with traditional Mozambican prawns. Since the shower and toilet facilities at the beach were broken, the guys decided that we could still freshen up after our swim and long walk with a communal spray of deodorant. The can, much depleted was left standing on the table.”

Back to the usual blog territory next week.

the abandoned ones

The following is taken from today's Cape Time's editorial entitled, "Abandon Hope".

"Every life is different and it would be disrespectful and presumptuous to speculate about why so many young women have abandoned or murdered their children over the past month.

In a single month in Cape Town there have been seven incidents involving mothers and abandoned or murdered children. On October 5th, a six week old boy was dumped in Khayalitsha. His mother has been arrested. On October 8th, a five day old baby was found in a manhole in Killarney Gardens and ten days later, the body of another newborn was found in a stormwaterdrain in Khayalitsha. In Philippi, a day or so later, a 28 year old woman was charged with murder and attempted murder after apparently poioning herself and her daughters, killing the younger child. Over the next week, two babies were found abandoned in Delft. And on October 26th, in Bishop Leavis, a one year old child and her mother survived a suicide attempt.

Unless and until the women concerned choose to tell their own stories, we cannot know what exactly drove each of them to do what for most of us seems unthinkable.

But there are at least two common threads which link their tragic stories; poverty and the failure of society to offer them any hope. Abandoned, in most cases by the fathers of their children, they also seem to have been abandoned by the authorities".

Two young Xhosa men from Dunoon, near Killarney Gardens came to the men's forum meeting on Saturday last. At the end they expressed their wish that there should be a gathering for men in their own township. And at the end of a bad month for mother's and their children, there is this ray of light, this flutter of a butterfly's wing, this potent and unpredictable thing called "hope".

We must never abandon hope. Never.

monkey business

Karen writes:

I have decided to put some of my thoughts down about our time here. I will begin with my impression of Dunoon, a township where we have spent some time on this visit. Dunoon is a small township compared to the likes of Gugulethu and Khayelitsha – but has the reputation of being one of the most dangerous. One of the things that hits is the filth and rubbish around the place (common to all townships I have been into). Perhaps it would be easy to blame the people who live here for the state of it. Why don’t they dispose of their rubbish properly – but how? They don’t have a wheelie bin each, never mind 3 in order to sort the rubbish. Black bags then? Would you buy black bags when you can’t afford to feed your family? But it isn’t just that, rubbish is collected by the municipality sporadically in such places – unlike where we are currently staying where it can be collected on a daily basis should we so wish.

Waiting to get into the yard of the hall where the after school club is held that we have been attending, I was struck by the row of mobile plastic toilet cubicles, similar to those you often see on building sites. Anybody who knows me will know that I have a ‘thing’ about toilets. These toilets are a step up from not having a toilet at all, but can you imagine what they must be like. They service hundreds of people. Who cleans them? Who supplies the toilet paper? I am afraid it is way beyond my imagination. Perhaps this explains the smell emitted from some of the children.

Despite these conditions, most of the children at the after school club have a smile on their face – just like any other child the world over, enjoying doing jigsaws, colouring in, or playing snakes and ladders – a big smile on the face when they go up a ladder, a frown when they slide down that snake.

Michael and I do also take plenty of time out to enjoy ourselves and have just returned from an overnight stay in Hermanus. A place which, at this time of year is famous for the whales that come into the bay. They can be seen coming out of the water as graceful as ballerina despite their great bulk. The male and female frolicking in the sea with their calf.

Regular readers of the blog will know Michael is passionate about ‘fathering,’ or the lack of and how it affects the family. We had a graphic illustration of this on our journey to Hermanus. Driving along we noticed cars in front breaking suddenly. There was a large group (sorry don’t know collective noun) of baby baboons messing about on the road, narrowly escaping death! Rounding the corner we were met with the sight of the parents, on a narrow wall at the side of the road, in a very compromising position. There they were seemingly with not a care in the world “in flagrante delicto”(non-Latin scholars Google it!) despite cars driving past hooting their horns, a 50 metre sheer drop off the wall into the sea, and not least of all their children risking life and limb in the middle of a busy road. As I say an example of parents not giving offspring the attention they need. I have to confess though it raised more than a smile, we giggled all the way to Hermanus. Just wish I had had my camera at the ready, but I didn’t, so this blog will have to do with a picture of a graceful whale!

miracles and other endings from down under

In the week that the Chilean miners began to emerge from their tomb into the glare of 24/7 media, two spectacularly under-reported events were barely breaking the surface here in Cape Town.

