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.