my first trip to a shebeen

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Yesterday I saw the wealthy side of South Africa. The guys and I drove along the peninsula, stopping in Simon’s Town for lunch and to see the penguins that mysteriously appeared on the beach several years ago. Then we drove to the Cape Point and went to the top to the lighthouse, where the view of the ocean, bay, beach, and mountains is breathtaking. Finally, we went to the Cape of Good Hope, where we saw some baboons and an ostrich with several of her children. Last night we met W. and F. for dinner at the Waterfront, where I had kingclip—the most famous fish dish in South Africa.

Cape Town is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I guess you could liken it to the Malibu area, but so much more breathtaking. I cannot wait to look at my photos now that I was able to take some scenery shots with a good camera! (I left my card reader at home, so I will post photos later.)

But today we saw the real Africa. We went to Khayelitsha, a black township outside of Cape Town. I felt like I was back in Kathmandu again—poorly paved roads (if they were paved at all), housing that was simply little shacks made out of pieces of metal siding nailed together. Toilets are 2 or 3 communal latrines. Trash on the streets, broken glass, puddles of standing water, children with no shoes, flies everywhere, and people in old, tattered clothing. And as I stood in the street watching people walk by, I wondered who might be infected with HIV, since a community like this has a rate of 25% or more.

Our goal today was to get a sense of the neighborhood and to start to observe shebeens. We had 3 guys with us from the townships to act as our “escorts”. We were told going into it that it might be dangerous because of all of the violence that occurs in these townships—gang fights, robberies, car jackings, stabbings. It’s all part of the game.

But never once did I feel unsafe. In fact, I felt mostly welcomed by the community. Sure, we got some strange stares because we were a bunch of white people hanging out, looking around, taking notes on clipboards. But no one harassed us or made us feel unsafe.

We walked into the first shebeen, the one that our escort, Bungani, hangs out in. There was a pool table in the center, and tables and chairs around the perimeter of the small room. About a dozen guys were hanging out, drinking Castle Lager and listening to loud music. A few said hello to me and called me over to talk to them, but they didn’t speak English, and I have not learned enough Xhosa. So they mostly smiled and pointed at the pool table for me to play. I would have, but by the time the balls were set up, we were ready to move onto the next place.

The next place was basically a car port that was fenced in. There were a few older guys there, all of which were visibly intoxicated. One invited me to sit on a plastic gas container that was turned on its side. An old man was sitting to the other side of me. He had ragged clothes on and was missing several teeth. Bungani started to explain what we were doing there. The man next to me started talking in English, but with his accent and missing teeth, I only understood about half of what he said. Something about coming to our focus group on Saturday that we are conducting in the community. He then shook my hand vigorously and smiled a big, toothless smile. I told him if he came to the focus group, he would see me. He then clapped his hands, laughed, and shook my hand vigorously again. When we were ready to leave, the same man stood up and gave me a tight hug with more force than I thought he had in his fragile-looking body. He held me tight for a long time, to the point where I started to push him off of me because the smell of body odor and beer was too much to handle. A few boys standing out in the road were laughing hysterically. The old man was yelling something as I walked away, but again I could not understand him.

We walked back to the main road and down a bit to another shebeen. This place was much like the first, with a pool table in the middle and several seats along the perimeter of the room. But it was very dark. Bungani asked the manager if we could talk to the patrons for a moment, but he said that he couldn’t turn off the music that was blaring because the customers had put money in the juke box. So we left quickly. I later learned that J. and B. thought the place was shady and dangerous. The only thing I noticed was some piercing stares from the men, but I figured that was just because an exotic looking woman (me) had walked in.

We went to one last place, which was very simple. This was a little shack with tables and chairs in the front for shebeen customers and a “tuck shop”—a little grocery stand—in the back. About 6 men were sitting on the one side of the room, and 3 women on the other. I asked the women if I could sit down on the bench next to them, and they agreed.

