The time is
marching, the mundane has tripped me up and stopped all creative
thought. It has been three weeks since I wrote. Oops!
This week
while driving in traffic and thinking, it struck me: the people who beg at
robots (we call traffic lights “robots” in South Africa) are actually working,
as in, this is their job. They get up early and head to their spot, come rain
or shine or melting tar beneath their feet. Their work is to manipulate us into
giving them money. It’s their place of employment. Some of us do give them
money, and some give lots of money, and some curse out of the window shouting “get
a job”. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m just like most of you who slow down before
the robots, hoping they will change to green before we reach them, thus
relieving us of the guilt of not giving money for food to someone who has less
than us. It is this guilt of ours that keeps them employed.
These
people sometimes become urban heroes because they have staying power, and
smiles and posters that endear us to them. There is a black man in sandals (the
only reason I state colour is so you can paint a picture in your mind) on the Berea who has been there
for many years with his sign, stating he has no job, no money, no home, no wife, no car and no
Tracy Chapman. Lately he seems to have taken some rest, as I don’t see him that
often now. For him to have done this for so long, I assume his employment has
paid for whatever lifestyle he does own, even without Tracy Chapman. Also, he
can’t be a boozer, cos they don’t last that long on the street, although I do
believe his wages have paid for some exceptional Durban poison over the years. Close to this
guy’s robot there is another man, he’s white, although now he’s the colour of rust
(all that Durban
sun). He changes his sign almost weekly, and it is adorned with glitter and written
in coloured pens with pictures and outlines, and it sparkles in the sun. I had
often wondered if he spends his ‘donations’ on embellishments, until a friend
told me otherwise. She said he has children in a good school and that these
embellishments somehow come from school stock! Also that he doesn’t need R10 to
cover his shelter costs as he has a home to go to. Perhaps this is just part of his 'legend status' and all legends have stories woven about them, true or not. His ‘robot employment’
obviously covers his living costs very well, thank-you very much. He makes us
smile and believe him, and we pay for that.
A tongue in
cheek pic borrowed from the inimitable musician and proud South African, the late,
Syd Kitchen. He is so sadly missed in SA and particularly in Durban where he was an
institution. Musos have a tough time making ends meet and in this case selling CDs!
The robots
closest to my home, and the local bottle store, sure have had their comings and
goings. Cast-out men (mostly white) who deteriorated slowly from their first day
there, from clean clothes to unwashed bleary-eyed husks of men with wasted
lives. People saw them, and not knowing what else to do, gave money to feed
their habit and ultimately to bump them off thus relieving their guilt and
helplessness at having to see them like this each day. Men and, less often, women, with stories to tell about how they came to
this employment. Lately at my robots there has been a very hairy, late
thirty-ish, white man (also gone dark). He dyes his hair black and wears a
cowboy hat and vests and he is covered in dark body hair. He seems to have an affiliation
with the truck drivers as he always gives them a thumbs up as they drive past, even
though they don’t donate anything. Truck drivers are in a position of power and
do not suffer the same guilt as us folk much lower and closer to street level and
eye level with the robot workers. Also new at my robots is a young black man
with a rubbish bag – he takes the bottles and sweet papers littering your car
in exchange for a few rand. Now this chap seemed fine the first time I saw him,
but by the end of the week he was limping and his right foot faced his left
foot, toe inwards, and this week he had the facial jerks of someone suffering
from Parkinson’s. Oh my God, I thought, what has happened to him, he can’t possibly
find a job like that! Silly, billy, gullible me, this is his work and he’s
making a damn good job of it too. When I glanced back at him when there were no
cars left at the robots, he walked over to the island in the road and it was a
miracle…no limp, no head-shaking. Hell, he’s good. My concern is, that with
time, he will damage his foot and possibly his balance with these antics, but
in the meantime he’s young and it’s working for him.
There is a
couple who beg on the Bluff; the husband
has one leg and the other one has been amputated at the knee. He wears a steel
‘peg’ although I’ve heard he has an expensive prosthetic leg at home. He rolls
the leg of his pants up to expose his ‘peg’, and he and his wife cover two
robots at once earning a double wage. I have seen people give them big guilty
bucks. I’ve been told this man abuses both his wife and children who sometimes
have to hide outside in the dark from his rantings. I have seen his wife’s face
bruised and blackened, and this may or may not be testimony to this story. If this is the case then this man has neither my sympathy, nor do I have an ounce
of guilt for him. Apparently both wife and husband have been offered jobs, but
neither would commit to them… the robot pickings were more profitable and less
restricting. I’ve seen them out shopping, he with his pant’s leg down and
wearing two shoes. The deception is part of the job, and I can accept that, but
if he is abusing his family after downing alcohol that the public has supplied, it's
unforgivable.
