funeral in khayelitsha

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The skies darken as I twist through the dirt roads of Khayelitsha Site B. It is already starting to rain. When I get close I pull out my cell phone and push the memory button with Nomathamsanqa’s name on it. I met her for the first time a year ago when she appeared on my doorstep during a heavy rain storm wearing a bright red turban and an enormous Xhosa fabric dress. There was no question then that she would stay and no question that she would be an important part of my life. 

Normally when I visit here small sentinels watch for my car and run through the warren of shacks to warn Noma of my approach. Miniature sentinels bringing messages to the Queen. But there are no sentinels today. I phone as instructed and a few minutes later I see her distinctive figure coming towards me through the crowd that has gathered in the street. 

A yellow and white awning has been stretched over the Shebeen making an outdoor chamber big enough to house four rows of plastic chairs and the coffin. Taking my hand Nomathamsanqa leads me into the shelter. I am conscious of the fact that I am the only white person here and for several minutes am not sure how to act. Noma says nothing and I stay by her side but in a few minutes my section rises to sing and I realise it is sort of the choir. 

I get out my camera to explain my presence but hesistate, I feel painfully American, unsure of the social codes and not wishing to offend. But I realise quickly that I am the only person here having an issue. Xhosa people have no trouble expressing their emotions and no shame about being photographed doing so.

The first speaker is a handsome man of about fifty with a thin moustache. He wears a black suit with wide lapels and a black tie with white church insignia. Holding his watch in one hand he speaks quickly, navigating the clicks and dips of Xhosa with an ease I envy.  I don’t know what he’s saying but he speaks with such vehemence that I imagine he is a close family friend. Camera raised I slide to the front and sit at his feet as he addresses the crowd. From this position I am shooting directly up at him but my presence only seems to increase his fervor. He waves his arms wildly, pacing and shouting, covering me with a fine spray of spit and perspiration. 

The boy in the coffin was 17, killed in a car crash on the way to a football match. On either side of the coffin, teammates with downturned faces stand, arms crossed over uniformed chests. I photograph a river of black rainwater under the coffin, football boots with high white socks on either side. 

An older man speaks now. His hair is greying and he wears a long black mourning coat. He begins softly, crying a little but his voice builds till he is shouting hoarsely, waving his fist at the audience. I imagine he is railing against the injustice of such a futile death. 

Outside the rain is falling in a thin veil. My camera catches a glimpse of my housekeepers’ son standing under a red umbrella. The boy in the coffin was one of his best friends. His bends his head and wipes his eyes as my camera translates him into tones of grey.

The next speaker is a woman in a dark floral dress and an enormous white, Sunday Church hat that looks like a cake. Later I learn she is the Preacher’s wife but again the strength of her feeling makes me think she is a relative. 

The boy’s family sits in another section of the tent. His mother is large and immobile in black also with a new hat. She is flanked by other female relatives in Sunday clothes and the boys little sister, all in white. The boy’s father is spread across two seats on the other side of the tent and I wonder if he’s drunk or overcome as his head nods to his chest.

After the service the coffin is wheeled out under the clearing sky and slid into a purpose-built trailer made of glass. Printed pictures of the boy’s face are taped to the windows. Two long rows of teenagers in football uniforms lead the procession to an industrial building 2km away. We follow slowly in cars without speaking and park on the dusty shoulder next to barbed wire-topped walls. 

The large, open, brick structure of the hall is already packed when we arrive but Noma leads us through the gaping crowd and we sit in the third row. Turning my head I take in the sea of bobbing black faces behind me. The coffin has been positioned on the right side of a small stage with six plastic chairs and a small pile of flowered wreaths. The chairs are soon occupied by those who spoke at the funeral and three others. One of the men has a smooth face and intense black eyes that I imagine have special powers. Noma tells me he is the head of the church. Later he grips my hand and looks deep into my soul. 

When the crowd settles speakers come from the audience one at a time to address the clergy and the audience. This time the speaches are less practiced and more frequently interrupted by tears. I imagine those who speak are telling about the last time they saw the boy alive. When one of the young men in football uniforms takes the stage I imagine him telling the story of how the boy died by the roadside. Again I don’t understand the words but I feel the emotion all the same and I notice heavy drops of water filling my camera’s viewfinder. 

