South African Diary 13

July 26, 2005 by tompoyser

Well, another 24hrs of the strangest stuff you could believe, but I am getting used to that now.

I am sitting in a church listening to the most amazing mix of hymms and traditional African music whilst around me weep and cry the hysteric masses of the township. I am sitting near to my friends, the only white faces in the crowd. I also notice that I am one of the only men in the Church, mostly because of the hangovers preventing them from getting here. I also know that some of the boys in the choir, who dressed in full Catholic costumes, were the week before bragging to me about their initiation ceremonies. Hardcore Christians and hardcore Xhosa. Another thing I notice is that the Church is the only building around here to have plumbing and electricity, but my whining about the Church can be saved for another day.

My odd 24 hours started with surfing and yoga on the beach, as good a start to the day as I can think of. It started to get weird when we had to bribe some police officers. They caught us speeding, (I was not driving for the record) and suggested that we could go to the station and get a receipt for a huge amount of money, or that they could charge us less for an on the spot fine. Of course there was no record of this, and the amount they fined us was totally negotiable.

Then it got really screwed up, and please read on, you will be amazed. One of my friends is leaving SA and so wanted a party where we live. Everyone is invited and the yard is pretty big and the rooms far away so no one is disturbed. This friend of mine has been working for a community radio station for 5 months, so he has met loads of people. The party starts to kick of, more people arriving, loads of the food going down well, cool music and a few crates of beer. Then our landlady pulled my friend aside. She felt there were too many black and coloured people here, and that we had to take special responsibility for them, in case anything got stolen.

My friend then explained the situation to some of his friends, that was after he landed from orbit where he had exploded too minutes before. Black, yes, stupid, no. And not about to take it lying down either. They were professionals, lawyers, managers and radio DJs. Well they kicked up a storm. And it was felt that living in a place that had this kind of atmosphere was a little inappropriate.

To simultaneously move house and party is a difficult thing, but that is what we did.

Then up early to church to say goodbye to some other friends of mine and back to the new place we are staying. A villa in Somerset West, possibly the nicest area in Cape Town. Only for a few days, but I am sure that there will be another twist of fate.

P.S We managed to get an apology, but it was after the threat of a radio broadcast, as was blamed on epilepsy. We all know it is bullshit, but it was the best we could manage.

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