When Mandela Goes

Cavendish Mall is one of the key meeting places of complacent, white, southern suburb Capetonians. They have Lattes there, skinny and otherwise, topped with the lightest hint of chocolate powder. They can wander around shops sporting expensive jewellery, overpriced nik naks and the latest fashion accessories. They can meander through the bookshop and shop at a leisurely pace for their necessities at a Woolworths, where even the next available till announcements are delivered in slightly hushed tones.

It is a wealthy environment. But you would not know that if you were not awake to the signs, because they are not entirely obvious. At any restaurant in the complex, you will battle to find a black patron. It is a safe haven for white people. They can see their art movies there on a Saturday evening. They can be at home with each other and relaxed. As they look around them, it is as if democracy never arrived with all its uncomfortable side effects, like taxis on the roads, and riff-raff being given too much freedom, and black people being allowed to do what they want. Cavendish Mall is a safe and pleasant environment. It is tasteful, without being loud. In it you can be assured that standards will be aggressively maintained and everyone will have the same expectations.

You will notice that most people have an attitude. It comes with a particular angle of the nose on the face – as though it has only recently sniffed the unpleasantness of lower forms of life. As I have said, you will notice that wealth is not flashy, nor brash, nor worn on the sleeve. No. The cars are usually ordinary, sun-blasted and with dents that have never been attended to. Even the clothes are not flashy, or loud. Hairstyles are usually the simplest. Makeup is not much in evidence. Things are tasteful and understated.

But it is an environment where like recognises and affirms like. This crowd of people have a set of rules which they all know from birth and follow rigourously until they die. Nothing changes. This is Cairp Tahn. This is the Southern Suburbs.

So I was interested to see some graffiti on one of the walls on a toilet in Cavendish Mall. It read this, in an unsteady hand – “I AM WAITING MANDELA DIE.” I am sure it is already attended to and has been removed – because graffiti is a very rare thing in Cavendish Mall, you underestand – (and we don’t want any of that, do we?)

But it made me think. Something about the sentence made me think, immediately (maybe it was the lack of correct English grammar), that it had been written by someone who was black. Not because I think blacks can’t write correct English, nor because I think only a black would write on a toilet wall – no. It was because I am white and I grew up under apartheid and because those are the kind of assumptions I am bound to make. But let us assume, just for the sake of argument, that my prejudices and my instinct are correct in this instance, and that it was written by a black person – what could it possibly mean?
Is it simply a statement of fact? Does it mean nothing more than what is being said? Someone was sitting on the toilet in Cavendish Mall and decided to write those words on the wall, because that is what he was thinking. He is waiting for Mandela to die. It would be odd indeed. Of the same ilk as “The sky is blue”, “I am bored” and “John loves Mary”. Except it isn’t.

The context of Cavendish Mall inevitably makes this some kind of a political statement. It is intended to be read in that context. It has a meaning more like “Troops out of Iran” or “Nationalise the mines”. It is not a bland or a neutral statement. And it is meant to feed into the deepest fears of the majority of the patrons of the Cavendish Mall. When Mandela dies, all hell will break loose. The black hoards are sitting around waiting for the day. It is only out of respect for the old man that they have kept their pangas under their beds, but when he dies! Then we will all be braaivleis.

And I expect, if it hasn’t happened yet, that there is going to be much buying of tinned sardines, stockpiling of water and matches – just as was the case during the first democratic elections. Why? Because it is a real possibility? No. It won’t happen.

Then why? Why the subliminal fear? Why the mounting hysteria? Why the bewailing of certain doom and racial misfortune? I will tell you why. Because deep down, in the recesses of their consciousness, white people in this country know just how big a compromise was made in the interests of peace. When they lie in their beds at night, they know that the poor cannot be fooled forever and the lid has got to blow on the sham at some point. That is why, this simple, ungrammatically correct sentence, written on a toilet wall in Cavendish Mall, has profound resonance.

Bringing a Carnival to life

I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, that organising the Cape Town Carnival has been the most complex and difficult job I have ever had. Just before I took up the position of CEO, I was in charge of Fanparks and other social legacy matters for the Western Cape Province, in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In comparison, it was a doddle.

In the World Cup, I didn’t need to dress the participants. I didn’t need to design their costumes. I didn’t need to bus them to a central place and then put their clothes on them and put make-up on their faces. I didn’t need to feed them. I didn’t need to get them all to the bottom of Long Street at the same time and in order. I didn’t need to get them to practise ten different dance moves which they all needed to do together. I didn’t need to build nine huge floats and arrange for volunteers from three universities to push them and arrange ten different music genres to sound from them. In addition to all of that, I didn’t need to manage 60000 spectators who were watching them!

For the 2010 FIFA World Cup, it was easy. All I needed to do was set up a big screen and a couple of fences and sit back and watch.

But the truth is, that something fundamental happened for Cape Town in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The people of what must be the most divided city in South Africa, were somehow given permission to enjoy each other and swan around in funny costumes and parade up and down the streets, in the middle of the night. The crowds were completely diverse. There was barely a person in Cape Town who was not positively touched by the spirit of it all, in some way.

