While Cassandra did her photographer bit, I found a comfortable and relatively windless spot alongside a knee-high stone wall that faced north. As I sat there, somewhat awed by the fact that I was gazing back at the rest of the mighty African continent, I knew that somewhere out there was Matthew Moxley, a displaced Saskatchewan boy, just like me. And, damn it, I was going to find him.
Riding through the streets of Khayelitsha, about twenty-five kilometres out of the city centre, was like no other trip I have ever taken or will likely ever take again. Some of the roads were paved, some were not; some of the houses were neat, some were not; most of it looked like the worst kind of slum one can imagine. Nearly all the structures were made of thin, battered, corrugated tin, in every shade of dirt, with flat roofs slanting towards the rear; many were without windows, every spare inch of yard overflowing with what others would think of as junk but probably wasn’t. There were communal toilets, people cooking animal heads on homemade barbecue pits, children and cats and dogs running about wild, women wearing colour-coded head scarves to indicate wedded state (single, married, widowed, available), and men who stared after our vehicle with undisguised longing.
Joseph smiled and waved at everyone, and, much to my surprise, everyone enthusiastically returned the greeting. I asked him if he knew these people. He said “not really,” so we too began to smile and wave and got the same in return. Eventually we turned onto a street with somewhat better houses, some even made of wood rather than tin or scrap metal, painted yellow and red and pastel green, with windows and curtains. On each door, or somewhere in the vicinity, were numbers, scrawled there by hand in black paint—addresses.
The combi came to a halt, and Joseph laid his arm across the seat and turned to face us. He said, “Do not give the children anything.”
I gave Cassandra a questioning look.
“It will encourage them to beg,” she explained.
We got out of the vehicle and began to walk very slowly down the centre of the street with Joseph in the lead, Cassandra and me a few steps behind. I felt a certain amount of discomfort, but all our smiling and waving had relieved some of the tension I’d been feeling earlier, and I tried more of it as a group of teen boys passed by us.
“Molo,” Cassandra said to them, along with some other stuff I didn’t catch, but I took it to mean hello or good day.
The boys all said “Molo” back, their dark eyes on us like glue, filled with millions of unasked questions, curious to know what kind of people we were and what we were doing in their town. And on we went, eventually collecting a gaggle of children, all under ten, as a not-too-discreet tail.
After about five minutes, Joseph stopped at a scarred, once-white door that was the front entrance of a house no bigger than most public restrooms. There was a haphazard “79C” painted to the left of it at about eye level. I recognized it as the address I’d been given by Reverend Hershell.
Joseph knocked and, without waiting, turned the knob, opened the door, and stepped inside. I heard his voice booming in the direction of inhabitants I could not see: “We were wondering if we might come in and share in your good hospitality for a while.”
He must have gotten a positive reply to what I considered a rather unorthodox request, since he motioned for Cassandra and me to join him indoors.
We stepped into a single room, a combination living room and kitchen. On the right, about midway, was a doorway with a blanket pinned over the opening that likely led to a separate bedroom and bathroom. Just inside the front door were three mismatched couches arranged around a modest television set. A young black man wearing dusty jeans and a sleeveless Coors Light T-shirt was slouched on one of the couches, watching a rugby game on the set. He barely looked up as we entered. I didn’t get the sense he was being rude, just not particularly interested or surprised by our arrival, as if strangers like us walked in and out of his house every day. In the cooking area, a young woman, probably the man’s wife, was lowering a full chicken into a pot of boiling water. Her face was more animated than her husband’s, with a toothy white smile and inquisitive eyes. She was slender and the colour of milk chocolate, her hair hidden beneath an oft-laundered, blue scarf.
Joseph sat on the couch next to the man and indicated that we should also take a seat wherever we wanted. His eyes never strayed from the TV screen while he talked to our host. He said, “We thought we would come and watch your television for a while.”
The man’s nod was barely perceptible.