In the first, a young mother reported to the police that someone unknown to her had offered to mind her baby at the local outpatients department while she went to the toilet. A day later the child was found buried under rubbish near the girl’s home in Khayalitsha. She was dead and the mother has been charged with the murder.

Two days later, a lorry driver delivering his goods noticed a young woman with a baby, standing on the pavement. A little later, as he passed the same spot, he sensed there was something wrong. He stopped and crossed the street, finding himself standing over a manhole. On opening it he found the baby up to the neck in putrid water. Alive.

Karen and I have been working with a project in the township of Dunoon. This is the place, out on the M5 beyond Milnerton, where, late last year, the murders of Zimbabwean immigrants were carried out in a xenophobic frenzy. It’s a hard place where children and women are not safe. The project is “an after-school club” where the kids play, do puzzles, and eat while their mothers are still at work. This period is when they are at the most risk of rape and violence at the hands of the drunken men in their community - fathers, uncles and older brothers.

Tomorrow we take the sandwiches we made from the ten loaves of bread and 1.5k’s of poloni bought at the local supermarket today. It will be their manna for the day.

the world beneath the surface

In every rich enclave of this wondrous planet there is an “underbelly”, a hidden, shadowy existence known only to those who peel away the thin veneer on the surface. Plettenberg Bay on the Garden Route is one such place. Few know that it is a Mecca for those seeking rehab attracting recovering addicts from all over the world. Fewer still know about the “trustafarians”, a little known group so called because they live off the trust funds set up long ago by their wealthy parents. They look the part, wearing that worn, dishevelled look, shabby chic apparel, long hair and sandals. You see them selling vegetables at the Harkerville market on Saturday morning or wandering around in the Plett Market eateries on Friday and Saturday night leaving a sweet trail of patchouli in their wake.

Anthea and her partner Bridget had breakfast with us at Milkwood Manor on our last morning there. An African/American and a coloured/African with a pinkish/Irish man and a tanned woman from Birstall. A somewhat hilarious racial cocktail. Anthea reminded us of a conversation she had with a white person who asked her how she felt about the changes in South Africa since 1994 and if she didn’t feel a little pessimistic about the future. Anthea’s response, deadly as a well aimed arrow, surprised the questioner: “you are talking to a woman of colour, everything is better for me than it was 20 years ago”. Bridget’s humour was no less caustic: her problem was less to do with her colour and more to do with being an American abroad, a burden of mostly myth and little substance. She wanted to be seen for who she really is. Just like Africans, who are offended by their portrayal in outdated mythic images by visitors who often want to see them in “traditional” dress. What they actually wear everyday is jeans and t-shirts, hoodies when it’s cold, sensible shoes, suits to work. We had a good time hunting down the stereotypes with loud laughter and fiendish fun.

Meanwhile, back here in Milnerton by the sea we were hunting down a dead rat in the guttering above the atrium which was threatening to drive us out with its nauseous pong. I nearly put on my patchouli!

noble people from an older time

Anthea is a coloured woman doing a research PHD on the Khoi San people, said to be the early inhabitants of South Africa. In her day-job she is the manager of the local Mugg n’ Bean, a coffee emporium you will find in most towns here. We met her at the Main Street Market, a new idea in Plett where locals and visitors get together over food and wine and music and where they don’t pay high tourist prices. During the evening you come to notice its cooperative character. All the food stalls share responsibility for supplying plates, cutlery and glasses, tidying up – every little item returns to its place at the end of the evening. Last night featured the blues music of Albert Frost, a well known South African bluesman. I had to take their word for that – he was good, though. Very good.

The Khoi San were two peoples, we are told, and one reared cattle while the other hunted. The hunters were successful chasing their prey on foot because they hid small water containers over a wide area of the bush while the animals, though fleeter of foot, grew tired and thirsty.

