birthday celebrations part 2

I woke up early the next morning at what seemed to be Lebo’s grandmother’s house in Orlando, with pain shooting up and down my right knee. Why do I keep trying to hop these fences? Last night to get out of the driveway we had to scramble over the concrete walls and I’d forgotten that I’m twenty-seven and not twenty, or seven anymore. Ah, everyone reaches a point in their life when they realize their knees aren’t actually made of rubber – I managed to avoid learning this lesson till I turned twenty-seven.

Music was still pumping from down the streets – somebody was either partying all night or starting really early. I was feeling hot and icky from the night before and wanted to wash my face, but the only water tap I could find was the basin out in the yard. Soweto toilet facilities are the biggest adjustments I’ve had to make since coming here from posh Klein Windhoek or Emmarentia.

We loaded into the car in search for a hangover breakfast. Timo’s been trying to teach me German and Zulu at the same time, which I find to be confusing and difficult. He also gets mad because I use a French accent whenever I’m try German words.

“You must learn German,” he tells me. “It is a much better language than Afrikaans, the language of the oppressors.”

“I don’t want to learn German,” I reply. I also don’t want to point out that in Namibia, German is also the language of the oppressors. “Where will I ever need to speak German?”

“In Germany,” the kids point out. “And Austria. And Switzerland.”

“Every time I learn some German, I forget some Afrikaans,” I complain.

This conversation is interrupted by a spectacular Coca Cola explosion. Several crates of soda pop bottles plummet from the delivery truck ahead of us and suddenly the road is awash in Coca Cola showers as plastic bottles bounce down the pavement through the traffic, Coke fizz spraying in every direction like a magnificent fountain. Without missing a beat or slowing down, Marcus pushes open the driver’s side door, and while still hanging on to the steering wheel, swoops down and scoops up a litre bottle of orange Sparletta. As he continues driving, I see in the rearview mirror people scrambling through the traffic right in the paths of oncoming cars to grab as many pop bottles for themselves. As we pass by the truck driver pulled over frantically trying to secure the rest of his load, we salute him with our thanks.

“Danke,” I say.


Nothing tastes quite like soda pop found on the ground.


Calories don’t count on your birthday, so I had McDonalds for brunch – my first time in months, since Namibia doesn’t have any – and canned spaghetti-O’s and ramen noodles for dinner. The McDonalds wasn’t serving sausage McMuffins though, and the spaghetti-O’s were nothing like Chef Boyardees, and the ramen noodles weren’t Korean. Not to mention that back at home, my man and my family were having a turkey dinner together, thousands of miles away. I missed home.

Just when I was starting to feel the most homesick, the Germans surprised me with some special birthday cake, and then we headed out for gloria’s birthday partying part two. Bonga brought us to an empty parking lot that had been converted for the night to a dance party. I love the way South Africans can turn anything into a party. Booze was being sold out of a window of one of the building, there was a braai in the corner, someone pulled up their car and was blasting music out of their car stereo, and girls were dancing their butts off all around. It was fascinating to watch. We headed in for a relatively early night though (2AM instead of 4AM): the next day I was finally leaving Soweto and flying to Cape Town for the next part of my adventure.

Merry Christmas from Soweto

We all woke up Christmas morning with massive hangovers. I also woke up to find that the dorm that I had been enjoying all to myself was suddenly filled with five snoring South Africans who had driven up the night before from the Eastern Cape for a wedding that day. My bunkmate also included the bride herself, who was in the process of getting dressed into her traditional clothing. I thought it was really funny that I had slept in the same room as the bride on the night before her wedding (better than being in the same room on the night after her wedding, right?). We shared a special bonding moment complaining about the costs of weddings these days and how sometimes we’ll just be glad to have this all over with and to be married.

As my Christmas celebration, I attended a nearby church in Soweto, the Bophelong congregation of the Phomolong Meadowlands Parish, an evangelical Lutheran church. It was pretty much like out of the movies. People were singing hymns in Zulu from memory without hymnbooks, and dancing up and down the aisle. The pastor would occasionally punctuate songs with “God is good!” and the congregation would reply with “All the time!”, and then the pastor would say a few words before being interrupted by another woman starting up a chorus and the whole congregation joining in at the next line. It seemed chaotic but there was obviously enough routine that the children could follow along. It was incredible.





After the church service, they handed out goodie bags and jack-o-lanterns (??) to the kids, and ice cream to everyone else. People were really friendly and eager to talk to us. One man even insisted that we come over to his house to visit his ninety-five-year-old grandmother, who very much wanted to meet us and take photos with us.




Timo, chatting up the church girls like a player

I decided to walk home from church with Phil and Marcus. By that point, all of Soweto had become a jumping, bumping street party. People were wandering the streets drunk at eleven in the morning. It seems here like even if a house was too poor to fix their gate, they still somehow could afford an excellent stereo system that would pump house music out into the streets. Today, it seemed like every one of them was playing the Facebook song.

