by Reggie Yates
Scooping patients from every corner of Khayelitsha, each shift saw the two men inundated with young victims of knife crime. Practically on the frontline, ambulance crews were not just the first to respond to an incident, they’d put themselves at risk of attack every shift.
Eventually arriving at the address, a man with a T-shirt wrapped around his head emerged from the doorway. It wasn’t until he stood in the red and blue lights of the ambulance that I could see just how much blood was pouring from his face.
I spotted deep stab wounds on his arms, chest and head but couldn’t work out why he wasn’t doubled over in pain. As he called for his screaming mother I could smell the alcohol on his breath. Between the adrenaline and booze, the pain hadn’t hit. Yet.
Appearing from the open doorway to the small house, a boy no more than four stood silently among the chaos. The kid was totally blank faced, not knowing where to go or what to do. I ushered the child inside and regretted doing so as soon as we walked in.
The house was a compact three-room building with concrete walls. Upon entry, the harsh light from a single bulb revealed just how brutal what had happened actually was. The doorway to one of the two bedrooms was covered in blood. There was a small pool of blood in which a bent screwdriver wrapped in bloody fingerprints sat waiting to be collected by the police. Given what I’d been told, chances were they wouldn’t be arriving any time soon.
I tried desperately to pick out the story from the noise, but the random faces barking different versions of what went on were just too confusing. What was clear was alcohol had been consumed and a fight ensued. The bleeding guy in the ambulance had been attacked with the screwdriver but to what degree I had no idea. It was impossible to tell exactly how bad his injuries were as his head was so tightly wrapped in the T-shirt that was now sopping wet with blood.
The small boy cowered at my legs holding my hand while shaking uncontrollably. He’d seen everything and was clearly struggling to process it all. I headed back to the ambulance to check on the man in the van as Ata attended to the bleeding. The shaking boy reappeared at my side taking my hand not wanting to be left alone. With no idea who the child was or the severity of what he’d seen, I was in over my head in a situation that continued to provide no answers.
Handing the child over to a neighbour, I said my goodbyes and returned to Ricardo and Ata in the ambulance standing over the now bandaged man. Counting out six stab wounds, who knows what would have happened to the guy had Ricardo’s map reading been as awful as mine. Working furiously on his wounds, Ricardo explained he’d been stabbed in the nose and just above his eye hence the relentless flow of blood.
Ata pulled away, dodging potholes, and the rush was on to get him to the trauma unit as quickly as possible. Led by Nicole, the trauma team pounced on the man working furiously as Ata and Ricardo quietly returned to their ambulance to wait for the next call. Suddenly much calmer and quiet, the back of the van felt like an entirely different place.
Nicole got to work removing the bandages and a huge flap of skin fell covering the man’s eye. I had to turn away as the stitching began, I flicked my eyes back to the treatment periodically as I couldn’t really take it.
For my sound man Joe, not so much. Holding the mic on a long pole, Joe was covering the sound of the stitching but couldn’t keep his eyes on the procedure continuously dropping his boom into shot. Shouted at repeatedly, Joe’s hilarious squirms ruined a solid 70 per cent of everything shot. To be fair, I was fine, as I could turn away. If I had no choice but to watch an eyelid being stitched closed, I’d probably have been just as much of a mess.
Ata had explained to me that in the past, he himself was no stranger to drunken brawls. Pointing out his own set of scars across his face and body, Ata spoke of a past filled with drunken fights and constant close calls with serious danger. His first-hand understanding of the young men he continuously picked up didn’t make his past a hindrance, it in fact made him better placed to do his job.
The loud barks of ‘Relax Booti’ dragged me back to the trauma room as Nicole tended to bed after bed of drunk and bloody young men. Slumped on his chest, a man coved in deep slices to his back was being stitched up by Nicole. Every time the half-asleep patient roused himself to moan, she loudly told him off.
Growing up nearby, the ten months at the hospital had begun to wear on her. Her bedside manner had become short, sharp and full of tough love. Getting the job done and fast, Nicole hated the constant stream of violence she would see daily, especially as it was so close to home. ‘This is the most trauma I’ve seen, this is frontline stuff.’
Softening, Nicole explained how she used to have nightmares but now blocks what she witnesses out. The more staff I met, the more I heard versions of the same story. The tireless team spending their working hours patching up victims of violence had all found their own ways to deal with what they’d see. Nurses saw their own sons in the men they’d treat, while I was still overwhelmed with it all not quite knowing how I’d process the images now burnt into my retina.
It was Sunday, the last night of the shift for François. Running through the fully stacked trauma room, the patients filling the beds were all there for reasons that had become sadly usual. Pointing as he went, François listed two stab victims, a man with heart issues, an overdose and gunshot victim without even flinching.
A twenty-three-year-old stab victim had sixteen bloody wounds to the back after a mugging. He kicked and moaned during treatment but was happier to have survived and be alive than in pain. The man squeezed my hand as his chest was drained and the doctor repeated the procedure I had previously helped François with. The speedy procedure had saved the man from a collapsed lung. Once the bellows were over, the tears and gripping of my hand were followed with an unexpected and very macho ‘I love you, no homo.’