There were “fall-outs” between the Khoi and the San. Eventually they came together but were driven west by settlers. Anthea speaks of them with passion and admiration. The men, she says, were real fathers to their families and communities, faithful in the feeding and protecting of their wives and children, faithful, too, in their marriages. One hopes we can learn from these noble peoples from an older time.

Speaking of marriage, the owner of Milkwood Manor asked me if I would “bless” a marriage in a few days time. The local pastor who had agreed to perform the marriage rite suddenly decided to go off on vacation. The couple, by the way, had requested that the pastor should make no mention of God at this wedding ceremony. Yup. Sea without the water, air without the oxygen, Guinness without the collar, The Coffee House with no coffee. The only thing I don’t get is why the pastor didn’t just say “No!”

the sound of thunder in a butterly's wing

It is said that a great storm has its beginning in the silent flap of a butterfly’s wing. In Paternoster, just before I left the Cape in early May, I prayed for a storm. And I wondered if a dream about men being transformed might have wings. Little did I know then that a butterfly had already tilted its fragile frame towards the sun and somewhere in the distance a hurricane was already brewing.

A man’s heart began to change. He had been drinking a bottle of whiskey a day; his marriage was slowly dying, his children drifting away from him for their own protection. One day he prayed, asking his wife for her forgiveness. He stopped drinking suddenly and completely. Four months later, there are twenty five men being transformed. There is a storm raging and the women and children are feeling a warm new wind on their faces. They are saying it is the Holy Spirit.

People of faith and people of none read this blog. Let’s just see where this little butterfly takes us.

Paternoster is as beautiful and as peaceful as ever. This morning began with a drizzle more in keeping with the West of Ireland, finishing this afternoon in bright sunlight. A tortoise ambled across the road not far from where we earlier saw giraffes munching the high branches of scattered trees. We had gone in search of Weskus Mall. We got lost. The tortoise would have made it in better time!

Tomorrow, after we get some time with our friend Sandra from Veldriff, we head for Montague and the lovely Mimosa Lodge.

the festival of eid and the mad pastor

If you turn right up Chiappini on leaving through the gates of the Salesian Institute and carry on up the hill, you enter a warren of brightly coloured terraced houses, red, yellow, green, purple, beige, and maroon. Today the little streets are crowded with women and children sitting on the doorsteps and on the kerbs eating their food. Smartly dressed men come and go in cars, entering and leaving houses, shaking hands, some indulging in extended greetings with each other.
It is a Muslim neighbourhood and today is Eid, a festival day marking the end of Ramadan. An old man coming towards me down the steps of the mosque told me it was their Christmas Day. He was all smiles and shook my hand with great vigour as we wished God’s blessings on each other. In that moment, on Chiappini, on the festival of Eid, the hearts of a Christian and a Muslim were united in the blessings of the one God.

On the other side of the world, a Christian pastor was planning to burn copies of the Koran. I wondered what the old man might think of that. And God. What does He think?

I am sleeping in the cloister of the Institute. It is on the top floor and from the high balcony you can see all the way across the bay to Milnerton and Blaauberg in the distance. On Saturday night you can hear the loud boom, boom from the gay nightclub up the street. It goes on until 5am; long after Cubana on the other side of the road has sent everyone home. During the World cup, the whole thoroughfare of Somerset Road was throbbing and heaving with match day crowds who coursed in and out of the many restaurants.

By comparison, it is now as quiet as a cloister.

a dream with wings or pie in the sky

Paternoster is always for me a place of solitude where things contradictory and befuddling can come together like a flight of geese wending its way across an evening sky. Even the painful troubles of a region seem to fade in the reddening light of dusk. This pair of geese flies home today after nearly three months immersed in the wonders and tribulations of the Cape. Our thoughts come together in a formation of sorts. Perhaps a formation that will set a pattern for the return journey.

The problems of the male loom large in the picture before us. Toxic masculinity and the failure of the male identity. Followers of Capewonders are familiar with this territory. Murder, rape, child abuse, gang warfare are all features of a society in travail. And not just here, but everywhere in one degree or another. But, what to do?

