riding in a cop car

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The last couple of days were spent mapping—driving around Delft and Mitchell’s Plain with people from the communities who could point out the shebeens and drug houses. We discovered that the best way to get our job done is to find people who know the neighborhoods well. In Mitchell’s Plain we have Waseema, who was a social worker of some sort and knows many of the sectors well. We’ve got a system going now—the community person guides us, J. drives, either B. or I mark the points on the GPS, and the research assistants take notes on the points.

In Delft we also stopped at one of Derek’s friend’s house, but he was not around. His mother told us to go to the school down the street and ask for Maggie, who is a community liaison to the police, or something. I’m still not exactly sure what her role is, but she knows everyone in the police department and many of the places where alcohol and drugs are sold in Delft.

Maggie drove us through her sector, which she knows best. She then directed us to the police station to meet with the head detective. We managed to get a list of all of the licensed and unlicensed shebeens in all of Delft for all 6 sectors. But according to one of the policemen, all of the illegal ones will be shut down in the next couple of months. With the enactment of a new law that requires unlicensed shebeens to be fined or closed down, many are being shut down because the owners cannot afford to fines or the money it costs to get a license. But this just means that shebeens will become more discrete than they already are. In all of the communities, many of the shebeens are in houses with gates and brick walls that block the view of what happens in the house or shack. Others are more out in the open, with signs advertising the place. And others are simply a bunch of chairs set up in someone’s courtyard or garage or shack where guys will hang out and sip Castle Lager, Black Label beer, or whiskey.

Anyway, one of the policemen said he would drive us around his sector in Delft and point out all of the shebeens still operating so that we could mark them with the GPS. J. and B. went in one car with Maggie, I rode in the cop car with two officers and Derek. I was not too keen on the idea at first—a bunch of white people in a cop car and another white car behind it driving through the neighborhoods slowly. We are trying to keep a low profile, and driving around with the police definitely draws attention in these neighborhoods. Besides, our white rental car filled with whiteys already looks like the CID—the South African DEA.

But the police insisted we go with them. My first time in a police car, driving around with South African cops looking for illegal taverns and drug houses. This was the first of many nonsequitor adventures.

We drove past the each place on the list of 22 shebeens, being careful not to stop in front of the house of interest or to visibly point to them. But then the cop driving the car pulled up in front of a house and the two officers got out, talking in Afrikaans. I had no idea what was going on. They talked to a man who suspiciously came to the large iron gate guarding his house, then they walked to another house two down. They talked to the man and woman who came out for a few minutes, then got back in the car. Turns out they were stopping at the house of a guy’s parents to tell them their son had been arrested the night before. In the meantime, other people were coming out of their houses and standing in the street or peeking over their gates at the police car and the white people. So much for being discrete!

Later in the afternoon we went to Khayelitsha again to see if we could find someone to help us identify the shebeens there. Khayelitsha is mostly informal settlements—shack upon shack, in some places so close together that there are only dirt walking paths between them. And because this is the poorest of the three townships in our study, it also has the most shebeens. We are starting to realize that the poorer the neighborhood, the more shebeens.

We drove by one guy’s house that Derek knows, and he sent a kid probably about 14 years old to ride with us for a while. So the kid squeezed in the middle of B. and me in the back seat and pointed out the few shebeens he knew.

Not having much luck after that, I suggested we find the Khayelitsha craft market and see if there was someone who spoke English there who might be able to assist us (I also wanted to go shop there, as I remember they had beautiful crafts when I visited before). We stopped at the Khayelitsha library to ask for directions, which was actually an impressive library for such a poor area. Two young women working at the front desk said they knew where the craft market was, and they knew of a few shebeens. So Derek invited them to drive with us and point out shebeens as we drove them home—which was close to the market.

The two girls (dressed in quite skimpy summer dresses for a library job) both squeezed into the front passenger seat, while Derek, B., and I squeezed together in the back. More random people hitching a ride with us and pointing out shebeens…I couldn’t help laughing to myself the entire time. They could only point out the few shebeens in their immediate neighborhood, but we managed to find the market, where I bought some of the beautiful beaded jewelry you see all over South Africa.

Tonight we had dinner at the Waterfront, which is crawling with European and Australian tourists. We had dinner at the City Grille, one of the most popular restaurants there. The best part was the view of Table Mountain looming over the harbor, and the seals that kept popping up on the surface of the water. I think our entire team was caught up in the romance of Cape Town tonight.

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