There was
also a window washer at the very busy South
Coast Road robots. Oh my, we did try to get
through that robot without him catching us. You could tell him you really
didn’t want him to wash the windscreen, but he would proceed anyway. Then he
would swear profusely and spit on the glass if you didn’t pay him. He told me I
was a white devil and wailed at the sky when I said my bag wasn’t in the car
(we’re told not to have them in the car, rather in the boot for safety). The
police dragged him off a few times but he always came back to torment us. He
has vanished now and is replaced by a much kinder washer, who doesn’t wash if
you don’t ask, and last week I saw someone nod at him to wash their windscreen
and then drive off without giving him a cent…SIES!
A while ago
I was touched beyond words, by a black youngster asking for money at a robot in
Morningside. He stopped at my car window and showed me he was hungry (this
always works). Something jerked me rigid - it was as though I were looking at a
young Jesus, some Messiah who had more stories to tell than anyone his age
should have. I asked him if he smoked glue (sniffing glue) he said no, but I
had no way of telling, he didn’t have that wasted look, nor had he started to
show the signs of the crippling that this glue sniffing causes. I wanted to
take him home, to read to him, to bath him and dress him in new clothes, but I
was helpless. I gave him money and had to drive off because there were cars
waiting and the robot was green. Before I drove on, I held his look and said to
him, “Oh God, don’t do this, try to make something, you are an artist, make
something.” He nodded and said, “Yes mommy” (they always do). I felt stunned
and with hindsight should have gone back, but if I had I’m not sure what I
would have done. I feel arrogant and stupid for saying ‘make something’, how
was he to do that? I know some have, and have become world renowned artists,
street children just like him, but they had the will and the lucky break to do
it. Glue deadens the pain, once these children are in this addictive clutch it
is too late. Shop owners sell this glue to them knowing what they will do with
it. I am haunted by this youngster who stood silently piercing my soul with his
eyes at the robot. I look for him every time I go that way, but have never seen
him again.
These
youngsters don’t like the discipline the shelters offer, and the shelters in
most cases are not stimulating or inspirational places in which to nurture
rebellious, wounded boys. Some of these boys are from abused backgrounds and
live with more abuse on the street. They are cold at night and live with
burning feet in Summer. They steal from the weakest boys and from unwary
tourists, they prostitute themselves, and they become numb and fearless and
dangerous. Whenever there is a conference in the city they are all bundled into
police vans and taken away, so they become invisible, this blight on humanity.
There are
also mothers who employ their own, or others’, children to work for them at
robots. This is illegal, but it happens anyway. Some women hire children from
neighbours (who are also in need of food etc.) and these children, as young as
three, weave in and out of the traffic while the women sit on the roadside a
block away chatting and socialising. These children should never be given
money, no matter how our guilt tugs at our hearts; we cannot feed this abuse,
condone it. If they get no money, surely this despicable act will stop. It
seems that there are no simple solutions, or any solution for that matter, and
we are so quick to judge, with so little understanding of complex family disintegration
in a non-functioning society.
While
businessmen eat sushi off naked women, and politicians are driven in cars that
would feed a village for 6 months, most of our next generation is losing
itself, uneducated, hardened, and uncared for.
I remember
as a child we would shop in the predominately Indian area of Clairwood. That’s
where the fabric shops were and lots of bargains to be had. I remember an
Indian man who walked the streets and my mother said he was a ‘tramp’. He had
little clothing and his hair was matted and dreadlocked before it became
fashionable. He had a long white beard, and I can still see him in my mind’s
eye. I never saw him beg, and he lived and slept under the South Coast
bridge close to the river. I remember feeling afraid of him, yet in awe, as
though he were a magical creature living under a fairytale bridge. Now in
adulthood, I realise he was a holy man, someone who lived off the generosity of
a community; a community who may have felt blessed to have him in their midst.
He may have had nothing, but he was no tramp. He was a Guru, someone of wisdom,
someone close to the Maker. How I wish I could sit with him now, under his
bridge, with my feet in the clear water that was the river then, before it
tired of its toil, weighted down by its polluted load. Its clarity lost in
time’s passing and now with no Guru to dip into it.
What a
complicated, jewelled, wondrous, heart-aching, sometimes compassionless place
we share… our Durban.
We are all beggars, each in his own way ~ Mark Twain
And to
quote my 90 year old mum…If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride!