Two Sundays ago I spoke of the problem at three Catholic Masses in one middle class parish of Cape Town. The people who spoke with me afterwards were women. Each had a story of family relationships disintegrating, unhappy husbands, aimless sons, insecure daughters. Modern sociological thought emphasises the role of inevitable global trends as the cause. Psychology looks to the fragmentation of the individual in the face of powerful social forces. These and other disciplines of our 21st century world seem to wobble and waffle in the face of the challenge.

For many it is difficult even to know how to frame the question. Does the world need its men to be restored? And to what? This community, perhaps like all other communities, does need its men to be restored. And it needs them to be restored as true fathers of their children and the wider family around them. It’s the piece that’s missing. Men do the biological bit; the rest is left to women. Women long for a new generation of men who will be true fathers; who will cherish rather than abuse, affirm rather than destroy; men who will protect rather than endanger, love rather than hate.

As I prepare to leave Paternoster and the Cape today, I wonder if this dream has wings. Or is it just another flock of pies in the sky.

pride and prejudice

“Not all the ravages caused by our merciless age are tangible ones. The subtler forms of destruction, those involving only the human spirit, are the most to be dreaded”. So wrote Paul Bowles in the preface of the 1981 edition of his novel, “The Spider’s House”. I discovered the book in an antiquarian bookshop in Kalk Bay near Fish Hoek, a kind of Hebden-Bridge-by-the-sea on the way to Cape Point. A limited edition cloth bound trade copy at R120; it was one of those rare bargains.

Bowles was a New Yorker who spent most of his adult life in Tangier, North Africa, watching people and writing about them. He lived well into his 90’s. In his early years he was a composer of music, sharing an apartment at one time with Aaron Copeland. So, not a lightweight. Another novel of his is “The Sheltering Sky” which became a film with John Malkovich and Debra Winger. His collected short stories are a fitting salute to the genre.

His writings form an astute commentary on the white man’s naïve and inept incursion into the continent of Africa. As you read, you get the sense that Africa stalks him, seduces him, exposes him and then watches him self-destruct. The stumbling and hapless pale-skin is unaware of the unseen predator in every encounter. The visitor, in a reversal of appearances, becomes the subject of the hunt, an object of stealth, caught in the sights of an ancient invisible menace. Like a lost animal in the savannah who has wandered into the wrong territory. In his stories, it is the innocent who are smart and the smart that are innocent. Bowles unveils the Souk and the Bazaar as amphitheatres of cruel irony in which the white man wanders in the shadows, unaware of the penetrating eyes all around him. He always ends up on his knees, perplexed and shaken, shorn of his arrogant presumptuousness, finally revealed as a fool in another man’s land.

As I look around me through the borrowed lens of a Paul Bowles, down here in the Cape townships, I am all too aware that those watching me are sensitive to the foul odour of pride and arrogance veiled beneath the layers of good intentions. The pride and prejudice of the white man. Subtle forms of destruction…and the most to be dreaded.

I dedicate this blog to my friend Paul Bailey with whom I discovered the genius of Paul Bowles.

a woman of africa

She’s a black Xhosa woman from the Eastern Cape. Years ago, like so many before her, she made the journey to Cape Town to build a better life. Three of her six brothers and sisters followed her to Khayalitsha. They died tragically. Tuberculosis, cancer and a horrific road accident, common killers in South Africa, had taken them. Because they had followed her, she carried a heavy burden of guilt. She looks after their children as well as her own. Her husband is also dead.

This devoutly spiritual Xhosa woman came to me and asked if the deep pain in her heart would ever leave her.

We talked for a time about grief and loss and her desire for the wound within to be taken away. She spoke of it as of a living thing that had taken up residence in her, an unwelcome visitor who would not leave. Her language reminded me of how the ancient Gaelic language could give living form to human emotions as though they were unseen companions of the soul. “Ta bron orm” meaning “grief is upon me”.

Towards the end of our time together she told of how her neighbours had begun to seek her out when they were troubled, of how her remaining family in the North would travel to confide in her when they had nowhere else to turn. Together, we shared a picture of how the pain in her heart spoke to them of wisdom and experience, of a woman acquainted with grief, who understood their troubles, a woman who knew the road they travelled, a woman they could believe in.