After the speaches there is quiet and then suddenly music. Noma tells me that the spirit is being welcomed into the afterlife. The figures on stage stand and rock to the music. One man pounds the floor with a large staff as he dances. An enormous lady in a flowered dress and giant sunglasses comes forward, waving her arms, her expansive form taken with the spirit of the music. The whole room is pulsing with heavenly singing. The clergy dance out the door and the crowd follows. 

Suddenly silent, we stand blinking in the sunlight as the coffin is re-loaded into its purpose built trailer. 

Back in my car I wipe my face and turn onto the highway. In front of me six young men on the back of a bakkie smile and wave. I recognise the handsome face of my housekeeper’s son and I pull out my camera and shoot a last picture of him as I drive away.

noma

Noma 

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A friend from England phoned. He was in New York and would meet me for dinner at an Indian restaurant on 6th Street. I found it easily, a small blue door surrounded by thousands of fairy lights. Inside I ducked under a heavy canopy of bright red chilli Christmas lights and made my way through the cramped red plastic tables. I found Mark and he greeted me like old friends do, hugging me too long and changing the subject quickly. I watched his handsome face across the table and thought absently that it must be easier not to be American. At the next table six Indian waiters sang ‘Happy Birthday’ at full volume accompanied by a blaring disco soundtrack. Mark and I sat smiling and waiting. Poppadams arrived with sweet chilli and mint and yogurt. 
Then he said it.: “I’m moving to Cape Town.”
“South Africa?!” I asked in disbelief.  “you can do that? Just move?!” 

I have often had the feeling at pivotal moments in my life that the soundtrack suddenly fades. The restaurant blurred suddenly around us, the brightly coloured lights and the singing waiters blending into a distant haze as Mark answered question after question about how and where. After I hurry him through his dinner the restaurant spat us out on the freezing sidewalk. Snowflakes were just starting to fall and we could see our breath leaving our mouths in steaming clouds as we talked and walked home. 

That night I pushed the neighbours cat out of the way and opened the 6 locks on my front door. I left the lights off and dropped my keys into a ceramic bowl in the front hall before proceeding directly to my computer. One touch of it’s green blinking eye and the room was suddenly bathed in blue light. I clicked on the Travelocity website and quickly booked tickets…

A few weeks later my daughter lay sleeping beside me, the gentle hum and rumble of the jet engines all around us. I pulled the synthetic airplane blanket around her and switched on my reading light. In the small pool of florescent light I reached for the in-flight magazine. Flipping quickly through the pages I landed absently on a real estate ad. It seems now that all these events happened without my full knowledge. Some greater hand turning the pages of my destiny. Funny how life is altered by the smallest things – a phone call, an ad in a magazine. What made me tear the page from the magazine, tuck it into my bag and switch off the light? Does fate just step in every once in a while and take the wheel?
____

Toast in my mouth, I take a swig of tea and I run down the stairs to answer the repeatedly-ringing doorbell. 
“Coming!” I shout. 

Rain pounds on the corrugated plastic roof of the front hall. At the door stands an enormous black woman with a red turban and matching dress. 
She is perfectly dry. 
We stand looking at each other and then her face blooms into an enormous smile. “I am Eunice, I have come to work for you.” 

I hadn’t asked her to come, she had simply appeared; like the moon appears sometimes in the sky as if it was always there. There was no question that I would say ‘yes’ and we sat at the dining room table without being sure what else there was to say. 

“It’s not your name is it? Eunice.” 
“No.” She says “But you won’t be able to say my name with your American tongue.” 
“Try me” I said. 

The word rolls so beautifully off her lips and lands in the air with a soft click. I was determined and I did my best and she smiled at me and nodded. 

_____

Then the house was slowly filled with her personality. In the good times she would sing as she did the ironing and I could feel her presence making my heart warmer inside wherever I was. In bad times she would sit in my office and wipe tears from her broad face. Or we would stand in the road outside her house, my tears falling on her generous chest. The connection between us was always strong but deepended over time.  So much so that we shared physical pains. If she fell, I felt pain in the same limb; if I woke with a pain in my neck I knew she would arrive rubbing her neck just there. 

She shared a million African wisdoms with me: bees in the house means company is coming; Worms in the drain, a message from the ancestors; The feeling inside when something is coming; and the meaning of Ubuntu – ‘I am who I am because you are who you are’ – the (truly African) practice of sharing what you have with those who don’t.