Walking home from church took on the feel of club hopping: we’d only walk a few metres before occupants of the next house shouted “Merry Christmas!” and “Welcome to Soweto!” and insisted that we come over and join them, all while begging to take photos with the Chinese girl. We’d oblige, then move on to the next house, where all of this would be repeated.

We were invited to the bride’s wedding, but were given vague instructions on the location, so we piled into the car to try to find it. We drove and drove all around Soweto until I fell asleep in the car and dreamed that I understood German. When I woke up, we had accidentally arrived at a birthday party instead. We decided to head back home and keep napping on the hammock under the palm tree.

The rest of the day was spent gently nursing our Christmas hangovers and trying to beat that hot summer heat. The hostel had no Christmas CDs so we played someone’s mix CD of oldies, full of Dusty Springfield and the Shangrilas, really depressing lyrics like the way oldies songs are. From my hammock I could hear at least three different house parties from down the street. The cacophony of the different music crashing together was wild and delightful; it seemed like the essence of an African Christmas.

Christmas Eve in Soweto

When I got back from my bike tour of Soweto with Thomas, I arrived in time to see Phil and Timo donning Santa hats, taking care of some forty Soweto children in the park, all carrying pictures of Santa Claus that they had coloured in themselves. Some Swedish group had arrived with a big bag of Christmas presents for the kids, who were completely beside themselves with excitement and anticipation.



Timo told each kid receiving a gift to give their little colouring sheets to someone in the Swedish group as a thank you. One of the kids gave their paper to me, I guess because in their eyes I could be Swedish. I have to admit that it melted my heart to see the kids’ reactions when they received their gifts. It’s unbelievable how little it takes to make these kids so happy. Friso was so excited about receiving a little race car that he was shouting and showing it off to everyone, including me, running the car along the table and the ground and people’s arms. Another kid received brand new soccer shoes to replace his worn sandals, and after Timo tied the shoelaces for him, the little boy’s beaming smile was almost wider than his face. It was so cute to see that it hurt my heart. I was filled with deep regret that I’d shown up in Soweto empty-handed. Just buying a big bag of lollipops would have made the kids’ day. Instead, I gave out a couple of racist mints that I’d gotten from the Spur restaurant the night before.









Apparently Germans celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, so Phil’s mom, whom we’ve now dubbed “Mama Africa”, insisted on Christmasifying everything on Saturday night. While the boys went out, she decorated the whole common room with candles, real pine branches she’d smuggled from Germany, marzipan, Christmas fudge, chocolate santas, and all sorts of German Christmas treats with names I can’t pronounce. She also sported a ridiculously small Christmas hat. Sometimes moms are great to have around, even if it’s not your own.





I asked the Germans, if they celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, what do they do on Christmas? They didn’t have an answer.

The hostel owner was all in a tizzy because we had been promised a Christmas dinner, but due to miscommunication, or something, all of the hostel staff had gone home and nobody had lit the fire for the braai. He managed to whip together a Christmas miracle however, and soon enough we were enjoying a delicious meal of braai meat, wors sausages, mealiepap, and like four kinds of salads, only one of them consisting of vegetables.




And a lot of South African brewed Castle Lager.

After dinner, we all sat around the fire with Trigger and Stanza, who was working the night shift at the Lebo’s that night. We found a bunch of drums and I busted out my ukulele so we sang Christmas carols, mostly in German. I discovered that my ukulele playing improves vastly when I drink.




Then we had many rounds of Jagermeilter (I don’t understand why Germans like Jagermeilter so much), which resulted in many bizarre photos that I looked through the next morning and have no recollection of taking, and also cannot post because *somebody’s* fly was open the entire time. Sigh, boys.


Lil phil passed out

arriving in soweto

My arrival in the township of Soweto was greeted by an incredibly adorable six-year-old boy named Friso running excitedly to me. He had been playing by himself with the broken bumper of a car in an empty lot, but when he saw me, he dropped it and ran right up to me. He just wanted to say hi. I said hello back to him and let him walk me to Lebo’s. I started thinking about maybe having kids one day.


At Lebo’s, I met two young guys named Phil and Timo who live near the hostel and work at the after-school program for Soweto that’s connected to Lebo’s. They were going to grab a bite at Maponya Mall. Even though I generally feel like malls are the ultimate opposite of culture,I decided to come along. I’d been spending my entire afternoon in Soweto napping and drinking beers while watching MTV (Lebo’s has satellite) - if I did that any longer, I was going to get drunk by 7PM.


Maponya Mall
Maponya Mall is the biggest mall in Soweto, and was still open and full of people when we arrived. The frantic shopping days before Christmas is pretty universal around the globe. Club music was being pumped throughout the mall, with the occasional shopper dropping their bags to dance (I told you, people here really love to dance). The boys walked right past a McDonalds and this awesome looking restaurant called Tavern specializing in “African soul food” like lamb stew, and into this chain restaurant called Spurs.