As our talk came to a close, we were thankful in the prayer that went out from our warm embrace that the pain in her heart was a healing instrument in the hearts of others. For the first time I saw the meaning of the words “wounded healer” and I saw that sorrow can be a sign of strength. With a dignified poise, so characteristic of the Xhosa woman, she went her way. Nondima is her name and she is happy for the world to know her story.

toxic masculinity

There is a problem with men here in South Africa. Readers of Capewonders are familiar with the theme. I have tended to discourse the problem in a spiritual framework because that’s the way I’m wired. But, a few weeks ago, the review section of a Sunday paper carried the following headline:

“Battle against toxic masculinity”

A secular writer in a secular newspaper saying “the abuse of children and women is a scourge that needs to be addressed”. Not very different from another writer, a Christian, Leanne Payne, who names the cause as “failed male identities”.

“Toxic masculinity”. It is an image that fits the problem very well. And not least because the whole body of men in a society is affected. I remind you of Paul in the township of Lentageur who does not visit vulnerable families “because the women and children are afraid of a man”. Any man. Even this good man Paul, who is shackled with a broken image not of his own making. Every encounter with a woman or a child is a battle for him. As for myself, I too have to drink from this cup. How do poor, black people view a white man with white hair who moves around in their midst? What have white men with white hair done to them down the generations? Every encounter is also for me a battle, a battle with an old and very toxic image. One I did not know I had until I came here to this place.

We went to help with the soup kitchen at Kleinvlei on Wednesday. Five large tureens went in fifteen minutes to a long row of little ones, each carrying a small plastic container, some grasping the hand of a parent as they waited in line. Of course it was a heartbreaking sight. But also triumphant. The women of St. Kizito were feeding the children. This day at least they would not go hungry. This day they would not be abandoned. As the last vestiges of burnt remnants were scraped from the last of the large, heavy containers, only one went without food, an old woman who vented her disappointment in guttural Afrikaans. But it may have been about the white man with the white hair. Marian did not translate.

The ingredients for the five tureens cost around R200. That’s about £20. In the evening with our two visiting friends from Skipton we ate at our favourite Italian restaurant around the corner from the Salesian Institute. Including a generous tip, that came to R900, a little less than £90. The doggy bag from two leftover pasta dishes went to a youth bedding down for the night on the pavement around the corner on Chippiani.

Enough to digest. For now.

three men of africa

Adrian is a coloured man from the Karoo. He looks taller because he is thin. His profile is elegant and composed. He speaks precisely and gently and with great feeling. A year ago, his father, with whom he was living, denied paternity. He said, “You are not my son”. Adrian, devastated, moved in with his grandmother. For many weeks he cried when he was alone. Together we spoke the words of the psalmist, “when your father…abandons you, Yahweh will gather you up”. He has forgiven his father and although he no longer sees him, he gives him honour by reporting to him of his progress at work. To give honour to a father is part of his tradition. Adrian is thirty four years old, now looking to other fathers to feed his soul.

Don is white. His intense eyes look out from deep set hollows that look like caves, partly obscured by lush black brows. At seventeen he wound up in prison and served three years. He began studying during periods in solitary confinement. He told a story of adventurous drifting through jobs in Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. He took to working on ships. In Maputo he met his wife. Their daughter is at school in Europe and she likes his nomadic life. Some time ago, his grandmother died and left him some money with which he bought some land. Developers have their eye on it but he has a dream that one day he will build a centre for poor kids. Don is a waiter and he lives with other waiters in town. He is forty one years old and remains a rolling stone in his heart, surfing the crags of this strange and beautiful country.

Sandile is a Xhosa black Anglican priest. His huge smiling face gives no hint of age. At the end of coffee in a small courtyard bistro, he stands and prays aloud with us for the people of Africa and the two white visitors and their own little dreams. The diocese has placed him in a downtown apartment in a white area but he will not stay there. Sandile is a true black African. Proud of his ancestry, he tries to draw the “traditional healers” into the Christian narrative refusing to adopt the European view of them as demons. In ancient Israel, the leaders of the Hebrew faith brought the “seers” into the prophetic community as did the Irish with the druids. His passion is to have more Xhosa priests who will mediate the Christian passion with a truly African voice.