And the genius of it all was that you really didn’t need to like soccer! You didn’t even need to understand the rules of the game! All you needed to do was enjoy yourself, and enjoy other people enjoying themselves. The parading around went on regardless.

On 19 March 2011 the Carnival happened in Cape Town. 2 500 volunteers, from communities as diverse as Strand, Grabouw, Hout Bay, Langa and Constantia paraded down Long Street. They were cheered by a crowd of 60 000 people – undoubtedly the most diverse since the soccer World Cup. They danced. They pranced. They strutted in gorgeous costumes. There were birds; creatures from the sea; costumes lit up with LED lights; massive costumes worn by flag-bearers from Brazil. It was an extraordinary sight.

As each float went by, the crowd cheered and clapped. The energy of it all was extraordinary. After the parade was over, the barriers were taken down, and DJ Fresh was let loose on the crowd to weave his particular kind of magic. He tweeted that it was the best gig he had ever done in his life. For one, spectacular night, Cape Town re-experienced the joy and unity of the World Cup. It was an evening of real legacy.

For me, the wonder of the event was in the preparations for it. I saw, in the weeks and months of preparation such a unity of purpose amongst the participants – such extraordinary dedication – such amazing patience and good grace. Because of the fact that I wanted large groups doing the same thing, many of the cultural groups were forced to work together with other groups from different areas – people they had never met before and would probably never work with. The result was an extraordinary demonstration of social cohesion amongst a diverse range of communities.

The same was true of the crowd. It was as mixed as one can possibly get – in terms of race, in terms of gender, in terms of age. And the same was true of the parade itself. The youngest child was 13. The oldest performer, an astonishing 85! There was Muslim, there was Christian, there was Hindu, there was Jewish. It was an amazing thing.

In Brazil, they have one religion, one language and one beat. That is certainly not what we are. Here in Cape Town, in Africa, we celebrate something directly opposite. We celebrate our great and beautiful diversity. That is who we are. And Carnival is the showcase for it all.

Getting the thing I wished for

So, being Easter, I went to hear the Messiah last night at the beautiful Cairp Tahn City Hall. It is a really magical building, with frosted decoration on the ceiling and booths, and grand chandeliers which have a thousand light bulbs. The stage is backed by a massive organ. The woodwork is wonderful and the seats suitably uncomfortable for a building of that age.

Now, I always have mixed feelings about going to the Messiah. I mean, apart from the fact that one has heard it a gazillion times, you never know what you are going to get. I have sat through Messiah’s with a “cast of thousands” – which sounded like Messiah for the very hard of hearing. Then, on the other hand, I have had Messiah on authentic instruments played and sung by males only, wearing wigs. That was an equally strange experience.

I have wept in the Messiah. I have fallen asleep in the Messiah. I have regretted going because I was bored out of my mind and I have wondered why I thought, even momentarily, that I wouldn’t go, because the experience was so wonderful.

So last night, I went, with this “lucky-dip” mentality. Last year, there was a counter-tenor singing the Alto part that was spectacular. This year a mezzo that I had heard before and has a harsh edge to her voice and a tendency to have so much vibrato, that she frequently quavers right off the note – so I wasn’t expecting very much. Nicholas Cleobury was conducting, though – so it stood some chance of being, at least tolerable.

Curiously, there was a row of empty seats in front of me. I looked around the Cairp Tahn audience. Predictably white. A dot, here and there, of another colour but mostly, blindingly, depressingly white.

It started. Cleobury was taking it at quite a cracking pace. The tenor was lyrical and sweet – “Comfort ye, my people”. Suddenly, one of the side doors burst open and in walked a row of young , hip, gum- chewing, black, (I would say) 20 year olds. One of them had a T-shirt which read “Reaching your full potential IN GOD”.
They had the extensions; the dreds; the shiny African-American relaxed and gelled look. They carried bottles of Coke and they seemed intent on sitting in the row in front of me. They showed no sign of guilt or embarrassment at their lateness. They sat down. They giggled at the irritation of the people around them. They whispered loudly to each other, then they settled down to enjoy the performance. They conducted the air. They twiddled their fingers at the string sections. They lip-synced the words, (when they knew the words). If there was the slightest hint of a beat, such as in “Why do the nations rage”, for instance – they jived along with the music, while mercifully still seated in their seats.

Sometimes, with some of the less well-known recitatives and choruses, they started sending and receiving text messages on their phones and passing them to each other to read. They opened their coke bottles with a loud hissing sound. In a word, it was profoundly disturbing. At the end of part one, there was a moment’s indecision on the part of the conductor. They clapped. There was some lacklustre support for them from one or two others in the audience. They complained to each other loudly, that “these people are scared to clap!”

During the interval, I thought about what I was witnessing here. On the one hand, I have long complained about the complexion of Cape Town Symphony Concert audiences. On the other, here I was complaining where black youngsters sitting in front of me didn’t know how to behave!

On the one hand, it is a question of them simply not understanding the conventions. On the other, it is precisely the conventions which have kept people like them outside the concert halls and attending hip-hop events instead.

The point I reached, eventually, was that it was infinitely better for them to be there – visibly enjoying the music of a European composer who died 251 years ago, to them not being there at all. I am not saying that they shouldn’t shut up and sit still during the performance. What I am saying, is that all that kind of stuff can follow.

