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- Herausgeber: BookRix
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
The true stories that follow describe what life was like in South Africa towards the end of the Apartheid regime. During the civil war and the struggle for freedom, 'The Song of the Township' is the sound of life – the sound coming from a battle-torn Black school where 1,500 young boys and girls were struggling to find a future. It is the story of the many peoples of our 'Rainbow Nation' who lived in the heart of a very poor township. The story begins in 1987, but one can't help but wonder if the song of the township is not exactly the same 30 years later in 2020! Umlazi Township in Durban is typical of all townships in South Africa. Here we find a quarter of a million African people struggling to survive from one meal to the next. They are caught relentlessly in the grip of protest marches, forced strikes and the ruthless killings of the innocent in the middle of a civil war. All the characters of this book are fictitious and the names of places have been changed but they are based on real people. When King Solomon wrote his immortal words in the Holy Bible, he could have been speaking about one of our little townships: "A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to uproot. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. For everything under the sun There is a season." (Extract from Ecclesiastes 3:2-8)
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Song of the Township
BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 MunichForeword
The true stories that follow describe what life was like in South Africa towards the end of the Apartheid regime. During the civil war and the struggle for freedom, ’The Song of the Township‘ is the sound of life – the sound coming from a battle-torn Black school where 1,500 young boys and girls were struggling to find a future. It is the story of the many peoples of our ‘Rainbow Nation’ who lived in the heart of a very poor township. The story begins in 1987, but one can’t help but wonder if the song of the township is not exactly the same 30 years later in 2020!
Umlazi Township in Durban is typical of all townships in South Africa. Here we find a quarter of a million African people struggling to survive from one meal to the next. They are caught relentlessly in the grip of protest marches, forced strikes and the ruthless killings of the innocent in the middle of a civil war.
All the characters of this book are fictitious and the names of places have been changed but they are based on real people.
When King Solomon wrote his immortal words in the Holy Bible, he could have been speaking about one of our little townships:
"A time to be born
and a time to die.
A time to plant
and a time to uproot.
A time to love
and a time to hate.
A time for war and a time for peace.
For everything under the sun
There is a season."
(Extract from Ecclesiastes 3:2-8)
1.The Cock Crows at Dawn
"Time Past, Time Present and Time Future
are all perhaps contained in Time Present. "
– Burnt Norton by T.S. Eliot
In the 21st Century, any schoolteacher who dares to cane a naughty pupil in a classroom would very quickly find himself out on his ear, without a job and facing a very serious court case from the irate parents for injury to a minor. However, back in 1987, life was very different and the school children lived in fear of the teacher’s stick - as you will see from this story. I wish to take you back in time to the 1980’s towards the end of the Apartheid era in South Africa. Allow me to paint you a picture of the strange days of that era. Allow the inhabitants to sing you the rare and wonderful song of the township…
"You know how it is in the morning," said young Thabo, "The cock crows at dawn. The sun rises above the hills and you slide deeper down into the warm blankets while your eyes are still closed. Then you lie there as long as you can, until the last possible moment when you have to get out of bed to face the harsh light of day."
Thabo Zulu was only fifteen. Standing tall with gangly legs and a dark black skin, the youngster had a head of curly woollen hair. He was slightly built with deep-set intelligent eyes and a worldly wise way of cocking his head at each problem that came his way. Thabo lived with his parents and his three brothers and two sisters in a tiny two-roomed shack in Umlazi Township on the outskirts of Durban a large metropolitan coastal city. There was a communal tap in the street outside and a long-drop toilet made of rusted corrugated iron with a scarred wooden door. There was no electricity in the shack therefore Thabo’s stout mother cooked their meagre meals on a paraffin stove, and Thabo did his homework by the light of a candle at night. There was never enough money to afford the simple necessities of life let alone an alarm clock! His mother and father found it hard enough to feed all those hungry mouths so do you know how they managed to awaken at four thirty in the morning? Every morning at sunrise, they relied on the crowing of the cock in the backyard to awaken the family with his insistent "Cock-a-doodle doo,".
I was Thabo’s Std 7 English teacher and the young boy once confided in me, with a lopsided grin, “Last year we were very hungry and one Sunday, when my parents were at church, my brother and I killed the cock and cooked it for lunch. My father was furious with us but he also ate some of the chicken. But the next week, we could never wake up on time! My father was late for work, the children late for school, so we had to get another cock to wake us up in the morning!"
Thabo's job was to get his younger brothers out of bed and dressed. If he failed to do so, his father was certain to thrash him. When tiny Thabo shook his brothers awake they always complained long and loudly.