Cassandra and I took spots on opposite ends of a harvest-gold sofa, perpendicular to where the two men sat.
Joseph confirmed what he thought their names were, Piksteel and Thandile Chikosi, and that was it. We were in.
What followed was several minutes of TV watching and chicken boiling as if we were the township version of Monica, Chandler, Rachel, Ross, Phoebe, and Joey hanging out on a lazy Saturday afternoon, until: “We were wondering if you know a man,” Joseph said, the louder tone of his voice hinting that he was talking more to the woman in the kitchen than to her quiet hubby.
“What kind of man is this?” Thandile asked as she set to work scouring pots in the sink.
“A man from Canada, a white man,” Joseph told her. “He is a friend of my friend here. My name is Joseph, and these are my friends, Russell and Cassandra. This man is Russell’s friend.”
I took that as my cue to jump in. “His name is Matthew Moxley.”
“He gave this house, your house, as the place where he could be found,” Joseph added.
The man was paying us no attention, but I could see that the woman was nodding and considering our words carefully.
“Do you know this man?” Joseph asked as if he was doing nothing more important than asking the time of day.
“I do,” she answered to my great relief and budding excitement.
I swapped a look with Cassandra and forced myself to stay seated rather than do what comes naturally at a time like this: interrogation. “Does he live here?” I asked as slowly as I could, given my level of anticipation. “Is he here?”
She laughed a bit at me then, as one might to a child who’d mistaken a hen for a rooster. “He lives here.”
Hoorah!
“He lives there,” she kept on, waving her sudsy, wet hand at somewhere over her rounded shoulder.
Huh?
“He sometimes lives over there,” she added for good measure, pointing to some indistinct spot past the front door we’d come in through.
Not molo.
Cassandra laid a hand on my forearm and explained. “I think she means he lives in the community, not always in this exact house.” She looked at the woman to seek agreement with her statement.
“But often here,” the woman said, as if in boast.
“I see.” I didn’t really. “Do you know where he’s staying tonight?”
“Oh, he’s not here now,” she said. “He’s gone off. To make money. He needs money to teach. He’s a very good man, your friend.”
“Is he working in the city, then?” Joseph questioned, knowing I was not getting the information I needed.
“No, no. No work for him there. He’s gone to Tuli Block, like he often does, to work in English. Then he’ll teach somewhere. Maybe here, maybe not.”
Joseph let out a sound as if what the woman had said made perfect sense and was all he needed to hear. He turned to me for the first time since we’d entered the house and said, “He will have gone to work in the tourist industry. He speaks English and is white and knows a great deal about Africa; he would do well as a tour guide or something like that. Teachers do not make much money. He’ll work in the tourist industry to supplement his income.” He then looked over his shoulder at the woman. “Do you know where he works in Tuli Block?”
“Mashatu,” she said.
I was hoping she hadn’t just said “no” in Zulu.
The mugging was quick and without preamble.
It was getting dark in Khayelitsha when we le
ft 79C that evening. We were halfway to the combi when Cassandra let out a surprised yip, and the next thing I saw was a dark blur disappearing down an alley to our left. Almost simultaneously, the ambient noise of the street erupted into loud shouting and calling, dogs whined and barked, and children cried. I made a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree swing, trying to figure out what was happening, but confusion reigned supreme. The din grew louder, and, as if on cue, the sky turned a murkier grey. I heard scurrying footsteps and doors slamming and shrieks of women calling their children to home and safety. What was going on?
Throwing my arms around her, I leaned in close to Cassandra to check if she was all right.
“My case!” she moaned. “He took my case! My lenses are in there!”
“Jo—” I began but was cut short by what I saw next.
I looked up to see Joseph, our guide, running away.
Oh-oh.
What was going on here? Was he about to abandon us in the middle of this township with no way to get home? Was it he who ripped off the lens case? Why? Was it that valuable? Was there a camera in the case? Had Cassandra taken a photo she shouldn’t have?