Dancing Jesus - Performance Art - Greenmarket Square, Cape Town

As part of the "Infecting the City" public arts festival, I saw today Beezy Bailey's short piece "Dancing Jesus" which involves two life-sized bronze sculptures and a tap dancing, high heel wearing Messiah, doing his thing to a very contemporary (almost rap) version of "Lord of the Dance".

I spoke to one of the organisers, who said that they had received a lot of hate mail from "Christians". Isn't that ironic? I wonder if those same "Christians" sing "Lord of the dance"? And if they do, I wonder what they think it might mean!

Lord of the Dance by Sydney Carter

I danced in the morning when the world was begun,
And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,
I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth;
At Bethlehem I had my birth.

Refrain:
Dance, then, wherever you may be;
I am the Lord of the Dance, said he,
And I'll lead you all, wherever you may be,
And I'll lead you all in the dance, said he.

I danced for the scribe and the pharisee,
But they would not dance and they would not follow me.
I danced for the fishermen, for James and John
They came with me and the dance went on.

Refrain

I danced on the Sabbeth and I cured the lame;
The holy people said it was a shame.
They whipped and they stripped and they hung me on high;
They left me there on a cross to die.

Refrain

I danced on a Friday when the sky turned black
It's hard to dance with the devil on your back.
They buried my body and they thought I'd gone;
But I'm the dance and I still go on.

Refrain

They cut me down and I leapt up high;
I am the life that will never, never die;
I'll live in you if you'll live in me
I am the Lord of the Dance said he.

Refrain

Racism in Claremont

Photo: Jeffrey Abrahams, Cape Argus

I heard an interesting interview on the radio, while driving from George to Knysna. It was with a woman who posted a “For Sale” sign up in her restaurant window, in Claremont, Cape Town. But the sign added, “White buyers Only”. Then underneath the printed sign, she added in hand-written print “Order of the inspector”.

Now, besides the fact that this, in itself, is rather strange in supposedly free, democratic South Africa, the woman who owns the business (whose name is Zikusooka Wamono), is black.

Her story goes as follows: First, she rented a place in a less than desirable area. Business was bad, because of the fact that passing vagrants, would urinate in the alley leading to her restaurant and loiter there. She tried putting up a fence to make the alley impassable. The barrier she had erected got taken down by the council. Business went from bad to worse and eventually she decided to close it down and look for other premises.

She chose upmarket Claremont. She found a suitable site. She designed it, equipped it and furnished it, at considerable expense. However, at every stage, she was pestered and harassed by the police. They visited her at odd hours, demanding changes to this and changes to that. They have opposed her application for a liquor licence. It was clearly harassment. But she soldiered on.

Eventually, after unbearable frustration and constant intimidation, she put the “For Sale” sign up. The police officer had told her that “over his dead body” was she going to open her restaurant, because a black-owned businesses would bring “indecent black people”. His advice to her was to sell her business to a white. And that is the reason she put up the sign in her window.

I called Zikusooka, just to express support and solidarity with her. And to say to her unsurprised I was that she had been subjected to this treatment and how unbearably racist my own experience of Cape Town has been, as well.

She told me that the policeman concerned was, in fact, not white – but “coloured”, or mixed race. That didn’t surprise me either, because the racism of this place is not the preserve of the whites alone. It is something which is the common vocabulary of everyone who lives here. It is largely unchallenged. It is considered acceptable. It is constant. It is widespread and it is encountered right across the board and it is completely debilitating.

Although I was warned about it, when we decided to move here some years ago, I have to say, I had no idea how serious and how widespread a thing it is in this City. I had no idea that it would be everywhere. In the supermarket; in the school; on every road; and in every suburb. Naked, unashamed and unapologetic racism. There is a thin veneer of integration, but it is a sham. You can see it is a sham when you go shopping. You can see it is a sham when you visit a restaurant or the beach or the gardens at Kirstenbosch. Or when you drive down a road. You can see it is a sham when you examine who teaches what, in which schools. As I say, it is across the board. White, coloured and black. Everyone.

So, I salute the courage of Ms Wamono. She told me that she is on anti-depressants and she did this out of complete desperation. But she remains unbowed. She is going to fight, until she has no breath left in her. I salute her and I have told her that when and if she finally opens her doors, that I will be amongst her first enthusiastic customers.

That being said, I have one hesitation. The reasons given by the other side, for opposing the granting of a liquor licence need to be listened to quite carefully and assessed. They argue that it is because of her previous business and the negative effect it had on the area, that they are opposing this application. I am not in any position to judge whether those allegations are true or not. But what I am sure of, is that she has been harassed this time. And it looks very likely, given the racially skewed context of Cape Town, that what lies behind the harassment, is racism.

And there is one other thing which may be at play here. Her name and her accent sound Ugandan. And you know how much we love Africans from other parts of Africa, in this neck of the woods!

The Slave Lodge

I was taken on a tour, this morning, by Patrick Mellet, the man who put together the storyline for the Slave Lodge in Cape Town. I was struck by several things. Firstly, the way in which the story of the slaves in the Cape is still a far from dominant theme in the City, the Province and the country - despite the fact that in this Province, the majority of the people who live here, either directly benefitted from what slaves did in the past, or are directly descended from slaves.

