Ehlu-who?

I officially take back whatever I said about Ingwavuma and eManyeseni being 'the sticks' now that I've been to Ethluhlene...the true rurals. Forget running water, there was no water there period when we arrived. The people were waiting for it to rain, and all up and down the gravel roads were spigots and bore holes leering up from the dry earth, between bristly bullrushy weeds, dry as dust. They carted water in from the surrounds, slung around donkeys' necks, to be transferred to pails and garrafons and placed outside peoples' rooms for cooking and bathing.

I was doing some mental calculations with Fana the other day about the whole water issue, and discovering how it really oppresses people. Let's say that in Canada it takes 10 minutes for a shower, 5 minutes to run the dishwasher, 5 minutes to load the washing machine and one minute to turn on the tap...that's twenty minutes. In rural South Africa, it takes me 20 minutes to fill the garrafon from the JoJo tank, 15 minutes to haul it up the mountain, 5 minutes to pour and heat water to wash dishes (and then another 15 to wash them), 5 minutes to pour and heat water for the basin (sponge bath), 15 minutes to bathe, another 5 minutes to heat and pour water to do the laundry basins, and a good 30 minutes to wash, rinse, and hang to dry. And God Forbid you want to wash your hair or shave your legs...forget about it. So that's almost 2 hours. Six times as long. No wonder people have no time for anything else, like studying or reading. And with no electricity, your day is done by six pm. It's time to go to bed. Ish! I was reading a book (by candlelight! Trying not to set myself on fire!) that talked about how Apartheid ended only to be replaced by a type of economic Apartheid. I completely agree with that. It's one thing to say Whites and Blacks can ride the transport together, but what transport!? All the white people have 4 x 4's and the rest are left to their own devices.

When Fana and I were coming back to Ing from Durbs, we had to wait in the combi for it to fill, because that's the system here. When the bus is full, the bus goes. Do you know how long it takes a combi to fill with people who want to go to Ingwavuma? I'll tell you -- three and a half hours!  Then, trying to get back from Richard's Bay, I got stuck at the Chicken Licken' (which closed at 6!) outside this petrol station in Empangeni where the transport guys were telling me to 'hike' (hitchhike) with all my bags along the side of the road, because the transport here finishes at six. Everything bloody well packs in at six. Thank God I knew Gama's friend Kanganipo who swung by to pick me up and book me into an overpriced B&B for the night. It did have about 300 cable stations though. Exciting!

The more time I spend here the more conscious I become of the huge disparities in wealth. For example, I know a guy here who is multi-lingual, has experience in a range of careers, possesses fantastic technological acumen and shows initiative and leadership in his job, yet his direct supervisor is getting paid eight times his salary. Professionals here live with no running water, and outhouses. They are spending a quarter of their salaries to live in one-room cement houses. It's absolutely ludicrous. The other thing making my blood boil these days is the whole lobola (bride price) issue. One of our team members isn't allowed to come to the schools anymore because she is pregnant out of wedlock and it's considered hypocritical to be preaching about safe sex, when in her condition she obviously didn't practise it. I find the whole thing to be a hypocritical crock. She's an adult in a committed relationship and just to give you an idea of how lobola works...it's about eleven or twelve cows for lobola here. At 5000 rand a cow, that's about 60 000 rand. Let's say a person here makes about 2000 rand a month. Take away rent (400), transport (350), and food (800), and the person is left with 450 rand of disposable income per month. That's not including trips out of Ing, airtime, clothing or entertainment. Even if the person saved every rand of that 450 rand, it would take them 11 years to raise that kind of capital. And that's assuming they even have a job. And you're telling people they should get married before having kids? These poor Ehluhlenian teenagers; they have no electricity and no books. No disco. No movie theatre. Is it any wonder there's so much HIV and teen pregnancy? It's funny how your connotations of things change. When I used to see people with wedding rings in Canada, the word that sprang to mind was 'traditional'. When I see people with wedding bands here, the word that springs to mind is 'rich'.