Three men of Africa, one in search of a father, one with a dream set like a gem in a piece of land and one with a vision for a Xhosa nation fulfilled. Each looking to a new and distant horizon.

The other side of the track

There is another side to Milnerton, away from the beach and the lagoon and the eight pelicans that caught my eye as they lifted off like a line of bombers in the direction of Table Mountain. Its border begins less than a mile away at the Loxton Road intersection. It’s the other side of the track that separates the affluent from the rest. It straddles the Koeburg Road that runs all the way to the N1 near the city. From around 6pm, young prostitutes ply their trade there along a deserted three mile stretch, each one standing like a lone sentinel on their allotted corner. You notice the cars slowing down as the girls glance momentarily in their direction. The pimps wait up side .streets. Near the Loxton end stand faded malls, signs of earlier aspirations, with mostly empty interiors.

This morning I waited near our loan car for Karen to return and noticed a man heaping angry abuse on his partner as they pulled away. I saw her tears and they convicted me with shameful memories of my own. It was 9am and around the corner another couple were already drinking bottles of beer at a street bar. We were hunting for a breakfast eatery and found three. They were shut. Milnerton, of course, is not the waterfront with its tourists decanting daily from five star hotels. More Scunthorpe or Dewsbury than York, crumbs from the World Cup table will not blow this far.

Early every morning Table Mountain, its high angles tinted with orange light from the rising sun, is visible across the lagoon from our large bedroom windows. It is sometimes easy to forget about that other world that stretches across the endless flats beyond to the north east, beyond the membrane of this bubble we occupy. But we are slowly getting to know that other world. The other night in Kleinvlei we listened to the women as they reviewed their caseloads. For one of them, every child lived in a HIV household. For all of them, the children came from desperately poor families, going to school without uniforms on empty stomachs. Strident, assertive and undeterred by the scale of the challenges they face, they talked of their need for more money to get more clothing and more food.

Cecilia, tall and elegant, with a waspish sense of humour, said how working with St. Kizito was transforming her own life.

They treated us to a short account of how they prepare the five or six tureens of soup every Wednesday with an assortment of vegetables and soup mix and the sorrow they feel when there is not enough. On a Wednesday in early April we will join them on the soup run. The Kleinvlei women are one small group in the teeming Cape Flats making what difference they can.

Broken images

Men do not attend St. Kizito meetings. Paul is an exception. At the township of Lentageur the other night, this small and gentle man described his difficulty in making home visits to vulnerable families. “The women are suspicious of men, afraid of them”, he said in answer to a question from Karen. He sees the fear in their eyes as they recoil to safety. He was touching on something here, something that men like him inherit from the behaviour of other men. A broken image.

I have seen this before. Catholic priests, devoted men, exemplary lives. Some of them say they get the same knowing look even from close family, a look that says “are you like those others who have abused children?” They too feel soiled by the behaviour of other men.

Paul, and other men like him, climb this mountain alone, each step making a firm foothold before the next step is made. Every solid and honest encounter with women and children is a building block in a restored image. Trust is remade the hard way and only the braveheart sets out on the journey.

The R27 runs from Cape Town to Milnerton and beyond to Blaauberg then on to Velddrif before it becomes another number and ends up in Namibia. The city is funding a multi million rand road transit system that reaches Blaauberg. Rumour has it that once the world cup is done, the new buses will be mothballed and the system will be suspended. In the meantime, a report in the Cape Times gave details of an incident involving one of those ubiquitous white taxi’s which ferries people to and from the township settlements. On pulling one over, the police counted out 103, that’s one hundred and three, children. They are licensed to carry eighteen! We struggled with the maths and the packing skills of the driver. We struggled too with the bent logic of the city fathers and their priorities. The taxi men, by the way don't want this state of the art system. It will put them out of business!

Our rented home overlooks the lagoon at Milnerton. The other morning in the early fade of orange that highlights everything like dew, I caught sight of five magnificent pelicans working the water like silent cruise ships. When they are contemplating a take off, they raise their giant wings in preparation. I rushed for my camera. I missed the picture I had already formed in my mind and witnessed instead their majestic flyover. I dedicate this exquisite blend of pleasure and frustration to my friend Stephen Garnett whose similar stories are most probably numbered in the thousands.