It is an extraordinary thing, the way in which this history, which should be all-pervasive, is in fact, a whisper. It is as though the suffering and the inhumanity perpetrated against the slaves is made to continue by the dominant historical voice. Which of us does not know about the Second World War? Which of us has never heard of Jan van Riebeeck and the Dutch East India Company? On the other hand, which of us knew that Simon van der Stel would, probably, today be termed "Coloured" (in the terminology of the apartheid state?) And which of us knows where the slaves who built the Cape Colony, with not much more than their bare hands, came from originally?

The Slave Lodge is an impressive building, having served once as the High Court and even the Parliament. But it is unfinished as a fitting monument to our slave ancestors. The exhibition space is fair enough, but as it is at present there is no clear cohesion and the visitor is left puzzeled as to the logic of the thing. Had Patrick Mellet not been with us, I would not have understood the logic of the thing (as indeed I did not on the time I visited the Lodge before). Nor would I have understood that the exhibition as a whole is incomplete!

Upstairs, there is a very strange cultural history collection, with bits of Egypt, toys, and old pianos and clocks thrown in to the mix. Downstairs, some of the exhibits work, and one room in particular is a complete failure. For it to remain like this is, to my mind, hugely disrespectful to both the tourist and our slave ancestors, whom it seeks to represent.

Imbibing Cape Culture

I spent the day today, or most of it anyway, at the end of year staff party. These things are necessary – when else during the year can you get drunk in an office situation and make sexual advances on people you usually pass files to?

This one was held at a government facility on the beach at Melkbosstrand. It is a strange, unimaginative building, built right on the primary sand dune. It was never legal. Some people in the Department got into a bit of trouble in the 1990s and then the matter was forgotten, apparently. So the building remains – a real blight on the fairly rough landscape.

The theme was “West Coast” so there was lots of sand, and sea and West Coast delicacies – like Snoek (fish) on the braai (Barbecue); tripe curry; potjie kos (stew cooked in a three legged cast iron pot. There was also West Coast culture, which I saw, for the first time in full cry today.

My experience of ‘Coloured” (or mixed race) people of the Western Cape has been that they are fairly formal. “Mr” this and “Mrs” that. They are fairly conservative and fairly underexposed. They stick pretty much to themselves. (Naturally, I am talking in huge generalisations here – but this is just my observation. And of course, all generalisations are false...)

So, to see them “letting their hair down” (as my mother would have said) was an interesting experience. They jived. They danced. They did things which I think are called “party dances” where everyone does what looks like an aerobic exercise to music. Women in scarves cooked Snoek over open fires and stirred massive three legged pots. Inside, the Karaoke was reaching fever pitch as slightly flat vocal chords murdered yet another song. (Or maybe not! Maybe that is what they were supposed to sound like!)

The man managing the dance music seemed to cater for the “African” and the “Coloured” groups, in particular. The African set had lots of Kwaito and what I have come to recognise as Hip-Hop; the Coloured set had beat-y sentimental love-song type numbers. And there was an unfamiliar (to me anyway) unity between the two groups on the dance floor. Off the dance floor, the two groups sat apart from each other, in groups of their own. The whites also formed their own group. This is what life in the work environment is like. This is what Cape Town is like.

It cannot be that language is the issue. Everyone in the department understands English. And whereas not everyone may know how to speak Afrikaans or Xhosa – in the work environment, English is the way people communicate. So language cannot be the reason why people choose to sit together.

The other thing I noticed rather a lot of, was alcohol. Alcohol which appeared to have been brought from home in cooler bags – not bought by the state. It was flowing freely. Even after lunch, it was very much in evidence and I battled to understand how people would be driving in that condition. But obviously, they were going to be.

It was, however, the performer who strummed a guitar and his strange accompaniment on the accordion that gave me a taste of Cape musical culture. It was vibrant, simple and enjoyable. And all of this next to a sea that was the most extraordinary azure colour – “Kabbeljou (Cob) water” said someone. "Haai (shark) water", said another. It was astonishingly beautiful – with Robben Island in front of us and Table Mountain to the left. It was a celebratory day I had, for sure. Just a pity it was, as is usual here, a culturally divided one.

Roof wetting the Cape Town Stadium

Cape Town Stadium - and the view FIFA demanded

So, I get this invitation – very glossy, very smart - very welcome drinks; followed by light snacks; followed by speeches; followed by concert; followed by supper; followed by more concert. I sort of knew it was going to be “popular”, so I didn’t take the instruction to wear smart clothes terribly seriously.

Parking was a bit chaotic – we were asked, in the middle of the street (before being requested to do a U-turn away from the site which was shown on the invite for parking), whether or not we were VIPs. So security, I would say, was a bit of an issue!

The outside of the stadium, now almost complete, looks like a large Afro-chic hat. The inside looks very much, to me - well, like a stadium! There is a green patch of grass in the centre, seats and a great halo of open space above you. The one thing which caught my eye was the grey colour of the seats. There are lighter and darker shades – randomly spaced, giving the impression of Mother-of-pearl, or the inside of a shell, or something like that. Of course, the entire effect would be lost if the stadium was full – but I thought it was quite a clever, and classy touch. (For almost five billion Rand – the very least I would expect was a nice touch, here and there.)

