Archive for December 2006

 
 

In the night

Just as I was about to drift off to sleep last night I thought I heard someone calling my name and I slowly fought my way out of the haze to sit upright in bed and listen. But nothing came, outside there was only the wind that blew through the trees and beyond it a steady hum of a city that had closed it’s eyes.

During the day I returned to Khayelitsha CFC for my third and final visit. I wasn’t sure what to expect as last Friday was quite bloody and unlike my first visit this time there were tears and cries of pain. A pregnant woman had come into trauma, she had begun to bleed quite excessively. She cried both out of anguish and pain and I remember her leaning down towards her unborn child to whisper some words of comfort, if not to her child, then to herself - the doctor came over and told her that her baby might die or it might live and she was wheeled away leaving her bloody sheets.

I walked over and photographed the sheets and a woman behind me whispered “..how can he take such a terrible photograph?” I’m not sure why but I sarcastically replied “it’s art”….she laughed and then I laughed and the world carried on.

In another room a large hulking man sat upright on a bench in only a pair royal blue briefs. He had been asleep in bed when his partner poured boiling water over his torso and groin. Flaps of skin hung off him. Later his partner would come in and be treated for cuts and bruises. Apparently in the night he had assaulted her and she waited for him to fall asleep before enacting her revenge.

Later a man with his hand in a bag full of blood would walk in and collapse. The bag burst its contents onto the floor and blood cascaded down the corridor. He had been shot in the wrist but luckily for him he was high and for now couldn’t feel the pain - although later he would. This could be any trauma unit in the West but here the difference is is that there is only one doctor on call. I cannot imagine the pressure that he is under.

Yesterday I returned.

At times in my life I’ve wished that I had a faith, that I belonged to some orgainised religion that could promise me that there was more to life than what I could see or feel but alas even as a child I could never find any omnipotent being to believe in and so I guess that I’m left with only the random and arbitrary happenings of life.

Perhaps thirty-six years ago the man who lay on the bed before me never knew that ultimately our paths would cross and that on the day of his death I would be there to photograph his hand resting on a red blanket. I didn’t find out his name; perhaps that was intentional.

I looked at him; his face partially covered by a thin white blankt: and looked at his open eyes and waited for them to blink as I loaded film into my camera. But of course they wouldn’t. I thought momentarily about what he had seen last and then I extended the legs of my tripod. I didn’t really feel anything - I know how that sounds. I was alone in the two bed morgue and all I thought about was the quality of light coming in through the door. Not even later when I stood next to his mother did I feel anything - everything was so matter of fact. There was no sad music in the background, no-one cried for him and in the corridor outside people joked and laughed. His was just another wasted life that went nowhere, a life made and destroyed in Khayelitsha, the invisible world that grows on the edges of the city. I know that I sound cold but it’s the one’s still left alive we should cry for.

His death was suspicious and so the police promised that his body would be taken to the government mortuary for a post mortem. The last time they promised this the body rotted for three days before being taken away.

Later a daughter brought in her father; he was slumped in a wheelchair. After tests it was deduced that he had suffered a severe stroke and that his chances of survival were low. When the daughter was told this of course in the fraction of a second her world changed and she cried uncontrollably.

The doctor left the room and left me alone with her. She looked at me and I looked towards the floor…I waited for a while then looked up again to see her crying and still looking at me. I fiddled with my camera and tried not to cry as I remebered when the doctors had told me that my father also was going to die. He lived and I wanted to tell her to have hope but; she couldn’t speak English and anyway I knew that I didn’t really want to leave my seated silence. Later she rang her pastor for comfort.

A mother brought her young child in. He had dragged a pan full of soup off the stove and over his head: his face was burnt. The doctor stopped as her read the case file, this was the third time that this had happened. He had burns on top of burns. Whether it was direct abuse or neglect the result was the same and the child went back home again.