A sidenote about the aforesaid airtime: Airtime here is the greatest industry. Everyone here is pretty much using pay-as-you-go, and SMSing here is an adrenaline-sport. On 'Dancing with the Stars South Africa' they have to constantly remind people of the 20-text maximum, and all the soapies and life insurance commercials tell you to SMS them your favorite character or life insurance concerns. Airtime is sucked up so fast you have to get right to the point when you call people, and there is no time for pleasantries like 'hello' and 'goodbye'. They do have this night shift promotion whereby you can earn points to talk free from Vodacom to Vodacom from midnight to five a.m. so whenever Fana and I want to talk to each other, we have to stay up or set the alarm for midnight and sometimes the network is so busy you can't even get through. So talking on the phone here is pretty much a bust. But let me tell you, airtime is inelastic demand. People with no shoes all have vodacom vouchers and Nokias.
But getting off my rants and back to Ethluhlene, I think that place has been the most eye-opening so far. Most of the children don't speak English, so I tried to communicate by showing them the Zulu childrens' book I was reading, or skipping with them. They would crowd around me in huge throngs. I felt like a rock star, but I also felt responsible to say good morning to each and every one of them when doing my morning runs, as I didn't want anyone to feel slighted or left out. They come to school along kilometres of dusty mountain roads between the donkeys, carrying sticks to make firewood and old Coke bottles filled with water. Once when I was running, a young girl offered me a Heinekin bottle. I was really confused until I realized it was only housing water. The children here are completely poor, often without shoes, and they tie dusty bits of rags together to make skipping ropes.

I was doing the workshops with Cebi in a Grade Seven classroom and had the idea that, like in Canada, they'd be mainly 11 and 12 year olds, but because many of them start late, or 'abscond from classes' as the South Africans say, the students span from 11 to teenagers. There was even a twenty-one year old in the class! I was trying to explain how it's different in Canada, but I think they didn't understand the whole IEP thing, and just thought Canadian students are wildly successful, so in the magic circle at the end of the day, this twenty year old made a fervent promise to me that by the time I returned, he WOULD be in high school. God bless that boy (man?) for even showing up to class!

One cool thing we got started in Ehluhlene was a Spoken Word competition. Nonhlanhla and I had seen a Poetry Slam in Jo'burg, and were inspired, so I did a mini workshop on Spoken Word and made my own Spoken Word poem (about water) as an example. We decided to have a little competition with the team, so I rounded up some judges (the Fakuda brothers Mpo and Mlu, and MGomezulu), got some prizes and refreshments, and a hall for us to perform. I wasn't sure what to expect, as this was really new for the Drama Team, but they really blew me away. Cebi and Sifiso did their poetry in English, Cebi about lovers and liars, and Sifiso about grout! (he lays tiles as a second job.) Nonhlanhla, Mbali and Muzi did theirs in Zulu on Tradition, AIDS and love, respectively. They got costumes and props and the delivery was really passionate. I was so impressed. Mbali's seemed really fascinating and I asked her what it was about. She said, "Ai, Jenny, you didn't understand it?" I have tried to explain to Mbali that unless it involves cows, goats, danger, or running, I pretty much don't understand Zulu, but she continues to show me elaborate SMS messages she receives on her phone and asks for my interpretation.