The speeches were as one would expect – everyone praising everyone who had anything to do with the construction of the stadium. Endless clapping this or that thought about how wonderful, how unique, how special and how beautiful it all is. The Premier, Helen Zille gave a rabble-rousing speech, preceded by one that was, (how can one put this gently?) less engaging, by the Mayor of Cape Town, Dan Plato.

Then on to the concert. Now, before I say anything, let me say how much I genuinely admire Richard Cock, the conductor. He is an extremely humble man and one who certainly knows how to bring music to the people. I don’t think he is a great conductor – but he is a populist supreme - and a gentle one at that. He knows what buttons to press amongst the musically uneducated and he really manages to get real rapport with them. This is a good thing – but I do have some slight problem about the actual level of musicality he seems content to allow in his efforts to do so.

Nevertheless, we started with what he called the “FIFA theme”. Apparently this is a piece of music owned by FIFA. (I was somewhat surprised that he didn’t announce that for the period of the tournament – FIFA owned ALL music – but he didn’t. Note to FIFA – this is something you may have missed for Brazil...). Needless to say, the FIFA theme was awful. Dreary, tub-thumping crashes and bangs which sounded not unlike the theme from “Dallas”. Indeed, it could have been the theme from “Dallas”, because who would remember the theme from “Dallas”?

Then we had the “Twenty Tenors” – (Geddit? Twenty Tenors???). Well, we had twelve of them, because (due to the fact that the stadium costs have ballooned from 1.8 Billion to a mere 5 Billion, in the space of three years),apparently the budget for the roof wetting needed to be somewhat limited. The singing was mediocre. But, and here is something worth noting, at least the singers were mostly black! They stood in the sharpest of contrast to the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, which was, not to put too fine a point on it, blindingly white.

And then, there was a group called the “Sterling Electric Quartet”. It consisted of four women playing an electric cello, violin, viola and flute. They wore dresses the size of serviettes and they seemed to be doing practise moves for the filming of the female part to the Karma Sutra. The audience loved them. Cameras flashed. Men approved. They can play – of that there is no doubt – but dear Lord! Why did they bother? It was a bit like watching porn with strangely shaped musical instruments.

My overall impression was one of sadness. Not at the kind of music the majority of the crowd seemed more than content to endure, but at the fact that this huge stadium can really only be used for three things: Soccer, Rugby and concerts. No Athletics. No cricket. Perhaps the occasional boxing match – who knows? Why? It has no athletics track because when the price was thought to be R1.8 billion, it was thought to be too much, so the size of the stadium was reduced to exclude an athletics track.

And sad, because I don’t buy the argument that the stadium is in the right place. Greenpoint Common is not a central point for Cape Town and nor is it, in my opinion, a developmental node. It will simply benefit the already rich of the area, who are mostly white. I have listened to all the arguments, over the years and I have to say, that I just don’t buy them. The reason why the stadium was put where it is, was quite simply, because that is where FIFA wanted it to be. And FIFA wanted it there for the view of Table Mountain.

A lesson from Silkworms

I have banned any and all additional living things in this house. This is not Johannesburg. This is Cairp Tahn and houses are built on postage stamps here – given the fact that we are all crammed into a tiny little area around the mountain.

Now I’m not complaining, you understand. It is just that one has to cut one’s animal kingdom according to ones available space – that’s just the way it is. My partner Leon, who has this need to foster everything that breathes, would happily incorporate cats, dogs, hamsters, birds and fish – not to mention more children – into our environment. But I put my stiletto firmly down on this score. I said no more living creatures!

It’s not that I don’t like living things. I do. I have had my fair share of attachments to cats, dogs, budgerigars, etc – but not for here. That’s all I am saying. So when the kids look at me with big brown eyes and say “Daddie, please can we have a dog?” I say “No!” When they beg for a fluffy little kitten, I say “No!” When they look longingly at a fish tank, I say “No!”

They have learnt their lesson and they know that I am serious. Last year, they thought they had all trumped me. I was told that there was a lame bird which had been found. I looked into the box to see the creature which Joshua, the youngest, was force feeding and saw that it was a bloody Starling – the avian equivalent of a rat. I threw it over the fence. They knew I was serious about this thing after that.

But then I relented.

Silkworms, I was told, don’t make a mess. Silkworms can be kept in a box. Every child needs to have Silkworms in order to understand the meaning of life. So, Leon went onto the internet and found some clever entrepreneurial child down the road who was selling them by the barrel-load for seemingly low prices.

They were fetched. They started eating Mulberry leaves by the sack full . One child wouldn’t touch them. The other wouldn’t leave them alone. That lasted for a few days. Then I started noticing that the leaves which they were supposed to be feeding on were looking a bit like that stuff they put around Sushi – rather dry. The poor things were starting to chew on the cardboard box in desperation. Why? Because the novelty had been lost somewhere – and boredom with the endlessly munching creatures had begun to set in. The childminder was sent out, with a child, to get the leaves – and so it continued.