My last day ended and I too went home. I shook Timmo’s hand and felt like thanking him for the work that he does as I know it takes a toll on him- but I didn’t. I was glad to have met him and seen a part of his life. We wished each other goodbye and I closed the door. I’ve been lucky to have met so many good people. Perhaps the only faith we need is the faith in the knowledge that here on earth there are still good people with good hearts.

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December 30th, 2006 | South Africa Journal | 0 Comments

Site B

A supine body lays silently on a trolley that has been pushed neatly into the corner of the room. A pale blue blood stained blanket partly covers his form. Someone has dragged the blanket away to reveal his naked back and buttocks. The blanket seems stuck to the wall, perhaps by the blood, and it stangely resmebles a wave crashing against a sea wall.

A row of patients are also in this silent world; they sit there in the same room, perhaps looking off into their own worlds. Whilst in yet another room a man with an oxygen mask lies unaware that his arm limply hangs at his side.

I step back into the corridor and turn to face a woman with a hole in her face. Well more precisely the hole is a large marble shaped sphere of her face that now hangs outside. Behind her, as she walks by, another row of patients sit. Two men, their faces reshaped by metal bars and boots are to be found. One agitated, the other still; his face hidden under a blood soacked once-white shirt. The agitated one looks at me and my camera and tries to hide - and I feel ashamed. His head is the size of a pumpkin and his features are grotesquely redrawn possibly by the Township vigilantees who fight crime in their own way. When the whistle blows everyone emerges from their shacks with shambocks and sticks and attacks whoever has been deemed to have done wrong.

Perhaps the stangeness here is found in the silence and the stoic resignation of their plight. There are no screams or shouts or even tears here and perhaps it is that that marks this place as other.

Today - Wednesday - was my introduction to Site B Hospital Khayelitsha. I’m not due to spend the day in the trauma unit until Friday and my brief encounter with it was only the product of a two minute tour. My day Wednesday was spent in the GP clinic with Timmo. Timmo is the type of doctor that you want in your corner. He’s caring, conscientious and committed and without doubt cares deeply about the people of Khayelisha.

Five doctors man this hospital though, five doctors for a catchment area of thousands of people. No matter how committed they are they need more help - and only the government can provide this. Some days there are only two doctors. Patients begin to queue up at Three or four in the morning - the lucky one’s are seen at Three or four in the afternoon. The unlucky one’s must try again the next day or the day after.

The pressure on doctors is immense. I sat in the clinic cubicle with Timmo, who sometimes sees 140 patients. and occassionaly Sister Mary; watching a progression of sadness reveal itself. The first patient of the day came in. He was sent for a blood test and 30 minutes later returned to be told that he was HIV+. He sat reclined in his chair, one arm hanging over the back of it and his outstretched legs pointing towards me. I looked at his red, white and blue Fila trainers as I overheard Sister Mary tell him that it was not the end of the world. Amidst the Xhosa I could pick out fruit and veg - eat well.

I was later told he replied that he must tell his two girlfriends the news of the test.

Another patient came in. She was the survivor of an assault last Sunday by three men - her attacker had bitten off her nipple. She was around seventeen.

Yet another women came in. Her wide unblinking eyes - set in her gaunt face - stared at Timmo. But her slow sloth like movements told her story. Her right hand shook uncontrollably as she asked to be tested. Thirty minutes later her answer was given. She too was positive. She got up and slowly walked out of the room.

One by one they came in and left. A middle aged man with palpatations whenever he thought of his child - who had been missing since August. He nervously held his red cap in his hands, tightly wringing them until he too left and it was returned to his head.

After eight hours Timmo drove me home and returned to complete the remainder of his twenty hours. I was glad to leave.

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December 21st, 2006 | South Africa Journal | 0 Comments

The Sheep

The sheep slowly raised its head from off the dirt floor and momentarily looked ahead at its future. In front of him was another sheep that had had it’s throat cut and was now being disembowled. It lowered it’s head slowly in resignation and began to cry and shake uncontrollably as a mournful braying filled the air. I looked down at it and Fanie walked over to me and said, “It’s the stress of knowing that it’s going to die.”