Anyway, after Ehluhlene, we went on a road trip straight to Durban for the Drama for Life Conference, which was really inspiring: Verbatim Theatre, Playback Theatre, performance art and installations, and we ended up meeting this student Dumelo, who got us into a Poetry Slam event with her student card. These slammers were incredibly good, and the lecture hall was filled. The MC was tickled pink to have guests from "Ingwa...where are you guys from again?" and insisted we go up. I was trying to convince Mbali to go up, and Fana, who is able to make up these lucid and rythmic hiphop rhymes on-the-spot, I've discovered, but they refused unless I went up first to do a rap in Zulu. I'd made up this Zulu rap as a kind of in-joke amongst the team, so they dared me to go on the stage and do it. So I did, and even though it was short and silly, the Zulus are always so flattered to have you try to speak their language, so they were really supportive. Mbali and Fana both went up afterwards and I was so touched because I could tell how nervous and overwhelmed they were by all these funky, worldy city-slicker scholars, but they did it. This whole experience is making me realize how powerful poetry, and in particular Spoken Word, is and makes me think that something like this could fuel frustrated teens in remote places like Ehluhlene. It's entertaining, potentially 'lucrative' (if you award prize money) and it's a potent outlet for political and cultural expression. Not to mention the sense of community it fosters through oracy and word play.

Speaking of words and writing, back in eMan, I got it into my head that it might be a good idea to write an article (not that anyone's commissioned me or anything), so started interviewing the staff and students. When I was interviewing the Deputy Principal, a small child came in to pull on Mrs. Mantenjwa's sleeve and remind her that she was expected in a meeting just then. The Deputy responded by pulling the child aside, and whispering conspiratorially, "Tell them I am with a WHITE LADY, and that I am very busy!" I asked for a couple of 'well-spoken' students to interview and ended up interviewing two shy 'yes, ma'am' students (suspiciously both with the surname Matenjwa, though let's be honest, 50% of eMan. have this surname), so I pulled Nonhlanhla, the classroom teacher, aside and said, "Listen Nonhlanhla, those were good interviews (I was lying), but I'm wondering if you don't have some naughty students I could interview, just to get a different kind of outlook." [It cracks me up the way South Africans use the term 'naughty'. I picture a boy stealing cookies from the cookie jar, or someone dressed as a seductive nurse. Here they mean hardened juvenile delinquents stealing their deceased father's shotguns, and scoffing money from their sleeping gogo's.] Nonhlanhla sighed at my request and said, "Ai, Jenny, you are too late. They took five naughty learners to the jail yesterday. They must appear before the magistrate on Monday."
Nonetheless, Nonhlanhla did manage to procure me one naughty boy who had managed to escape arrest. Of course, being a naughty learner, he wasn't much of a studier, so his English left a little to be desired, as evidenced by his answer to my question: How do you think theatre gets learners talking and thinking about issues?
Response: If a girls gets raped to the bush, they must drain the sperm.
We eventually got on track, though I think he was worried I was trying to out him at first. He kept saying, "No, not I. I am not to do these bad things!"
I said, "No, no, of course not. Not you. Others! What are 'the others' doing?"
Then I hit paydirt and heard all about the absconding from classes to go swimming in the dam, smoking in the toilets, spinning for money, stealing from the gogo's...

In my spare time, I continued the s'more tradition and hanging out with my GQ chicken-slaying friend, Dieudonne. I was trying to crazy-glue my sunglasses one day, and I think after reading the warning label, Dieudonne was seriously considering crazy gluing his eyelids as an entertainment option. He is getting cabin-fever, I think, and wants to go live in Canada. Dieudonne always reminds me of a gay French designer, but he is none of the above. Ironic.

In other news (izindaba)...Mbali got a disturbing phone call at 4 a.m. one night while we were camped out in our erstwhile slumber party 'cottage' at Ehluhleni. One of her neighbors murdered his wife by stabbing her to death, seemingly over i.d....but I think something may have got lost in the translation there. In other local violence, one day at Zisize the boys were playing soccer on the grounds, when a dispute broke out and one youth came after the other with a machete. (Personal view: too many people have machetes here.) They eventually calmed him down and escorted him home, but when they held the town meeting outside the Tuck shop the next day with the Induna, they decided that as penance he would have to pay the victimized boy one goat and that would settle the score.

On the running front, I am developing the hamstrings of a mountain goat and even ended up running all the way to Mtabayengwe with Gama one evening, which it turns out is 24km! (my new high score). Two months ago, I was only running 5-8km.

