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!