Then the cocooning started. Some of the worms escaped and started making cocoons on the floor, on the wall, on the furniture. Then the 2 week wait and finally those dreadful moths emerged, buzzing and flapping and mating and producing millions of eggs.

Oh yes, there have been one or two discussions about the cycle of life. But not enough, I would say, to justify all the effort. And now, my question is – do we wait for the eggs to hatch next year? Or do we turf them now and just pretend that is where the cycle of life ended? Or should we just buy a nice, clean, worry free – book? Um.. gosh – what a difficult choice! From now on, I am sticking to my rule!

The Amazing "Egg Man" and the equally amazing "Chickenman" Mkhize

Gregory Da Silva, originally from Benin, is the Amazing Egg Man. I have seen him wandering around Greenmarket Square, in the centre of Cairp Tahn, for all of two years now.

On his head, he carries this extraordinary construction. It changes shape and look, according to whatever is “on the go” at the time. The FIFA 2010 World Cup, is clearly the theme of the present construction.

But it is not just the height of the thing which is extraordinary – it is the actual concept. He has stuck half egg-shells - (as you can see, many of them!) onto this headpiece and it is this which has given him the title of “Egg Man”.

It has to be said that the whole experience is very odd. He chats endlessly into a telephone – you get snippets of conversation, and he is usually talking to Mandela. Or Helen Zille, the present Premier of the Western Cape. Mandela, (or the Premier) appear to be asking his how he is. He is always well and apparently completely unconcerned by the fact that he is being watched by small crowds of incredulous people. He chats on and on. He has the air of someone busy and going about his business. It is not a cell phone that he is speaking into – it is an old fashioned telephone set, plugged into no wall socket.

The object of the whole thing, which he does quite successfully, is to get people to take a picture of him and for that they should pay him something, which he collects on a flat grass plate. He never demands money. He just holds the grass plate and manages to not only balance the contraption on his head, but to walk in an easy carefree lope on the cobbled surface of Greenmarket Square. At the same time he also manages to take the money off the grass plate and deposit it somewhere on his person for safekeeping.

He reminds me of another (now deceased) character I saw in Pietermaritzburg many years ago - Chickenman Mkhize. Apparently, Chickenman, before becoming badly epileptic, used to work in a local Dairy. When he was medically boarded, he set up outside the Tatum Art Gallery where he displayed a weird mixture of mobile wire figurines and miniature road signs. These road signs were often very funny indeed, because the letters were often oddly arranged, forcing the viewer to actively engage with the piece. He would take orders, and you would write what you wanted the sign to say on a piece of paper. What he made out of it, was almost never what you wrote.

One of his favourite signs was “GONET OPOT” – which was the first of his signs which caught my attention, and had me needing to stop the car because I was laughing so much.

Another was “BEWAREO FJOGGERS” – which also had me laughing till the tears flowed. I had him make the one pictured above “SAFESE XZONE”, because I was working in the field of HIV/AIDS at the time – and we had it made into a T-shirt. (I remember paying R10 for it in the 1990s. It is now worth considerably more!)

The media he used was almost always, recycled material. He himself had strange, unwashed looking. He had a wildness about him, which was fairly frightening. But boy! Did his work make me laugh! We often would discuss whether or not he actually knew why his work made people laugh – we never asked him.

Gregory da Silva, the Egg Man, has something of that same strangeness about him. His laughter is staged. His teeth available for the camera (in a way that Chickenman’s were not), his “conversation” peculiar. But they are both brilliant artists. They force you to notice them. They make you stop what you were doing and engage, even if it is to choose to ignore them. To me, they are completely amazing!

Return to Gay Eden

For the first time in a very, very, very, long time, I went to what was known in the 1970’s and 1980’s as a “Gay Bar” on Friday night. (I suppose, more correctly, it would be true to say that I went to a Gay Bar on Friday night that fairly closely approximates what I had experienced in the 1970’s and 1980’s). It was the Amsterdam Bar in Cobern Street, in the Cairp Tahn City centre.

Johannesburg in the 1970’s was a fairly difficult place for a Gay teenager to explore sexual orientation. Mostly because there was so little to explore! One heard whisperings of a bar which operated in Hillbrow, called the Butterfly Bar, in the Harrison Reef Hotel (I think by my time, it had been renamed the Skyline Bar). Entering the Amsterdam Bar, the other night made me remember my first experience of the Skyline Bar.

Of course, we are talking here from the hindsight and not inconsiderable experience of some 35 years or so – so I didn’t walk around the block for 15 times, too scared to go in. I wasn’t sweating profusely and wondering whether or not my paisley shirt with fashionably long collar and skin tight light green bellbottoms with a big zip in the front would have the desired impact. No, I just parked outside and went in, taking in the strange drapery on the outside of the building and the gold angel-hair curtain one needed to go through to get inside.

The moment I stepped inside, memories came flooding back to me. Because here, like so many other places I experience in Cairp Tahn, was like walking into a time warp. I remembered the absolute relief I first felt, when entering the Butterfly Bar, all those years ago. To see gay men, in numbers – not just isolated camp queens walking down a street every now again – but clumps of them, gaggles of them sitting around tables, smoking and drinking, laughing carelessly, being at home with themselves. That was a huge and fabulous relief.