Okay, I am wrapping this up, because along with inelastic demand airtime, the inelastic demand internet time is killing me. I think I've accidentally deleted this log about five times.
Sale kahle!
Jenn

The Land of Ing

It is now officially summer in the Land of Ing, and I know this because everywhere the insects have come out to play. Forget about the giant cockroach patrolling under the cupboards, out of sight out of mind. Now I have to contend with the ants, who have squirmed out of their hibernation. Fana and I were cooking supper one night and I couldn’t be bothered to do the dishes, so left them overnight. Big mistake. The next day after my run, I wandered over to the cupboard to get a cup and the entire cutting board and plates were a mass of writhing ants. We had eaten rice and, no word of a lie, there were at least twenty ants to one grain of rice. I was tired from running and not sleeping well the night before and couldn’t even fathom dealing with that, so I just turned on Oprah Winfrey, went into my bedroom, closed the door, and had a six hour nap. Culture Shock Therapy. What’s that Scarlett O’Hara quote from “Gone with the Wind”?: Ah can’t , Ah just can’t deal with it today! Ah know! Ah’ll deal with it tamorr-ah.”


Then there are the termites. All up and down the mountains are ratchet marks and hillocks of loose, upturned soil. It looks like a giant paralyzed monster has clawed his immobile body up the mountain, using talons. At first I thought this was the work of the ants, but no, we have termites too.

As if that’s not enough wildlife, there’s the spider situation. I saw this rather large, intricate-looking spider hanging out on the wall one day, and managed to capture him in a glass and take him to the Zulus for identification. He seemed to be fairly innocuous. The next night I was doing laundry and happened to glance over at the yellow Rondi where I saw a spider the size of my hand nonchalantly crawling up the wall. At which point my eyes got as big as my hands. Fana tells me it’s a “peaceful spider” but let me tell you, I ain’t be getting no peace thinking about that thing at night. Note to self: wear bug suit at all times. It is like living on Fear Factor.

On the running front, we have a new member, Thobani, who lives on the farm by the Tuck Shop, and told me one day, “This thing of the running interests me very much”. He joined us, but the problem was Thobani has no running shoes. So he ran in shorts and a tee-shirt, dress socks pulled up to his knees and newly polished dress shoes! And he still kicked my ass on the mountain! I am trying to find him some Size Eight runners these days.

I’m still learning about Zulu words and Zulu culture. The funny thing about Zulu words is that they have words that sound virtually the same but signify completely different things. For example: indula (chief); indulu (asshole). And you know I discovered that by calling the Chief of KZN an asshole (Nonhlanhla’s father-in-law, by the way). However, it’s spawned a new game: Indunu or Induna? whereby I point out a situation and the others have to correctly identify it as indunu or induna. For example, there was a town meeting the other day by the Tuck Shop and Sifoso correctly identified that as “Induna”; the drunken man calling “Please, I love you!” next to the Tuck Shop: indunu.

The culture also continues to mystify me. I was talking about all the treats they had for us a teatime in Johannesburg and Fana commented to Nonhlanhla, “Ah, that’s why you’re gaining weight Nonhlanhla. You’re really getting big. Massive!” Nonhlanhla isn’t one to keep quiet when she’s not happy about something, (she can shut you down with a cocked eyebrow and a chin tilt), so I was surprised she didn’t seem to react. I asked Fana, “How is Nonhlanhla not killing you right now?”

“Ah, no problem. She knows. It is our culture. But the white people don’t like it. I said this once to my white co-worker in the Cape and she was like, mad.”

“Yeah. Just to clarify, if you ever say that to me, I’ll kill you in your sleep.”

Fana is so random sometimes. We took a trip to Jozini one weekend, just for something to do (and to eat KFC…I’m so food-deprived here that a trip to the KFC is decadence-incarnate.) We decided to go for a walk and I chose this trail and that trail, whatever looked interesting to explore, until I stopped to fix my shoe outside this one house where Fana announced, “Oh, by the way, my relatives live here.”

