Cedric
I wasn't sure I would write this as it may be construed to be a breach of privacy. However, as my readership is very small and only one other person knows some of these people ( and he is a discrete lawyer ) here goes. As you know from earlier blogs and facebook videos, my apartment was very near the coast, just 3 houses up from the beach or more accurately the Saunders Rocks. I would often relax there in the late afternoon and frequently commenced conversations with others. As well, my almost daily trek to the supermarket was along the foreshore and again I would meet people on this route as well as my longer bike rides to another beach much further out of Cape Town. This first story will concentrate a group I met that are not classed as "homeless" and for this group, there are few photos.I have already mentioned Mickey, the student from Johannesburg, down in Cape Town for the holidays with his family. Both of his parents worked for an extremely wealthy property developer. I also met another student at the rocks. Cedric had been swimming in the rock pool for too long and had developed a bad case of the shivers. Remember the water off Cape Town is always very cold. I offered to let him have a shower to warm up. It turned out he was a refugee from Congo with his parents. I learnt South Africa is strangely very generous to refugees and seems to accept them from all over. Obviously there are millions in the country from Zimbabwe and other nearby countries but I also met a group of 4 Indians who all had jobs in Jo'berg and were down in Cape Town on holiday! With local unemployment over 25%, I don't understand why the SA government does this and though they don't receive money from the government, children are permitted to go to state schools. Cedric's father made some sort of living from trading between Mozambique and South Africa and lived in a middle class area of Cape Town. As he had no money during the school holidays and nothing much else to do, he came around for lunch a few times and we discussed his former life in Congo. However, in common with those who have been away from their home country for a while ( he had spent time in Mozambique before coming to South Africa ) he painted quite a rosy situation of the education system and life in general. In his view, the only big problem was a terrible political system ruled by so called big men, in this case Joseph Kabila. One story he conveyed and it is one I heard quite often from others was on the brutality of the SA police force. It appears as if refugees and others considered lower on the social scale are open to abuse, usually from black police officers. Cedric related two incidents in which he was harassed for being found without an ID document ( he doesn't have one ) and on another occasion of being "roughed up" for no apparent reason not far from his house. The police have the right to stop and search anyone at random. If they don't like the look of you, you can be stopped and searched!!
Cedric did also show me how you collect facebook friends. He searches for anyone, say Belinda Green and receives a long list of people with this name. If he likes the photo, he sends a "will you be my friend" request and often they reply "yes". I mentioned this to another equally young person or responded " how to think people get 3000 friends?...it's impossible to meet that many people...duh!"
In a spot of self interest, I befriended Douglas, the parking attendant and Zemi, a local community security guard at Llanduno beach, at the end of my regular bike ride. Even though I did lock up my bike whilst I spent time at the beach, extra personal security didn't go amiss. However, Douglas did give me a spot of bother. I invited him to drop into my home for a meal if he happened to be over in Sea Point area. He rang late one afternoon and said he was on his way now. I did suspect, by the sound of his voice, that he had been drinking. He turned up quite late, drunk and expecting to stay the night. I immediately and diplomatically escorted him back onto a minibus heading back in the direction of where he lived and he was his normal friendly self next time we met at the beach, as if nothing had happened.
One interesting character I met at the beach was "Congo", not his real name but stage name. A Zulu man, in his 20's, a stripper and sex worker. From what he told me, it appeared as if he was quite "open minded" in what he would do and with whom. He earned about US$100 per session to strip in either gay or straight venues and his most regular customers were middle-aged asian women who just wanted to touch! He was based in Jo'berg but had been flown to Cape Town for a week as company by a "boy friend" who apparently was a well known organiser of musicals in South Africa.
As most will know, during the apartheid period, most beaches around the Atlantic seaboard were designated "whites only" so now there is still a sort of tourist trade whereby those that live in the poor parts of town come round to these beaches as a "tourist" day out...to see how the top 2% live!! So I met several groups doing just that but whether by design or not, most were terrible litterbugs. One particularly interesting group I got into conversation with was a group of self described drug dealers and one in particular who was a pious christian. I attempted to get an understanding of the dichotomy of this but was not succesful. Several worked in night clubs where I assumed they conducted their business. One had recently been released from prison, serving a 6 month sentence. Whilst inside, he learnt his girl friend was pregnant and now he sayes his daughter is what keeps him alive and looking forward to a better future though he didn't appear to have plans to achieve this.
In the next story, there will be homeless people, "good works" and more photos.