The person I went with was a school friend and a regular at the bar. I was jealous of how many people he knew. He waved to this one over there. Told me conspiratorially that that one over on the other side of the bar was trying to “camp him up”. Kissed (dear God, that was a revelation and a half!) another one, who was mincing around in extremely tight pants which showed off every asset he had below his naked belly button.

I was jealous of my friend but extremely relieved for myself. Because at last, after what seemed like years (all 18 of them!) in the wilderness, I had come to a place which I could call my erotic home. And believe me, never a Saturday night would go by, after that, without me being there for at least some portion of it.

The Anaconda Bar, which was, as I remember it, near the Drill Hall, was a far seedier place – and in many ways more outrightly sexual. There was Disco music playing extremely loudly. The place was very dark. The corners all occupied with writhing couples in various states of undress. There was even an outside area where you could get a breath of smokeless air every now and again. It only opened late in the evening, which meant that the crowd would start at the Butterfly Bar and then migrate to the Anaconda.

It was, naturally under Apartheid, a very white world. Yes, it was occasionally raided by the police and these raids were spoken about in hushed tones (as several businessmen blanched and then hastily swallowed their drinks and fled). But generally, it was a fairly safe environment. Or at least, that was my experience of it.

Stepping into the Amsterdam Bar the other night, made me feel like I was back in Hillbrow in the late 1970s for all sorts of reasons. Firstly, the clientele is almost totally white. Secondly, no-one seems to find that fact in any way strange! Thirdly, and this was something I have to say I really enjoyed, there is a real sexual mix of people – I am talking of within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and (possibly even the Intersex community).

There were a good couple of Drag queens there; Lesbians of various shapes and forms; Leather boys; Fems; Butch boys; Muscle boys – you name it, they were there. Missing were the black boys and girls. And the Coloured boys and girls. And that is a strange, but not untypical thing, in this racially divided city in which I live.

I was told by a much younger nephew, many years ago, that I was really out of date, when I asked airily one day, what had happened to all the gay bars. He said that it was almost as though the distinction had fallen away and that no-one cared anymore whether you were gay or straight. So everyone went everywhere and you danced with who you wanted to dance with. And you kissed whoever you wanted to kiss. I was astonished by this and listened in be-wonderment. How the world has changed, I thought!

Well, I am not sure what clubs or bars he went to, but I would think what he was describing has never really become the norm. Homophobia continues everywhere. And there remains a real need for spaces where gay and lesbian people can just get on with what they do naturally, without having to constantly justify themselves to the hetero-dominant universe. I think we need our own spaces, just like the black management forum needs theirs. And what we do in those spaces has bugger–all to do with anyone else.

Seapoint nostalgia

Pix: Our children Joshua top, age 6. Gabriel below, age 7

Anyone who has lived in, or, I suppose, even visited Cairp Tahn in the good months of the year will know that promenading the beachfront in Seapoint is one of those things you have to do before you die.

The promenade is busy on good days. Joggers, those with good and those with indifferent bodies; walkers; strollers; amblers; beggars; parents kicking a football; children having a football kicked at them; dog walkers a-plenty; ice-cream eaters. There are a lot of people there, if the weather is good.

The actual beach should really only be looked at. It is completely shale, with jagged rocks and pools of slimy green, littered with a few plastic bags. But if you look beyond this – then, Ah! And if the sun happens to be going down, then double Ah.

For myself, I have these really strong and close to overwhelming feelings of childhood nostalgia, because as a child of (I suppose 6 or 7) my parents and I boarded a train and headed for Three Anchor Bay – which is right next to Seapoint. The 2 day train journey (I remember) seemed utterly interminable. We had lorry loads of boiled eggs and flasks of rapidly cooling coffee. On the second evening on the train, we went to the dining car for our meal. There was silverware service, involving waiters in crisp starched white jackets with shining metal buttons. The train seemed to stop endlessly and the Karoo stretched on for mile after never ending mile.

I remember my mother “writing away” to the owner of our intended lodgings in Three Anchor Bay. I remember the answer arriving saying that we were duly booked. My parents would only call Cape Town in the case of a death in the family and even then, the tension caused by what was the imagined cost of the call was unbearable. The conversation would be clipped, fulfilling of all the required sympathies and niceties, but the receiver replaced as soon as was decently possible.

My nostalgia began, I think, when I suddenly remembered some of the stories I had heard about that trip. Like being rescued from the sea at Three Anchor Bay, when I fell off the rocks. Like me vomiting on (and consequently completely ruining) the carefully prepared Christmas dinner my aunt had made for us. Like the trips I had on the little miniature Steam Train. Like the huge live crayfish I and my father went to fetch from the fishing boats early in the morning.
And I remember how unimpressed I was at my first sight of the sea, because from the road along the beachfront, all you can really see from the car is the line where the sea meets the sky.

That was then. And then some 45 or so years got in the way. And when Leon and I are promenading on the Seapoint Beachfront, I can’t help wondering what, if any, nostalgia my children will be having in the year 2049.