I said,”Here? In this house right here?” Sure enough, they invited us in where we had pears and Coca-Cola in the sitting room with his uncles and aunts and cousins.

The water situation is a bit dire. As in, there is none. I always hold out a little bit of hope that when I open the taps a bit will trickle out, but it doesn’t usually happen. Thoko and I are relegated to filling the containers at the Jo-Jo Tank and hauling them up. I don’t understand the whole water situation and nobody has been able to explain it to my satisfaction. My conversations on water go something like this.

“Thanduxolo, do you know why Thoko and I don’t have water anymore in the Rondi?”

“Ish, I don’t know. Jenny, do you know in Swazi culture if the husband of the woman dies, her brother can step in?” (this relating to the fact that Mbali always calls me ‘sikoni’ (sister-in-law), because she wants me to marry Spamantla, her brother)

“Yeah, I heard something about that. Do you know who I can speak to about the water situation?”

“Yes, and if the husband is barren, the brother can secretly step in to save the family name. But they have to pretend they don’t know. So they send the husband away so he cannot know what is happening, but somehow he knows, but they must convince him.”

“So, he knows the child is not his, but he pretends not to know?”

“Yes, but he really knows somehow, but they must convince him, so he doesn’t know. Do you think this could work in Canada?”

“No, I don’t think so. Do you think the water will come back through the taps? Who controls that? Where does the water come from, Jozini?”

“Yes, it is pumped from the tankhouse, but now it is finished. You must talk to Beki. I think the Swazi heart is very big, we have a lot of love to share, but maybe the Canadian heart is not so big.”

“Maybe a different shape.”

So, I go to talk to Beki, whose attention is consumed by this giant swath of intestine he’s heating up in the microwave.

Me: Sawubona Beki. I’m wondering about the water, how we can get it back.

Beki: (poking at his sausage with a fork) Ai, the water is finished.

Me: Right. But how do we get it back?

Beki: It is finished. You must carry it up in a bucket.

Me: Right, but how do we get it to pump from the water source back to the tankhouse into the pipes? Like before.

Beki: (biting into his sausage, and heading out the door, up the mountain.) I don’t know. Maybe someone out there is not doing his homework.

Me (calling after him up the mountain): Who? Who is not doing his homework? Ubani?

So that is where we are at with that. The most plausible explanation I have heard so far, given that Bhambanana never runs out of water and is only 22 km away, is that the Bhambananians vote IFP (whereas Ing. Votes ANC).

So if you are reading this, take a moment to really appreciate that running water coming out of your taps: cold water, hot water, running water…and don’t waste your time in the shower worrying about your day, just think about the delicious sensation of running water and savour it.

Fana and I were talking the other day about airplanes, how unfathomable it is that they can get this huge metal contraption up in the sky, jetting around with movies and snacks, yet they can’t get running water to Ingwavuma. One day his phone kept beeping and I said, “Aren’t you going to answer that?”

He said, “No, it’s just my Facebook alerts, like people responding to my posts and stuff. It’s forwarded to my phone.”

I said, “Seriously?”

He shrugged. “I like to know what my friends are up to.”

You see, we can do that. But we can’t get the running water to Ingwavuma.

And that’s just a little bit about life here in the Land of Ing.

J'aime Beaucoup Johannesburg

Recently, Nonhlanhla and I had the cool experience of travelling to Johannesburg to participate in the Drama For Life Conference in good ol’ Joburg. We arrived there by taxi, by which you might be picturing deluxe and comfortable, but you would be wrong. Instead you should picture a combi, jam-packed with people, blankets, tarps, squawking chickens, Cozy Cozy Mr. Price blankets and babies, for ten hours of rickety-rackety gravel roads. With what I can only define as ‘Afro Gospel House’ pumping over the speakers. There was a woman sitting next to me with her one-and-a-half year old baby bouncing on her lap who went seamlessly from breastfeeding to gnawing on a KFC drumstick. Not that seamlessly though, since the baby threw up all over the cab.