Wonderful Land

Cliff Richard and the Shadows completed their magnificent “Reunion” tour last night at Kirstenbosch. The gardens are chiselled out of a vast mountain fastness overlooking the sprawl which is Cape Town. As Cliff graciously left the stage to his one time backing band, they played their favourite tunes. When it came to “This Wonderful Land”, it seemed as though this greatest of all instrumentals was the real star and the spindly men with their famous guitars became mere shadows in attendance. As the tingling ebbed and flowed, the hit song also seemed emblematic of a great and surging nation.

The evening before we had spent with the St. Kizito groups of Paarl. It, too, was a moving reunion as we sat in attendance upon a people who love the poor with passion. As we shared together in the heat, we began to see a glimpse of how real love works. The women spend their time with the hopeless and the abandoned and give what little they have. They want to do more, have more to give, make a real difference. But already, the hopeless are no longer hopeless, and the abandoned are no longer abandoned. And this is the gift they spread in the community they serve.

Cape Town’s arterials are still a warren of road works as the country makes ready for its World Cup. One wonders what will happen when the jobs disappear. At least it will be cooler in June. Paarl recorded a temperature in the low 50’s earlier on the day we visited. You can only imagine what this pink man looked like!

Followers of this blog will know that things happen on the beach at Milnerton. On the day we encountered the lovely, waist-coated pet pig, we noticed an army of sea rescue personnel wading in a line into the sea towards Robben Island. Further out was a small flotilla of red boats criss-crossing the waves while overhead was the drone of a lone helicopter. As we made our way home we believed we had seen a routine exercise. Far from it; the next day, the Cape Times carried a report that a man had stabbed his ex girlfriend - in the apartment complex we occupied on our last visit – and had then run into the sea. She will live. He has not been found. Memory of the incident returned while Cliff was singing “On the Beach” high up in Kirstenbosch.

The picture is for Anna and Lee and other besotted dog lovers!

Flying Pigs

The dog on Milnerton Beach stood next to its adoring owner, small spade in hand, as it discharged its doo da. As we drew near, we could see that this exotic specimen was no ordinary dog. It was a pet pig, replete with a skimpy red waistcoat and a bright red collar. It was the snotty snout covered in sand and the curly tail that marked it out as a non-canine. We looked at the owner whose eyes betrayed a tired glance which said “don’t ask!”

Yes, we are back in Cape Town, this city of colour and contrast, mad pigs and South Africans. In Khayalitsha, this little piggy would be on a spit at some street corner surrounded by snotty nosed kids.

But there is always more to this place than fun and eccentricity. Yesterday’s Cape Times carried a report on the rape of an 11 month old child. It was the babysitter. The day before, we visited a shelter for pregnant women; they can go there to give birth safely, hidden from violent partners, when they think the only alternative is an abortion. And like every other little charity, they need money. The young women fall out and fight with each other with no experience of resolving their differences by peaceful means. We will be sitting with them on the odd evening to maybe explore some alternatives.

I was a guest at a Christian men’s group in Constantia a few nights ago. It went well, or so I thought. They were a sincere bunch and they explore the difficulties of masculinity with great honesty. I knew a few of them from our last visit to Cape Town. Later I discovered I had offended one of them. I reflected. Indeed I had said the wrong thing or at least the right thing at the wrong time. This is not Yorkshire and certainly not Dublin. I need to watch my tongue. Lesson learned.

In another meeting in Gugulethu, Karen and I could see how acutely tuned in people are to being accountable for any donations they receive. It is not a question of embarrassment or shame. Just making sure everything is clean and clear and transparent. Unlike Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, currently on a visit to the UK, who has still not declared his assets 10 months after the deadline set down by law. That was the headline on this Sunday in South Africa.

A picture from across the border in Zimbabwe showed two boys collecting individual grains of maize that had been scantily scattered from a passing truck on a day when
Robert Mugabe spent $100,000 on his 86th birthday.

One day one hopes the rich and powerful of Africa will have their hearts of stone replaced with hearts of flesh, that they will behave like truly enlightened leaders, that they will notice the poverty of their own people.

And that the pet pigs of Milnerton will fly.