Schlepping up Lion's Head

Many years ago, when I was still living in Pietermaritzburg, a friend of mine forced me to go walking in the Drakensberg Mountains. Although I had lived within an hour's driving of them, for many years, I never ventured into them. I suppose the truth is, I didn’t know how to go about it nor did it seem especially interesting. Well, as I say, I was forced into it the first time. And a whole new universe opened up before me. I could not believe the silence; the smells; the taste of the icy water which gushes in those pristine rivers.

I was immediately hooked, being the compulsive personality that I am. I went every possible weekend. I got myself caught in vicious storms; I waded through the still smoking cinders of a massive fire that had blackened the earth as far as the eye could see; I stripped naked and swam in pools of the deepest blue you have ever seen; I encountered snakes and Kudu and Baboon; I watched wild Clivias flower and I felt the mulch of rotting leaves on the forest floor underfoot; I heard a myriad of birds; and I tasted the welcome sweetness of an apple at the top of a really hard climb as the wind whispered in the ears and played with my hair. And at night, the riotous swathes of stars, everywhere you look; the sound of the cicadas and the owl and the glow of a fire; the snow on the mountain tops.

And then I moved to Gauteng. Yes, you can find approximations there, but it is nothing of the same. And my visits to the mountains became fewer and fewer and the memory distant, but still vivid. Still really precious. But the point is, I stopped going.

When we arrived in Cairp Tahn, one could not fail to notice a sort of universal obsession with the Mountain. All directions are given in relation to it. You really can’t avoid it. The weather is determined by it. But we had never climbed it – well to be frank, I have up to this point, not been even vaguely fit enough to contemplate doing so. But after a wager I took with a friend of mine in Gauteng, that by April next year we will climb Table Mountain – and because of a fairly serious fitness regime that I have been on, we decided to do the Lion’s Head thing, as a family.

Well, firstly, you need to hike for 15 minutes or so, from where your car is parked to the start. I thought that bode fairly ill. But nonetheless. The kids, of course were delighted. And their energy is completely boundless. So they scampered up the first bit, leaving us huffing and breathing threats in the background.

The views, as anyone who has done the climb will know, are spectacular. Luckily, the day was affording – neither too hot nor too cold. The ocean blue, fringed with white. The wind a light breeze. But it is when you start to think, “Oh, this isn’t so bad, after all”, that suddenly things start to deteriorate. The climb becomes fairly steep. You stop looking at the passing runners with beautiful legs and concentrate fully on the task at hand – trying to look even vaguely elegant as you scramble and crawl and grip the rock with bleeding fingernails. Because it is not for sissies. (Look, I have to say, it doesn’t require ropes and pick-axes, but on starts to understand why these things might be necessary in similar circumstances!)

There are some completely sheer drops. And to help the climber, the Table Mountain National Park authorities have thoughtfully erected some vicious looking barbed wire fences just before the drop, so that if you do slip, you would first rip out substantial pieces of flesh before plummeting to your certain death.

The other thing which is completely alarming (and completely uncharacteristic of Cairp Tahn) is that everybody greets everyone, both on the way up and the way down. Even more strange, is that people are fairly polite! They say thank you, if you give way to them! They smile sweetly at your children! They engage in polite conversation! This is not the Cairp Tahn I know at all!

So there you are, struggling to look elegant as you manoeuvre your way along a cliff face, and a random, unfamiliar Capetonian is mouthing a courteous “Hello” to you! It is too much for my time-addled brain. Too much I tell you! Too much for one day!

Oh, and the flowers. Did I mention the flowers? They are there and they are gorgeous. Some of them bold and extravagant. Some of them shy and understated. In every possible shape and glorious form.

Now, one thing – and this is nothing strange in Cairp Tahn generally – I could not fail to notice that 99% of the people up that mountain were white. The same was true, it also needs to be said, in the Drakensberg. Indeed, when I would mention to some of my black friends that I was going to climb a mountain – they would look at me as though they thought I needed urgent medical attention. What is this? Is it culture? Is it the kind of exposure one has had in one’s growing up? Is it because no friend has taken one and forced one to go and experience it? I really don’t know.

So, all in all, despite the fact that I am battling to lift a teacup to my mouth in the aftermath, a wonderful time was had by all. It was free, it was healthy and it was firsthand experience of our inestimable and unbelievably wonderful heritage.

Some fabulous images of old Cape Town

Cape Town : Waterfront

Rights to this picture are owned by the Western Cape Provincial Archives

Cape Town: Adderley Street

Rights to this picture are owned by the Western Cape Provincial Archives

Flower Sellers in Adderley Street

Rights to this picture are owned by the Western Cape Provincial Archives.

These photos are hanging in my place of work. During meetings, especially the dull ones in one particular boardroom, I find myself staring at them, trying to imagine myself back into that time. It is a wonderful exercise. I still have not quite worked out, after having lived in Cape Town for 2 years now, how they managed to reclaim quite as much of the land back from the sea that they have. When you are in Woodstock, it really doesn't look as though people could have been swimming on a beach nearby! Similarly, when you note that one of the main streets in Cape Town city is called Strand (Beach) Street - there isn't a beach anywhere vaguely near it!

But the flower sellers are still on Adderley street. I think they are having a really rough time of it in these times of economic recession - but they are still there!