______

Noma arrived in tears one morning. Her husband, had come home from work drunk, they had fought. He pushed her out of the room they shared and - as she and her children tried to beat down the door- he made a noose with en electric cable. Now filled with guilt and anger and shame she came to me. Together we drove to her house. We parked the car on the dusty road and walked in silence through the twisted paths between shacks to hers. 

Her husbands’ sisters had been summoned to sit on suicide watch and we all sat formally on chairs in the small living room not knowing what to say. Her husband moved from room to room sullen and shamed, in a trance. His thin face said everything and nothing as his sisters’ similar features smiled politely at me. She and I shared this. 

We have shared everything. Divorce and betrayal, sickness and health, sadness and joy, growth and pain. We raised daughters together and lived together for more than twelve important years. When I think of South Africa and the years I have lived here hers’ is the first face I will think of. And when we return to visit she will be my first stop. I was so luck to have seen life a little from her perspective and when we leave, a piece of all of us will stay with her.

kryptonite

There was a storm that night. Tree branches fighting above me as I steer my small car into the narrow street. The wind screamed around me, the sound of leaves slapping against eachother everywhere above my head. If our story was a movie the audience would instantly recognise what we didn’t - the dramatic foreshadowing of things to come. The turbulent moment when stars collide to create another species, the clicking into the charged track of crash-bound train. 

I notice him instantly, the red embers from his lit cigarette glowing bright against the dark blue night sky. 'Why don’t I ever meet guys like that?' I thought to myself as I push the wind-heavy door open and it carries me with it. 
'Can I help you?' his voice is brought to me on the wind. I look up quickly and notice the intricate blue patterns swimming on his pale arms and his red hair, the colour of spoiled peaches. He smiles easily and I am aware that the hairs on my arms and neck are standing on end. Without thinking I hand him my precious, yellow camera case. As he lifts it his muscles respond easily to the heavy weight and I watch him cross the now darkened road. I stand for a moment, listening to the complaining wind and remark that I trusted him instantly. Would I change something? Did I know in that moment that there was no jumping the track, that I was already being pulled towards a predetermined precipice?

When he stood near me I could taste the tobacco from his cigarette in the air between us. My skin felt warm and cold at once and I could hear a quickened pulse pounding in my neck and wrists. Taking my hand he slipped a smooth white tablet into it and I put it instinctively in my mouth. The hard exterior yielding instantly to the pressure of my teeth, the shattered crackling candy coating exploding into a burst of sugary, fake, strawberry flavour in my mouth. I look at him wide-eyed. I feel like a blind person suddenly noting the sharpness of my remaining senses. 

Weeks later I make my way to baggage claim and then out to the meeting area practicing my smile. But he’s not there. And then he is. Later when I look at pictures of him I’m not sure what it was that blinded me. Like a cartoon character under the influence of a love potion all I saw was sparkling stars and floating hearts. In the car he looks directly into my eyes “We both know what this is.” He says simply and I nod. 

I could linger on this part forever. The dizzying feeling of falling madly, irrationally and blindly without a thought for the fast-approaching fatal end. The surety of the others arms and the kind of laughter you hear only under tousled sheets in alternating rays of sun and moonlight. Whatever happened next, this part of the story is undisputable. It is not possible to taint it even with the light of what he did or I did or what happened between us. There were no missed clues, nothing I should have or could have seen. Everything was already written, including the necessary suspension of rationality. I couldn’t and wouldn’t change it. 

Even when I knew, I could still close my eyes and curl my mind around him, his skin blending into mine, his red hair caught in my fingers, his breath against my neck. I had to look away, and remind myself, repeating what he’d done aloud to myself like a rosary, because I knew that one look at that flame could melt the fragile framework of my resistance. Like heroin one taste would take me back to a place that I couldn’t afford to go. And so it ended the way it had to, with drama and tears and shouting and then silence. But at the same time it is never over, never will be.

ilhaam

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I love people who do not fit into traditional categories. People who defy definition because defining them would require putting them in a group of peers and they are peerless. People who challenge and inspire you every single time you are in their presence and who drive you to lengths you had not imagined possible. Ilhaam Behardien is definitely one of these. I once described the first course I took with her as ‘The Ilhaam Behardien School of Fasten Your Fucking Seatbelt’. Because it was just that. 

