Township rich culture amid the poverty and heartbreaking inequality, is something we use to console ourselves. The getting together on Sunday afternoon, after church. For some, after a hectic night out. Alcohol is cheap in the hood, so even the township diaspora come back home for fun. I am talking about the few that beat the odds, living in the suburbs and closer to work. The kids that beat adversity and got education and avoided jail, drug abuse and teenage pregnancy. There some like me who chose to stay in the township. Living side-by-side with these social ills.
On Sundays we all gather at various fun points. Car wash here, Shisanyama there and the barber down the road. Someone will play some good music from their VW GTI for everyone to enjoy! Yesterday I heard guys talk about their one-night-stands and some talking how they went to bed alone. There was a group of guys exchanging Sunday newspapers and talking about Nkandla. I heard all the new Nkandla jokes and laughed until I cried.
After my car was washed and ready to go, I realised I spent all my cash on meat and two Savannas. Didn't have money to pay the car wash boys. I asked if one of them could drive to the ATM with me. One of them jumped up and got in. Off we went! He calls himself Josta Dladla, he kinda looks that the famous soccer player. Except he has lots of gold teeth. I have always asked how unemployed, young Black boys pay for these gold teeth. He told me his story and I guess it's a very layered, complicated issue. A story that needs to be told properly. Josta rolled down the window and he was waving at everybody in his hood. He just wanted to be seen!
He started asking about me; where I work and so forth. I lied to him, because I could see we are more or less the same age and he was starting to reflect on his own accomplishments. He wasn't buying my story. I told the truth eventually. And he opened up. I did not expect him to reminisce about the Bophuthatwana days. It's so difficult to tell it now in English even. But he was singing praises of Dr Lucas Mangope. He believes he would have been a police officer or in the army if Mangope was in charge. Apparently Mangope did not like boys loitering around the township doing nothing. He got them into the public service somehow. This is Josta Dladla's testimomy.
It may not be enough, but I am glad he is making an honest living. He also forms part of this kasi culture that we embrace.
I just feel all I can only tell these stories. I believe in the power of telling stories. It is sometimes a stepladder for people in Ivory Towers, to come down and smell reality.