“Joseph! Joseph!” I called out, but it was useless. He was gone, having disappeared behind a building, followed by a trio of men.
Cassandra remained admirably calm, the only sign of tension showing on her brow, which had furrowed itself into three long rows of worry.
“It’s okay,” I said, keeping a protective arm over her shoulder.
I glanced about, thinking: this is not at all okay. “Was it him? Was it Joseph who took your case?”
“No,” she answered as if I’d just uttered the stupidest thing. “Of course not. Joseph is like a father to me.”
“So where did Daddy go?” I wanted to say but didn’t.
“He must have gone after the thief,” she decided. “I’m sure he’ll be back.”
I wasn’t so sure. “Let’s get back to the van and wait for Joseph there,” I suggested. “We’ll be perfectly safe.”
She laughed. “Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m not some wilting Southern belle; I can see what’s going on.”
Good, then explain it to me!
“Thanks, though,” she added quickly with a quirky smile on her face. “But it’s a lousy idea. The combi is locked, and Joseph has the key.”
I slowly rotated on the spot, doing another three-sixty, searching for an answer, any answer, to our predicament. Night was falling around us. We’d just been robbed. We were alone in unfamiliar, possibly unfriendly territory. We weren’t safe. We had to get out of there.
In the dim light of dusk, behind a slat-and-barbed-wire fence, I saw a collection of children staring at us. Half a block away, a group of boisterous young men were heading into what I assumed (because of the loud music and peeling beer posters on the walls) was a shebeen, an illicit tavern. I’d learned that many places such as this existed as part of a township’s “informal economy,” along with barbershops, food stalls, and street vendors selling clothing and small household goods, businesses taken up by local residents who could find no other means to support themselves.
The air was hot and heavy with the choking smell of paraffin—used by locals to cook with—and deep-fried something or other. I was about to suggest we go back to 79C and ask for help, or at least watch some rugby, when Joseph came bounding back from around the corner of a shack.
He stopped next to us, expressionless and a little out of breath, and said, “We go now.”
Good idea!
Cassandra wasn’t so easily convinced. She put her hands on her hips and asked in a demanding voice, “What about my lens case? I’ve just been robbed.”
“Don’t worry about that now. We go now.”
I agreed.
“That is simply unacceptable; I’ve been robbed,” she reiterated.
Whiner!
I was all for Joseph’s plan. It was getting darker by the minute. We were in unknown territory (at least to me). There were criminals roving the area. This wasn’t a good place for tourists to be hanging around arguing about lost possessions. But Cassandra was steadfastly intent on her missing lenses and on letting it be known how pissed off she was. I was just about willing to offer to replace her stuff myself, but Cassandra’s equipment looked rather pricey, so I kept my mouth shut. Instead, with a firm hand at her elbow, I turned her in the direction of our waiting vehicle. She began squawking about how little she appreciated being manhandled as I escorted her forward. Joseph followed, a stoic look on his face.
We watched in silence as the shadowed streets of Khayelitsha passed by. After a short ride, Joseph announced that we had entered Langa, the oldest formal township in Cape Town, its name meaning “sun” but derived from the surname Langalibalele, belonging to a Hlubi chief imprisoned after inciting rebellion against the nineteenth-century British government. The combi turned down an impossibly narrow street, named Harlem Avenue, lined with neat little homes squeezed together like books on a library shelf, and eventually rolled to a stop in front of a white two-storey with multiple windows, a tiled front courtyard dotted with potted plants, and a yellow sign on which was scripted, in vertical, the word Lelapha.
“Dinner time,” Joseph announced as he exited the van.
I turned to look at Cassandra, but she’d already scampered out after him. I followed suit.
Cassandra squeezed my shoulder as I stepped up next to her in front of the eating establishment. “You’re going to love this!” she enthused, our recent caper seemingly forgotten.