No-body raises their heads here apart from those who know it’s too late.

This is Guguletu on a vibrant Sunday morning at Christmas. The braies are happily burning a wide assortments of meat that send hot swirls of smoke into the already hot and oppressive air. Everywhere ’smilies’ are to be found; smilies are sheeps heads that are cooked ’straight up’. The heads are simply cut off the sheep and cooked - or burnt to be more precise. As the flesh burns a ghoulish smile appears on the sheeps face - hence the term ’smilies’. Nigella Lawson and Gordon Ramsey could learn a lot here….

Gugeltu or Guggs or ‘Gee Gee le tois’ as it’s sometimes known, like other Townships are unreal places that are unfortunately real. Fanie Jason my friend and guide who has photographed in Rwanda, Bosnia and the West Bank told me that everytime you come to the Townships that you must treat it like a war zone…you must be prepared for the worst. Everytime you come to the Townships you take your life into your hands.

I’m not saying this to prove how brave…or foolhardy I am…but in a way to explain how nothing makes sense here. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m basically a coward - and yet I’m drawn to the Townships…I can’t explain it. Even though once I’m there every bone in my body is telling me to leave. I think sadly it’s the rush you feel when you leave - that comes from the knowledge that you’ve made it.

But it’s easy to become the explotative voyeur that descends on the poor and leaves with their image appropriated for one’s own ends - I try not to be this but I ultimately I am. But it’s hard walking around poverty with thousands of pounds worth of camera gear strung around your neck.

It’s so irrational: having a conversation about football with someone who you know has no future. If they get ill they will die - they are born here and they will die here and they are are only 17. I tried to persude my new friend that Aston Villa was the best football club in the world and that he should put a Villa poster up on his wall next to his Barcelona poster but he was having none of it. Especially when Fanie came over and explained that Villa are the best losers in the world. After our loss to Bolton it was hard to fight him. And then we left.

On Thursday last I was again in Guggs and taken to the house where a few days previously a young girl was kidnapped by four men who raped her before gouging out her eyes and then murdering her. Her body was dumped 400 yards from here home. I’d walked to the house with Jackie, Fanie’s niece. As we walked we talked about what it’s like to live here. Basically she told me that every thought that she has is to do with crime or the fear of it.

What you wear or what phone you buy are important choices. Don’t buy anything that makes you stand out as you will be robbed. Jackie has had four phones stolen - the last time a gun placed at head. What time you leave out in the morning and what time you come home can get you killed….everything you do will have an implication on your life. But effectively people will kill you not because they hate you or because you have what they haven’t. They kill you because they can.

As we walked past the dead girl’s house Jackie made a ghoulish sound and said I bet you’re frightened now….I laughed and tried not to raise my head.

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December 18th, 2006 | South Africa Journal | 0 Comments

The little black boy

On Friday I went for tea at the home of an artist I’ve met out here. When I arrived I found her grandson and the grandson of her maid or ‘cha’ playing in the garden. A little white boy and black boy kicking around a tiny silver football in the sun. A boy from the suburbs and a boy from the townships.

As I sipped my tea I knew that this moment in time was only fleeting as soon they would go back to the normality of seperation that will mark their future.

But their lives were already a lesson in contrasts. The little black boy was an orphan his mother had died from an illness and his father murdered. For any eight year old this would be enough but when he started scholl he was befriended by an older boy who sodomised him.

On his return to school, after counselling, he was accussed of sodomising a younger boy.

I looked at him as he laughed and did his tricks with his football and knew that more hardship would befall him and I hoped that this day would last as long as it could for him.

A few weeks ago I perhaps would have gone home and maybe cried when I thought about him but there are too many little black boys here with the same future ahead of them to cry for them all.

The facia of South Africa has changed to reveal a visible face of black leadership but perhaps that is all that has changed - apart from the rich getting richer and the poor, well becoming poorer.