Between the nature of my surroundings and the occasional minutes where even the staff looked like they’d seen enough, there weren’t many moments of laughter that night. But in that silly break in all the seriousness, we all laughed and it was needed.
The night shift ended and Amy and François gave me a lift back to my hotel. Heading home as the sun came up, the quiet roads became busier the closer into town we got. Looking into the passing cars headed into work as we were leaving reminded me of the unreal nature of the junior doctors’ work day in comparison to that of the average commuter.
Believing neither him nor any of his work colleagues would survive a day in the township, François saw the majority of the community they served as no different, bar their resilience to endure. Believing the community shared the same values and intolerance for crime, he put their situation down to a lack of support from the police and government.
We’re there to kill everyone, rob everyone
Despite being so close to Khayelitsha, the city of Cape Town could have been a new country entirely. This was home to the doctors and a world-class tourist destination, but left me feeling uneasy. With the night’s activity still fresh in my mind, a walk around the affluent city made the infrequent black faces I passed stand out as anomalies.
Young black men just like me were earning six times less than their white counterparts. I was walking through what felt like a place overflowing with opportunity, yet the township on its doorstep had generations of people living in a world that had been left behind.
With my time in Khayelitsha nearly over, I knew I needed to confront the issue that continued to come up, but came with so much fear attached. Gangs ran the streets of the townships and, according to the doctors at the hospital, were responsible for a large part of the injuries they’d spend the nights patching up.
At the township’s busiest junction, a roadside cluster of stalls selling barbecued meats pumped smoke into the sky. The sun was setting quickly and that inner carnivore demanded I purchased a serving of beef for the team and myself. I talked to the twenty-one-year-old girl manning the grill. The sun was setting and she was scared of gangsters mugging her for
the day’s take, so she made my order the last of the day. The vibrant and busy pocket of people would go dramatically silent the moment the sun had gone down.
Threatening the women selling food with knives and guns, the gangs would rob and steal while getting a free dinner but this would only ever happen in the dark. As dangerous as it felt, hearing from the men accused themselves felt like the only real way to truly understand their motivations and reasoning for such behaviour in the place they call home.
Five main gangs were responsible for the majority of crime seen in the township and the key reason for the continued bloodshed was a battle for control of the corners. Split by a long bridge, the township was divided into east and west territories. Conveniently carved up and easily claimed, the gangs fought for their own areas but aimed to be the biggest and most powerful. Local papers reported the usual entrance age for new members could be as young as fourteen.
The team made contact with the Vatos Locos, one of the most known and feared gangs in the area. I was due to meet them and told to wait at a staircase by the bridge.
I was on camera while my director collected shots of me waiting and the obvious trepidation I couldn’t hide. I had no idea what to expect. Would they be carrying weapons? How many would show? I didn’t even have the time to send myself into a panic as the Vatos arrived as if from nowhere, surprisingly punctual and eager to chat. A pack of men bounded toward me confidently introducing themselves, all carrying huge machetes as if it was the most natural thing in the world. I held eye contact and tried to focus on the people, not the rusty blades.
Wearing an electric green baseball cap and walking with a noticeable limp, Mark was one of the first to shake my hand. He was softly spoken but looked me dead in the eye in a way that demanded respect. My plan to keep it all about the eye contact was totally scuppered as a huge greeting from one guy caused his massive blade to catch my knuckle breaking the skin.
In a moment I was right back to noticing all of the weapons and the reality that I was surrounded by gang members who I probably should stay on the right side of. A new internal briefing was repeated and loudly inside my own head. ‘STAY ON THEIR GOOD SIDE REG, DO NOT COCK THIS ONE UP.’
As we spoke, it quickly emerged that Mark was their leader. He held no weapons but had a quiet confidence and was the most intense. As I felt the mood slowly relax, I began to look around and take in the detail. The men I’d just met had suddenly changed in appearance the more I looked at them. They were kids, all baby faced, but their faces were covered in tattoos and scars. All still teenagers, their leader Mark was only eighteen years old.
The gang members pointed towards the area on the other side of the bridge. The boys identified the small cluster of houses as home to their rival gang the Vuras. Calling the area ‘Ghostland’, Mark explained that when they ventured into their enemy’s territory, ‘We are like devil in hell.’ They had no remorse for anything they did while on the other side of the bridge. Mark was crystal clear, ‘We’re there to kill everyone, rob everyone.’
What sounded like the most cold-blooded attitude seemed to come from a place of twisted and bloody honour. The boys operated on a reactionary basis and justified their behaviour as retaliation for actions committed on their side of town by their enemies. ‘If you kill my brother and I see you walking on the road, I’ll never leave you. You must die.’ Retaliation was a huge driver for kids hoping to avenge the death of a loved one. As we spoke, the group of young men began to sound less like a gang and more like kids fighting for honour in the most violent and at times brutal of ways.
The conversation was abruptly interrupted as several members of the gang sprung up, spotting their rivals approaching on the bridge. Weapons were suddenly pulled and everything changed in an instant. Anything I had to say was suddenly a whole lot less interesting as the group of teenagers ran at their enemies. The shouting gangs kept some distance between them, and cars stopped as rocks were thrown and machetes were waved.