We marched one by one across the courtyard and entered the building through a narrow doorway. To our immediate left, in a space that looked like it had once been an intimate sitting room with a bay window, was a collection of tables set with flower-patterned linens and occupied by customers who completely ignored us from their dark setting. Further on and to our right, I could just make out in the muted lighting, a buffet table with numerous steaming pots and pans (no chafing dishes here) filled to overflowing with the night’s offerings. The air was heavy with sweet and spicy smells I could not identify, and suddenly my mouth began to water and my stomach growled. But the dining room we’d just passed was full, so I guessed we’d have to go elsewhere. Instead Joseph led us through a warren of dim hallways deeper into the building, as if pulled by a cacophony of noise and music, drumming and chatter, to an even dimmer back room filled to beyond capacity with people sitting at long wooden tables on long wooden benches—not an empty spot in sight.
I was prepared to turn around, but Joseph dove head first into the fracas. He shoved and cajoled and shimmied about until he found us three (well, more like two-and-a-half) spots at a table in a corner. Nearby, a foursome of hefty women in washed-out yet still-colourful garb were dancing with one another to the thrumming of a small band that had somehow crushed themselves and their bulky instruments into the opposite corner. It seemed impossible that all this could fit into one undersized room the size of a pantry and still leave room for air, never mind the restaurant servers, but everything seemed to be working out just fine, and everyone (with the exception of me) seemed oblivious to the cramped conditions. It was business as usual.
For the next while, the action and noise of the place was so overwhelming that all we could do was sit back, enjoy the ambiance, and stuff our faces. The buffet was a veritable free-for-all of African delights: bobotie (ground lamb topped with egg custard with yellow rice), mealie bread, samp (a boiled corn dish with sugar beans), chakalaka (a sweet and spicy blend of cabbage and beans), snoek fish, and plenty of amagwinya (tiny balls of chewy fried bread).
Much later, when we could eat no more, Joseph suddenly disappeared. I gave Cassandra a questioning look. She returned it. We scoured the room, noting that ours were the only white faces in the crowd. No one seemed to care, so neither did we. There was no sign of our guide. Then, just as quickly as he’d gone, Joseph returned to his seat, setting Cassandra’s lens case, all the lenses in place, in
front of her with little fanfare.
We stared at our driver with samp drooling from our open mouths.
“H-how…?” was all Cassandra could utter.
“My friend brought it back for me,” Joseph said simply, mopping up the remaining stew on his plate with some of the mealie bread.
“I don’t understand.”
“Ubuntu,” he said as if that one word would satisfactorily explain everything.
Cassandra nodded with a knowing smile on her face. “Of course.”
Of course? Of course? “Ubuntu,” I repeated the word to get a feel for it on my tongue. It wasn’t easy to say at first. “What does it mean?”
“It’s an ancient African word,” Cassandra informed me. “It means ‘humanity to others’; it also means ‘I am what I am because of who we all are.’ Ubuntu brought back my case.”
Uhhhhmmmmm…. “Okay. But how? Why?” I wasn’t getting it.
“For the same reason these people in the townships live so harmoniously together, for the same reason the children were not scared of us today, for the same reason everyone waved at you as we passed by,” Joseph told me. “They know that without the community, without the care and watchfulness and help of their neighbours, they are nothing. If a man takes a thing that is not his, such as the young, foolish boy did today, he cannot get away with it. The community cannot let him get away with it. To let him keep it is to say it is okay for this boy to steal from others, and if you steal from others, you can also steal from me and my brother and my cousin, because we are all the same.” He looked at me hard. “Even the two of you.”
“But we’re not part of this community,” I countered.
“But you are. You were there today. Do you realize that most visitors to our country never visit a township? They are afraid. They don’t understand. You will be surprised to learn that many city people, people who live right next to us as neighbours, many Afrikaners, have never come to our townships to see what it is to live here.” He downed some beer, then continued. “The people in the community know that if they see you with me, they know you are paying me to bring you, and they know the money you pay me is returned to the township and the community.
Sundowner Ubuntu Page 13