Behind the facia big business still pulls the strings here and without sounding as if I’m a conspiracy theorist, it seems at times that blacks were only given ‘freedom’ here so big business could benefit from inward investment.

So nothing has really changed here. Not for the little white boy or the little black boy. The tracks of their futures have already been laid by the generations before them and so all that they can do now is simply follow the road that will soon fork and take them on their different paths.

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December 11th, 2006 | South Africa Journal | 1 Comment

The one about the Pelican

South Africa is a strange country - I know this because on Sunday my horoscope informed me that I was going to be abducted by aliens and on Monday a Pelican the size of a 747 flew into me. I shall return to this.

The days are slowly blending into one out here, a long progression of stories without end. At times I feel as if I’m trapped within a film, as it’s as if nothing appears real. Perhaps I’m repeating myself, I’ve probably said this before, but it’s true nonetheless.

I have so many mixed feelings out here - mainly about the work. Perhaps I’m too close to things but I’m aware of the clock continually ticking down and hoped for deadlines slipping away. But the best plans in the world count for nothing when you have to rely on other people - perhaps ultimately people will always let you down.

It doesn’t pay to think too much at times out here, the thing is to pick one reality and stick to it - everyone else does. My friends have a bed in their living room. They call it a couch and everyone who comes to their house calls it a couch. I should photograph that ‘couch’ as it’s strangely symbolic of life in Cape Town - nothing makes sense here. This is one of the most violent cities in the world and yet complete strangers will give you the keys to their house and let you stay on….their ‘couch’. I’m honestly at loss here.

Yes, the Pelican. I decided to take some more images of tourists at some type of low end theme park. I went along to a bird show where our compare / bird handler played the showman as psychotic birds went through some rudimentary Vaudevillian act that involved them being fed chicken at every possible moment.

Vultures and birds of prey would fly down from the wings and stand on stage as the nervous compare would warn small children not to make any sudden movements. Now I’ve watched those TV programmes such as “When animals go bad” so at any minute I was waiting for some kid to be spirited away…my camera was pre-focussed and ready to go. Then Peli the Pelican flew on stage and my Spidey senses started tingling.

After Peli attempted to fly through me there was a haze of small feathers through which I could see people clapping and cheering Peli. I stood up and raised an arm and shouted to the crowd that I was fine…and in my reality the hearty laughter was confirmation that they were all relived that I was still intact.

But I’m not sure that I am.

December 6th, 2006 | South Africa Journal | 0 Comments

The wind and the curtain

I’m watching the curtain at the window too and fro in the wind and thinking back over the past few days. So many things have happened but I’ll come back to that next time.

On Monday I decided to follow a Township Tour. Having been to the Townships on previous occasions I was interested in observing the reactions of the tourists and why they would want to go. Was this just another organised safari? Well I don’t think they appreciated the danger that they were putting themselves in walking around Langa with their video cameras and jewelery. On a few occasions passers by would berate the tour guides for bringing the tourists - it was never safe - but the the Townships never are.

On Wednesday morning seven tourists were robbed at gunpoint in Langa, a number of them assaulted when they refused to give up their possessions. In the afternoon forty more tourists were robbed and assaulted. I wonder if the tours are still running?

The days are passing by so quickly now, on one hand I’m pleased as it’s hard to at times to be out here and a small part of me just wants to go home. And yet on the other hand I want the days to slow down so that I can get all of the images I need. I know that doesn’t make sense but at times nothing makes sense out here. It’s almost as if you are in an alternate reality where anything can happen which is both frightening and exciting. But the sun is shining, the wind gently blows through the leaves of the Palm Trees and you are once more seduced into forgetting.

Perhaps everyone copes out here by constructing their own alternate realities. Some withdraw to a gated community and others to religion, booze or ‘tick’. If as Musa had said “..life is touch and touch is pain”, perhaps everyone attempts to retreat to worlds where they can’t be touched.

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December 2nd, 2006 | South Africa Journal | 0 Comments