"So you can't win," Thabo told me theatrically, "whichever way you look at it. It is always the same: dress in a hurry, eat the lumpy porridge which my sulky sister prepares in a hurry and rush out the door. Halfway down the road to the station, "Oh no! I've forgotten my train ticket again." So I turn and race back home to face my mother's scolding tongue, "You'll be late for school, Thabo. Just look at you! You've forgotten your tie!"”
“Please tell me more about your life, Thabo,” I asked him curiously. “Your life is so different from mine.”
He nodded and took me into his confidence, sharing his story in the present tense, “It’s early and on my way to the train, I have to hurry on back down the road past the shebeen where they sell illegal liquor from early in the morning and the gangsters hang out to smoke a pipe of zol. I must face the jeering taunts of the tsotsis. The tsotsis are the thugs who hang around the shebeen. They are busy thinking up ways to steal money so they can buy a beer or some drugs to take the hard edge off the day.
When I get to the train station, the train is full up and there is standing room only, as always. So I squeeze in next to the fat aunty for protection so that some other boy won't steal my train ticket. But I wish the aunty wouldn't squeeze so hard against me! It makes me feel embarrassed the way she touches me. I slide away from her once the train is moving and keep a tight hand on my schoolbag. If it gets stolen, my father will kill me. "Oh no! There's a History test today and I forgot to learn. The teacher will cane me for sure. I am sure he enjoys it, the swine!"
I jump out the train at Umlazi Station and run past the street vendors selling fruit. I wonder if I can grab an orange, but it’s too dangerous because old Mkhize has an eye like a hawk watching us young kids.”
Thabo is caught up in his tale and continues passionately,” "Oh no, I can see the Kombi taxi already leaving the train station. When will the next one come?" I dump my bag by the side of the road and try to hitch a ride. Eish! The cars are going so fast and no-one will stop for me. Then I see my little Princess coming along through the crowd of pushing people. It's so nice to see a friendly face in this cold world. "Sakubona, Princess. Kunjani wena?" (Hello, Princess, how are you?)
Princess is shaking and tearful. She is only a small girl in Std.6 with thin, bony legs and tearful eyes. Her school dress is torn and I know her father will be cross because he is out of work now for seven months. She greets me by crying out, "Thabo, some bad boys cut my dress! They told me not to go to school. Why are they so jealous?"
"Haai! I am so sorry, my friend, it is too bad! They are jealous because they can't get into school because there are no places left in the school. Already we are sitting three to a desk and sharing one pencil between the three of us. That is why they cut your dress. Don't cry, my baby. Oh look! Here is a taxi at last."”
Thabo is a natural storyteller and like most Africans, he speaks in the present tense as he warms to his tale. He looks me full in the eyes and continues, “The Kombi taxi screeches to the kerb and the sliding door rumbles open. The driver’s mate is hanging out the door, clutching the doorframe with one hand and collecting money from the passengers with the other hand. The taxi is already nearly full with men and women off to work and the taxi is riding dangerously low on the axels. The impatient crowd in the road all push and shove to get in. I use my favourite trick and I squeeze my small body between their legs to get in before they can see me! Then I hear a wail from Princess outside who failed to get in. "Don't leave me, Thabo, I am afraid!"
Thabo is thinking aloud for me. “If I am late for school, I will get a hiding, but if I leave Princess here at the taxi rank someone will probably steal her schoolbag for money. Eish! It’s too bad, but I can’t leave her behind so I slide out of the taxi onto the road again and the taxi roars off in a cloud of dust.
"Princess, we are going to be late and it is all your fault!" I say to her. I am not happy. No, not happy at all. Every day I come late at school and the teacher, he hits me so hard my backside is still sore from the day before. But then my princess smiles up at me and it make my heart go ‘boom boom’. She puts her tiny hands up and gently pulls my head down to her lips and she whispers in my ear, "Thank you, Thabo. Thank you for waiting for me. I am so happy to have you as my friend."”
Thabo’s story made a deep impression on me as his White schoolteacher. In those early days in 1987, I remember so well driving my car to school each day along the bumpy, dusty roads through the black township of Umlazi. Mile after mile of wood and rusty corrugated iron shacks overflowing with barefoot kids and unemployed men and women who live in communal chaos. Most of the shacks do not have electricity and the shack dwellers have to make fires outside their doors in order to cook their food in fire-blackened iron pots. There is no running water in the houses and instead there is a communal cold water tap up the road that serves many homes with water. At the back of several shacks is a long drop toilet which consists of a deep hole dug into the ground with a corrugated iron shelter surrounding the hole.
Many of the children are never sure who their real mommy and daddy are. “Will my daddy ever come home again?” is the cry of countless children. Many of them are at the mercy of some “uncle” or “granny” who lives off child labour. They live surrounded by grim shebeens where the tavern keepers trundle crates of beer in wheelbarrows to supply desperate men - those sad souls who go to seek some temporary relief from hell in a quart bottle of beer.