The advert that found its way, miraculously, onto my computer screen read like it was written for me. The course was called ‘Defining Yourself as an Artist’. It described what I had always been looking for, a course that would help me find my voice as an artist and a format for me to funnel my creative energy thru. But Ilhaam’s course should come with a warning. Just like the video screens of doctors on the way into Space Mountain at Disneyworld that warn you to ‘turn back now or proceed at your own risk’. The course warning label should read: Those who pass by this portal must be ready to break patterns, and moulds and stereotypes and break down barriers and bridges. To face your fears and your inner voices and the music and the light. To open your eyes and your heart and your mind and Pandora’s box and search for hidden truth and naked honesty; to grasp the Wizards ring and the brass ring and take hold of yourself by the scruff of your misconceptions and wage battle against your own demons armed only with art and soul. 

Day one I arrive, imagining I know something. About art, about myself, about my voice and if not the form of art, I know what I like and have some idea what I am like. I am, of course, wrong. 

One of the things I love about Ilhaam is the way she looks. She has a smooth round face like the perfect face of a Russian doll, with giant eyes that expand regularly to full volume like the squeals that punctuate her expressive voice. Her skin is as white as milk and she wears a veil. Not a wolf in sheep’s clothing, more of a parallel universe in a simple piece of cloth. I, of course, had my own ideas about women who wear a veil; Ihaam would quickly dispossess me of these. 

Our first task was to analyze, as a group, the images each of us had brought and seek to define each person by the unwritten links between the images they had selected to show. This immediately made me uncomfortable. I hadn’t understood the assignment; I hadn’t really brought anything telling or deep, just pretty pictures. I was slow to realize that this said more about me than I cared to admit. 

Over the weeks that followed I watched myself cycle through my defenses one by one: ‘I’m not like these people, I am difficult to define’ = contentious. ‘I have been everywhere and done everything’ = closed. ‘I am interested in the theoretical root, the conceptual abstraction of pure art’ = I have no idea but I know I’m smarter than you. Each of these barriers brought new challenges and tears and each week Ilhaam would chip away at the veneer till what started to shine thru was the simpler, more obvious truths defined above. 

Art isn’t scary the way mountain climbing is, for instance. With mountain climbing you prepare your muscles for the ascent and you strengthen your nerves by repeated practice on increasingly challenging pistes. The trick about art is that the only thing that prepares you is to dive into the abyss with no defenses. To open yourself up completely in every way to be led, skinless, and artifice-free wherever art wants to take you. The hitch being that only if and when you drop your defenses enough to listen, will it speak to you.

This sort of thing is, of course, much easier to see in others. So each week in class I began to see how beautifully things were falling into place for those who had been able to hush their ‘inner critic’ and just follow the flow. Beautiful things emerged. Giant caress-able balls of crocheted angora with hidden secrets; tiny, golden, slippers with millions of pins protruding in every direction; raw cartoons of rats being crucified. But I was still stuck…

Then one week I started working on fax paper, briefly detailing the thousands of conceptual art ideas floating around in my head in a running commentary: motion-sensitive jewelry; survival suits for school kids; head-pieces that mimic animal survival techniques in social situations. Each idea I worked through to a final, finished product in my head and then described in class. This finally felt closer to my true artist self somehow. Pure concept without the process of execution. Non-retinal art that exists only in my head and the listener’s (check out immaculateconceptualisation channel on You Tube). Exciting and limitless conceptual exploration with no boundaries. Just as I was taking flight the course ended. And then something new happened. Ilhaam and I began collaborating on an exhibition. 

Each week we would meet for a few precious hours and we quickly discovered that working together something quite powerful began to shift. The complete synchronicity of understanding meant that we could each question and vocalize in a way we hadn’t individually. We worked with live mould and crystals and salt and photography and computer enhancement and a body of powerful work dealing with issues of the women of Gaza began to materialize. 

In the process of working together Ilhaam and I found a deep level of communication that binds us together irrevocably. I have the utmost respect for her as an artist, a thinker, a woman and a friend. This morning at 6:30AM we shot images of her, veiled and immersed in the icy waters of the tidal pools in Seapoint. With this project, as with all others, she was fully present, focused, fearless and generally ‘balls to the wall’. As always with Ilhaam the result was unexpected and the experience revelatory. 

I have no doubt that meeting Ilhaam has changed the course of my life, or that she will forever be a part of it. She reminds me that life is about that, the connection with another human being that goes beyond words, beyond pictures and beyond all limitations.