They have the Spurs chain in Namibia too. It’s found throughout South Africa and specializes in steaks and stereotypes. It basically could not exist in North America. Even though all the meaty ribs, wings, and filet mignons would suit a more Cowboy theme, for some reason the chain decided to immerse itself into the “Indian” side of the theme, decorating the entire interior with fake totem poles, dream catchers, and smiling natives with feathers in their hair.

I mean, just look at the place mats.





Having a lifelong passion for First Nations issues and having just finished working for an Aboriginal judge, it took my strongest sense of tact and hipster irony to keep a straight face. I mean, nobody else saw any cause for discomfort, not the black waiting staff, or the German guys I’d come with, who were adolescent boys craving steak. So I struggled to build my bridge to this cultural iceberg, and ordered a chicken mayo toastie, trying not to think too much about the loaded ironies of spending my first evening in the world’s most famous black township with two white boys in a vaguely racist restaurant in an affluent mall. At least the dessert was delicious, and our South African wine came in a bottle shaped like a Christmas tree.

The next morning I went on a bike tour of Soweto which showed me another side of the township. Because I am freakishly short, I was given a child’s bike. I was guided by Thomas, a twenty-one-year old Soweto resident with a rich knowledge of his place of birth.


thomas

me and my kid-sized bike
Soweto is a township of Johannesburg, but it has a population of 3.5 million people, which is almost twice the population of the entire country of Namibia and more than three times the population of my hometown Ottawa, so really it could be a city on its own. It has 38 suburbs, all sprawled out as far as the eye can see, as there are no skyscrapers to block out the sky.


soweto sprawls out as far as the eye can see


In Namibia, white people always warn me about being careful going into the black township of Katutura. They paint a picture of the black townships being full of misery, poverty, and people waiting to rob you. Going through Soweto with Thomas was a different experience, however. Obviously the crime and poverty was certainly present, but what I had not expected was the friendliness of people. As I sailed down the streets of Soweto on my kid’s bike, children ran out into the streets to greet me, waving out their hands so I could give them a high five, and breaking out into beautiful song.

I also had not expected the rich cultural and artistic history of Soweto. Being North American, I’ve been used to believing that nothing culturally revolutionary comes from the suburbs. But it was Soweto, and particularly the artsy neighbourhood of Orlando West, that brought the world stirring political poetry against apartheid, kwaito music, and the song made famous by the Lion King as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. We saw children playing soccer in the streets, referred to by the locals as “indoor football”, because the “field” was surrounded by houses. There is so much feeling of life and energy that you could sense it everywhere, even in the poorest parts of the township.

Thomas took me down to the Mzimhlophe informal settlement area, one of the poorer parts of Soweto. Even here the little kids ran up to me to say hello and to throw their arms around me in a heart-melting hug.








the communal toilets


cow heads









I watched a man sit on a bucket, getting his head shaved in an outdoor barber shop. Thomas also took us into a shebeen, which was no more than a dark shack full of flies and old people drinking at eleven in the morning. I felt a little claustrophobic in there. It certainly made the shebeen that Tshuka took us to seem like a luxury hotel bar in comparison.


trying out a locally brewed beer in the shebeen




Thomas spoke of the persistence of apartheid attitudes even after the regime fell. The blacks and the whites are still quite segregated to different areas of Johannesburg. He told me how often when white people see a black person approach them, they nervously hide their purses and wallets. He told me one story when he had gone to Sandton City to buy designer shoes for his uncle. As he browsed through the shoe section of one store, the white manager came after him and told him, “Boy, this is not a place for you to play. Get out.” When Thomas explained that he wanted buy a pair of shoes, the manager laughed and told him there was no way he had enough money. Rather than arguing with the manager, Thomas simply left, found another shop selling the same shoes, and brought the shoes back to the original store with the receipt, just to prove to the manager that he really had meant to spend his money there.

We also biked down to the Hector Pieterson Memorial. I’ve already mentioned in a previous blog entry about how personally moving it is for me to think about the 1976 Soweto Uprising, where the high school students of Soweto decided, in the words of Thomas, “To hell with Afrikaans in our school, to hell with a Bantu education” that was designed to keep the blacks uneducated and enslaved to their white employers. In the midst of this demonstration where hundreds of students, mere teenagers, were shot and killed, thirteen year old Hector Pieterson died. The Memorial was full of thoughtful symbolism and once again I felt my eyes filling with tears. There was a row of olive trees planted in a line from where Hector was shot to where he finally died. There was a water fountain, symbolizing the tears that were shed by Soweto parents who lost their children during the protest. The fountain contained stones, the students’ only defense against an army of policemen wielding guns.










olive trees


This was a more upper-class area of Soweto. It also contained the house of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela’s house.


We finished off the tour back at Lebo’s where we were served a “Soweto burger”, known as a kota, consisting of sausages, processed cheese, some sort of abnormally bright pink processed mystery meat, and fries, all stuffed between sandwich bread. It was the beginning of a long series of meals where I would not touch anything resembling a vegetable for days.


vegetables are what food eats