Strange sights

Perhaps it was because I was in a reflective mood this weekend that I saw a number of things that affected me when normally I might have spent less time dwelling on them; perhaps because in the ‘new South Africa’ the more positive ones among us believe that the average Joe on the street is a little better off than they were before 1994; perhaps because I have a sense that I’m wasting my life being insignificant when I have had the privilege of an upbringing that provided me all that I ever needed and a thorough formal education spanning 17 years, when most South Africans have gone lacking and struggle to imagine a world tomorrow when they’ll be safer, less hungry, and more equal.

Whatever the reason, some hard-hitting realities have shattered the rose-tinted glasses I naïvely plastered to my eyes.

I teach Science classes in Alex on alternate Saturday mornings to Grade 11 and 12 pupils from schools in the area who want extra lessons to assist them through their mediocre educations, and maybe even to escape the realities of their shack-bound lives. A few weeks ago, although I had not yet started the Chemistry syllabus, because Matric prelims were looming ahead, I gave the kids a practice paper on all the sections covered in Chemistry. One quarter of the class put their heads down and started working on it, while the other three quarters stared at me blankly. When I asked what was wrong, it turned out that these kids had not done any Chemistry at all in class this year, and when I asked what they were going to do in their exams, they shrugged. Yes ladies and gentlemen, pupils at 3 schools in Alex have only had half the Science education it is their entitlement to receive. I wanted to cry at the unfairness of it all, but that would achieve nothing. So now I’m pondering the value of arranging weekend workshops to get them through the syllabus to give them a fair chance at passing their exams, and speaking to the Gauteng Department of Education to get those schools into the shit they deserve to drown in, but you’ll forgive my skepticism at the success of either of these endeavours.

Being in the same room as these children makes you forget that your worlds are so far removed from each other, and that this room you share will be the only thing you ever have in common – yes, you know that technically they must live in shacks – but in the same room as you, wearing clothes you might even wear yourself, it really doesn’t hit home. This past Saturday, I did what I usually do before class begins – I went upstairs to the bathrooms to fill a glass with water (speaking loudly for 2 hours always leaves me parched and my throat sore), but unlike usually, the door to the bathroom was closed. So I opened it, to find three naked girls washing themselves from the basin. They had clogged the drain with toilet paper in lieu of basin plugs, and were all soaped up. Startled, I apologised for interrupting, filled my glass from an unused basin, and walked out. You forget that living in a shack means no electricity, no water, probably no sewerage. You see your pupils in a wide-eyed new light; these kids wash themselves from a bucket of water filled from a neighbourhood tap, these kids perpetually smell urine and shit in the ‘streets’ of their ‘suburbs’, these kids grow up unsupervised having to fend for themselves while their parents are out trying to make money, if they’re the lucky ones, that is.

What didn’t help to lighten my mood was the fact that on Saturday night, while driving home from the theatre, I saw a number of police cars huddled on the side of Oxford Rd. As I drove past, I saw fifteen-odd very nervous-looking Indian youngsters standing on one side of the road, and the body of a black man lying in the street, covered by a plastic sheet. Now I’m not presuming the youngsters were guilty of anything – hell, perhaps the guy jumped very suddenly into the street before the driver could do anything to stop in time. What got me is that this man was there dead, alone. No-one to claim his corpse, to mourn his loss – if such people existed, they were unknowingly awaiting his return in a shack somewhere. I know that if such an unfortunate accident were to befall me, there’d be a reasonable number of concerned relatives/friends on the scene, because I am not an invisible no-one – I have a cell phone, a credit card, a driver’s licence, a salary slip.

But before I create the impression that it was all bad, bad, bad (too late, maybe!) some of this weekend’s observations made me smile… one night last week, Peas and I were paging through the lastest Cosmo and commenting on how we didn’t get the whole new rage with gladiator sandals. At our joint party on Friday night, I unwrapped a gift from Peas’ mother, to find just these – in metallic dusty pink, nogal. Peas and I traded knowing glances while I concealed howls of laughter, but I wore them on Saturday and must concede that the damn things are growing on me (Peas says they look good on me because I don’t have large calves, but much more on that later this week).

When I woke up early on Saturday morning (for the Science lesson) I heard a tapping noise from the lounge. I went to see what it was, and found that a mossie starling had made its way through the window and could not find it again to get back out. It took a good 15 minutes for the dumb thing to figure out that it was only probing half of the window ledge and that the gateway to freedom lay to its left – it is really evident where the phrase “bird-brain” comes from.

Finally, while driving through to gym on Sunday morning (a futile exercise, as I discovered Old Ed’s is closed until the end of October for an upgrade) I saw a man going for a run through the streets of Houghton… pushing his baby in a pram. Eh? I’m pretty sure that’s not what his wife had in mind when she kicked him out the door and told him to take the little tike off her hands for an hour!