Love you girl.

noma

A friend from England phoned. He was in New York and would meet me for dinner at an Indian restaurant on 6th Street. I found it easily, a small blue door surrounded by thousands of fairy lights. Inside I ducked under a heavy canopy of bright red chilli Christmas lights and made my way through the cramped red plastic tables. I found Mark and he greeted me like old friends do, hugging me too long and changing the subject quickly. I watched his handsome face across the table and thought absently that it must be easier not to be American. At the next table six Indian waiters sang ‘Happy Birthday’ at full volume accompanied by a blaring disco soundtrack. Mark and I sat smiling and waiting. Poppadams arrived with sweet chilli and mint and yogurt. 
Then he said it.: “I’m moving to Cape Town.”
“South Africa?!” I asked in disbelief.  “you can do that? Just move?!” 

I have often had the feeling at pivotal moments in my life that the soundtrack suddenly fades. The restaurant blurred suddenly around us, the brightly coloured lights and the singing waiters blending into a distant haze as Mark answered question after question about how and where. After I hurry him through his dinner the restaurant spat us out on the freezing sidewalk. Snowflakes were just starting to fall and we could see our breath leaving our mouths in steaming clouds as we talked and walked home. 

That night I pushed the neighbours cat out of the way and opened the 6 locks on my front door. I left the lights off and dropped my keys into a ceramic bowl in the front hall before proceeding directly to my computer. One touch of it’s green blinking eye and the room was suddenly bathed in blue light. I clicked on the Travelocity website and quickly booked tickets…

A few weeks later my daughter lay sleeping beside me, the gentle hum and rumble of the jet engines all around us. I pulled the synthetic airplane blanket around her and switched on my reading light. In the small pool of florescent light I reached for the in-flight magazine. Flipping quickly through the pages I landed absently on a real estate ad. It seems now that all these events happened without my full knowledge. Some greater hand turning the pages of my destiny. Funny how life is altered by the smallest things – a phone call, an ad in a magazine. What made me tear the page from the magazine, tuck it into my bag and switch off the light? Does fate just step in every once in a while and take the wheel?
____

Toast in my mouth, I take a swig of tea and I run down the stairs to answer the repeatedly-ringing doorbell. 
“Coming!” I shout. 

Rain pounds on the corrugated plastic roof of the front hall. At the door stands an enormous black woman with a red turban and matching dress. 
She is perfectly dry. 
We stand looking at each other and then her face blooms into an enormous smile. “I am Eunice, I have come to work for you.” 

I hadn’t asked her to come, she had simply appeared; like the moon appears sometimes in the sky as if it was always there. There was no question that I would say ‘yes’ and we sat at the dining room table without being sure what else there was to say. 

“It’s not your name is it? Eunice.” 
“No.” She says “But you won’t be able to say my name with your American tongue.” 
“Try me” I said. 

The word rolls so beautifully off her lips and lands in the air with a soft click. I was determined and I did my best and she smiled at me and nodded. 

_____

Then the house was slowly filled with her personality. In the good times she would sing as she did the ironing and I could feel her presence making my heart warmer inside wherever I was. In bad times she would sit in my office and wipe tears from her broad face. Or we would stand in the road outside her house, my tears falling on her generous chest. The connection between us was always strong but deepended over time.  So much so that we shared physical pains. If she fell, I felt pain in the same limb; if I woke with a pain in my neck I knew she would arrive rubbing her neck just there. 

She shared a million African wisdoms with me: bees in the house means company is coming; Worms in the drain, a message from the ancestors; The feeling inside when something is coming; and the meaning of Ubuntu – ‘I am who I am because you are who you are’ – the (truly African) practice of sharing what you have with those who don’t.

______

Noma arrived in tears one morning. Her husband, had come home from work drunk, they had fought. He pushed her out of the room they shared and - as she and her children tried to beat down the door- he made a noose with en electric cable. Now filled with guilt and anger and shame she came to me. Together we drove to her house. We parked the car on the dusty road and walked in silence through the twisted paths between shacks to hers. 

Her husbands’ sisters had been summoned to sit on suicide watch and we all sat formally on chairs in the small living room not knowing what to say. Her husband moved from room to room sullen and shamed, in a trance. His thin face said everything and nothing as his sisters’ similar features smiled politely at me. She and I shared this. 

We have shared everything. Divorce and betrayal, sickness and health, sadness and joy, growth and pain. We raised daughters together and lived together for more than twelve important years. When I think of South Africa and the years I have lived here hers’ is the first face I will think of. And when we return to visit she will be my first stop. I was so luck to have seen life a little from her perspective and when we leave, a piece of all of us will stay with her.