The rival Vuras gang suddenly began to swell in size causing the Vatos to retreat. It felt as if things could spill over into something far more serious at any moment but, as it was, the fight happening in front of me was a tad embarrassing. What was unfolding was two groups of shouting teenagers throwing rocks. Yes, they were all armed with knives but for whatever reason, no one was getting close enough to cause any real damage.
Pulling the handbrake for a second, this isn’t me making light of an awful situation. These young men were defending their homes and what they saw as the honour of their friends who’d lost their lives. For them, this was a war. Yes, in that moment it was thirty people throwing rocks on a bridge, but later that night it could be one on one with knives in a dark alleyway.
Stood at a distance, I was able to remain calm while watching the rocks fly. Then out of nowhere, everything jumped up a gear. One of the Vuras pulled what looked like a gun from a blue plastic bag and the Vatos began to run. My nonplussed demeanour went out the window as I made for our nearby crew car and we screeched away as fast as we could.
In a matter of seconds, the kids throwing stones had become men with guns and I wasn’t sticking around to find out who might win.
Revenge … It’s the only thing I think about
They were so young with so little remorse and it was scary. Luckily, the fight had ended with nobody seriously injured, so Mark asked to finish the conversation and I agreed. I met Mark and the Vatos less than an hour later as they walked us through their corner of the township. As we made our way through the streets, kids ran at the boys cheering and waving. Women stopped and patted them on the backs as they passed.
To their neighbours, the Vatos were heroes and I couldn’t understand why. Mark beamed proudly. ‘Everyone around here knows us, because we protect them, and the things we’ve done to save them.’ Idolised by everyone, the teenage gang were celebrities and they knew it.
Mark wanted us all off the streets as the rival gang had threatened to retaliate in Vatos territory. I followed the boys along a narrow walkway into a small shack as Mark continued to educate me on their world and just how much he’d been through, while cradling a small knife.
With some sort of reprisal imminent, Mark advised me to leave as it wasn’t safe for me in the township. I challenged him about his own safety but Mark saw his wellbeing and future as out of his own hands. With no fear of death, the boys saw themselves as soldiers, but the more we spoke, the less convinced I became. Their age started to show and the idea of not backing down in front of the pack was clear. They were scared, just like everyone else, and through a combination of factors out of their control they’d ended up on the frontline tackling the violent end of the darkest of circumstances.
Stripping off his shirt, Mark showed me his tattoos and scars. He had more stab wounds than ink as a victim of twenty-eight stabbings. The severed nerves in his back caused him to limp, but he saw it as part of his journey. He had several scars around his heart as he’d been stabbed in the same area time and again. Believing he’d survived for one reason, Mark looked right into me and said, ‘To get my revenge … It’s the only thing I think about.’
My last night saw me back in the ambulance with Ata. We picked up a young woman in the first stages of labour who’d collapsed on the side of the road. As the ambulance pulled in, I noticed we’d arrived at a different section of the hospital. It was the first time I’d seen the maternity ward. The mood was calm and Ata was in good spirits, laughing and joking as he wrapped up his shift for the night.
Standing in the maternity ward, surrounded by newborn babies, it felt like the first time in days I’d seen anything positive and life-affirming in Khayelitsha. It was a reminder of the beauty that existed in a township that seemed more attuned to pain, fear, violence and death.
CHAPTER 7
MINORS AND MODELLING
Before puberty reared its spotty head, I was acutely aware of a fact that most of my male friends came to realise much later in life. For some
, it came when they had their first real relationship, for others it was marriage. For me, I was literally a kid when it became very clear that the people in charge are and always have been women.
With two older sisters and two younger, I still face constant reminders of my place on the sibling totem pole of power. The minute my two younger sisters arrived, I lost all privileges as baby of the family. Overnight I’d become a big brother with a long list of responsibilities that would forever change my relationship with women.
My role as big brother demanded maturity, but my late teens and early twenties saw a flurry of short-term girlfriends and stupid spending contradict the example I was supposed to set. My younger sisters would never question my emotional immaturity, but my big sister Cerisse would take pleasure in calling me on my bullshit and challenging me on my part in any relationship breakups.
Now in my early thirties, with a history of platonic and romantic relationships to reflect on, the ones that didn’t work out always came down to the same crap. I seemed to have a talent for ignoring the gulf between what I’d say and what I’d do. As I’m sure you can imagine that went down brilliantly with girls I’d date, but thankfully I’m yet to have the windows on my car smashed in. But there’s still time …
In my twenties – my first full decade of independence – my location, lifestyle and career constantly put me in the mix with working models. I dated and was in mini relationships with models, and, if I am honest, messed some of them around quite a lot … Appearances alone would say their beauty made them members of a super race, but, call it fearlessness or blind stupidity, somehow I wasn’t intimidated. From music video girls (the Instagram models of that time) to high fashion models, my inexperience and deliberate distance allowed me to freely jump from one girl to another totally unaware of how my behaviour might hurt.