The Conference was nothing short of spectacular. They had thirteen hours a day of programming, including Keynote speakers, Round-table discussions, panel talks, workshops, one-man shows, Spoken Word, and music motifs. We had tea about four times a day, with a smorgasbord of brownies, samosas, sandwiches, sausage bites and croissants. Three meals a day to boot and the whole thing only cost about fifty dollars.

Networking was incredibly fantastic as the people attending this conference were art therapists, clinical psychologists, artistic revolutionaries, drama practitioners, doctors without borders, and Gestalt therapists. There were people from Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Nigeria, the UK, Trinidad and Tobago , Mozambique, one doctor from Canada!, the USA, and Nigeria. I met this really cool guy from Senegal who is a fisherman-cum-political- revolutionary who spent some time in jail due to his beliefs, who now uses Paolo Friere type drama with the locals to education on HIV awareness. He only spoke French, and though my French is butchered and bastardized, somehow between talking to Diol and Dieudonne all the time, it’s coming back in fits and starts. Ironically, they asked me to translate this puppet workshop into French for him, and that was interesting as we got into this three-way contentious discussion with a woman from Holland about the global release of this childrens’ book on HIV/AIDS. Diol was not digging the book (alluding to HIV as a dragon in the bloodstream) and he was letting the Dutch woman know it. It was quite interesting trying to translate that.

Nonhlanhla and I presented on “Socio-drama and HIV/AIDS – Transformational Dialogue Through Group Body Images” (title courtesy of Jenny and Steve); I have to say that after working with sometimes recalcitrant ten-year-olds, doing this workshop for academics was a whole different ball game. The incredible images these people formed with their bodies and the kaleidoscopic discussions that came out of it, took things to a whole new level. It was fascinating peeling back the layers of their human sculptures, and launching off different tangents of discussion. Also, the chair for our session, Tonderai Chinyindiko, may be the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life. We hung out on the patio with Tonde, and our photographer, Evaristo afterwards; they are very cool artists themselves.

At night, there was always something going on. One incredible performance art piece took place on Constitution Hill at the old Fort Prison. As we toured the cells where such people as Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu were incarcerated, various actors performed tortured soliloquies of rape, torture and solitary confinement. The Blacks, Afrikaaners, and ‘Coloureds’ were all represented, as were prison guards and prisoners. It was haunting and wrenching. Two years ago I only read the placards and visited the cells with their shifting ghosts, but to have the stories reenacted was compelling.

I have to mention that we had the privilege of listening to Albie Sachs on one of the panels. He’s a human rights activist and lawyer who defended people charged under racist statutes and repressive security laws. He was placed in solitary confinement without trial for two detention spells, for violating a banning order. He was in exile for awhile, teaching and studying in England and then Mozambique, and in 1988 South African security agents planted a parcel bomb in his car in Maputo. He lost his arm, and the sight in one eye, but never stops to pity himself, and soldiers on in his convictions. He was instrumental is preparing the new democratic Constitution for South Africa and establishing South Africa’s constitutional democracy. He served on the Constitutional Court as a judge, and as he is now retiring, is embarking on a career in documentary film. He said he has to say that out loud to as many people as possible so he’ll be forced to do it. He’s committed to a December deadline for his first film. Imagine how inspirational it was to listen to this man speak.