After talking to the women for a while, I found out that one of them was there to keep an eye on her husband, who was heavily intoxicated and still drinking on the bench on the other side of the shebeen. The woman told me her husband is there all the time drinking. She showed me an awful scar on her arm and pointed to the one on her forehead right above her right eye and told me that her husband had stabbed her in both places when he was drunk. She seemed thoroughly disgusted with him. I was trying not to show that I was horrified.

I managed to lead the conversation towards the question of divorce, and the woman told me that she cannot leave her husband because she does not work and has no money. “My husband is a professional,” she said, “but he spend all da money here drinking!” I later found out he does maintenance at a clinic. He started yelling across the room to me,

“Hey lady! Don’t listen to her.”

That was all I could really understand, as his accent and slurred speech made it impossible to understand more. But the guys sitting around him were cracking up laughing several times. I did understand when he said, “I am Lennox.”

Around the same time, a young woman sat beside him. He was extremely thin, so thin he looked sick. And the woman next to him was plump. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lennox put his arm around her shoulders and squeeze her breast. I looked over, and he was giving her a sloppy kiss on the cheek. When she noticed I was looking, she looked embarrassed, so I quickly looked away. I couldn’t believe he was doing this in front of his wife! But she was still talking to me and Bungani (who had sat down next to me) and seemed oblivious.

I wasn’t sure what the role of the young woman was, but Lennox gave her some money and she went to the back of the shebeen to get him another bottle of whisky. She was being very attentive to him, so either she was a “roll-on” (a girlfriend on the side) or a sex worker.

Anyway, the woman next to me was continuing to be talkative while Bungani took notes on the place. She said, “Write down that I wish they would close this place so that he would stop drinking!” But with a shebeen every 6 shacks or so, I’m sure he would just move to another.

I went outside to see what was happening in the street, which was flowing with people. People looked at us, the white people in white RTI t-shirts, standing around the entrance to a shebeen. Some women in white church outfits tied with a blue rope around the waist walked by, as well as several well-dressed young men. Derek (another one of our guides/escorts) told us those were men who had just come from the bush, where they were recovering from a circumcision ceremony—one in which boys are cut with no pain killers and are not given any medical attention afterwards. They undergo the ritual and are sent out to the bush to heal. Many end up dying from infections or dehydration because they do not want to drink anything because it hurts to urinate. Some commit suicide because they cannot make it through the healing process without medical intervention and do not want to face being stigmatized by their communities for failing the passage to manhood. But that is an issue to discuss at another time…

There was also a girl who walked by with an Obama shirt!

As I stood by our car waiting to go, a middle-aged woman with severe burns along her right arm and leg came up to me and shook my hand. She was mumbling, but I don’t think she was producing words. She pointed to her arm, and the woman from the shebeen (who had come out to join us) said that she was asking for money because her house had burned down. I had no money on me, as we were told there was a very good chance of being mugged.

Ironically, the whole experience sort of made me feel like I was home—at home in my element, that is. Despite all of the warnings that the township would be very dangerous, that the shebeens would be shady, and that the people would steal anything on us, I felt very comfortable. I found the people to be simply curious, and many of them very friendly. And after my adventures in Kathmandu, I know what it’s like to be the only white person for miles, so that did not bother me.

But the disparity here is unbelievable. I felt odd going out for an ostrich steak dinner later after seeing such poverty. We even toasted our hard work on this project so far with champagne. Talk about incredible cognitive dissonance!

There is so much work to do in these communities, not only with HIV prevention, but with domestic violence issues, hunger, and other diseases. I really do not know how wealthy South Africans can live with themselves with the “third world” being almost in their back yard. But I guess Americans are the same way—I used to be disgusted by the fact that in West Hartford you had multi-million dollar mansions, while in South Hartford there were kids going to school hungry because their family could not afford food. I guess most people are just good at blocking out such things from their consciousness.

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