Another night, there was a Spoken Word competition by the students at Wits Uni. I couldn’t believe the prowess with which these students performed this Poetry Slam, given it’s their second or third language. They can manipulate and break the words, use alliteration, onomatopoeia, interior rhymes, puns, allusions to literature, all with finesse and ease. And their sense of style is so funky and cool, layered plaids and stripes and tipped tweed hats. There was one rep from KZN who did a bilingual rap in Zulu and English. I wish I could have understood it, but the clicking sounded like elves tapdancing on cobblestones. There was also a drag queen, Miss Diversity, who did a piece. Nonhlanhla was cracking me up, she was maybe a bit overwhelmed by the Jo’burg Jive and I think Miss Diversity threw her for a loop. She left right afterwards and missed the Zulu rapper. She also was tittering uncontrollably at the one-man-show “I’m Here” during which the man disrobes to complete nudity. That said, when we’re back doing Forum Theatre in Ingwavuma, she has no problem disrobing to change into exercise gear in front of her male co-workers, so I always tease her by asking her what the difference is and whispering “I’m Here” in her ear.

When we returned to the Backpackers each night after the Conference, Nonhlanhla would go straight to bed, no passing go, no 200 Rand. I would sometimes chat with the other Backpackers and lounge around. Actually, one day Sofia (a German girl) and Gordon (an Aussie) had visited the iAfrica Tower, (broad daylight) and were mugged by a team ‘of four to six’ (their words:P) youths. Gordon managed to wrestle them off cause he’s a tough guy, but Sofia got choked by one of them and he made off with her camera, money, and more importantly her journal. Luckily she had taken out the full memory card from her camera the day before and had her passport back at the ranch. It’s unfortunate that happened to them though as that was her last day in South Africa and it left a bad taste in her mouth. Gordon was supposed to have spent another 2 weeks in South Africa but he changed his ticket and flew out the next day. Xenophobia being what it is, the South Africans say, “Yes, but those were not South Africans who attacked you. They must have been the Zimbabweans!” This tale illustrates why I follow the advice of my South African friend Matt: Travel with the locals, wear a black hoodie, hood up, chin down, hands in pockets,no cell phone, no camera,no bling. And this is why you will see no pictures of Johannesburg from me, only shots of the rurals! If you want to know what Joburg looks like you will have to look it up online.

That said, I do have a couple of local friends in Jo’burg that I was anxious to see. Unfortunately, I couldn’t catch up with Karina, my crazy Jozi journalist friend as she was under deadline from her big bad editor boss. I guess there’s a lot to report on what with the Black Magic Serial Killers, the usual crime, the Strike (which has finally lifted by the way, if only for a 21-day contemplative hiatus), and the ‘what, what’, what’. But I did manage to connect with my friend Eben. Funny story: I met Eben two years ago in Joburg when I first arrived, fresh off the plane. He was holding a sign up for ‘Jane’ and I was looking for my pick-up so we agreed that if his pick-up and my pick-up ditched, I could be his Jane. We got to talking and he is a performance artist/actor/puppeteer/arts practicioner. He gave me his business card, which I found while cleaning out my apartment in July. On a whim, I sent him an SMS not sure he would remember me, but it all worked out and he took me out for a night on the town, showing me all the glitz and glory of Jo’burg, replete with political and geographical history, over cocktails at ‘The Cat’s Pajamas’.

Returning from Jozi, we got a taxi at the Bree Taxi Rank, but the demand to go to Ingwavuma – not so high. The combi goes, when the combi is full. While you’re waiting, you get every kind of vendor rapping the windows selling everything from sweets, and juice, to giant elastic bands (?), airtime, and battery-operated multi-chargers. When I got home, I was dying to get a huge glass of milk and watch ‘How I Met Your Mother’, but wouldn’t you know it, some mentors from eManyeseni used the rondawel in my absence and took off with the keys. You might think there would be a set of extra keys, but you’d be wrong. It took Simon (uBaba Meni) and MKalipi an hour and a half to break me in using machetes, butter knives and some weird wires they twisted off the fence by the road to Spar. So you know the rondawel is (somewhat) secure. Then I realized the fridge was switched off so everything in the fridge was rotten. I had no electricity and no running water. (No milk for you). And that’s how I knew my city life was over!