Around the World with Bradley: Around Howick Part One

We shop. Faye moves slowly and deliberately carefully putting lychees in a bag.

Me: You are slower than an old granny.

I then see an old lady standing next to me and quickly add: There’s nothing wrong with being slow like an old granny.

I go to Health and Racquet Gym. Rows of machines. At the gym the lady at the counter asks me a question four times. Four times I answer.

She says:  Don’t understand you.

She laughs.

I hope nobody speaks to me again.

Rainbow patrons. Blacks, whites and Indians. The first thing you notice about anybody is their skin. There’s a group of blacks on the cycling machines. Couple of whites on the machines. Large mirror on the wall. I see myself and I am a white person. I can’t disguise what I am. People are going to assume and treat me certain ways. I wish I could be no colour. Just disappear and vanish.

There is an even mix of people in the gym. But mainly blacks talking to blacks and whites to whites. Not much talking of any type. Its serious business. Music pulsating everywhere and continuously.

Gym instructor: Do you like South Africa?

Me: Do you?

Gym instructor: Too much violence. Three people were shot dead outside my father’s shop. For no reason. They all have families. The guy went crazy. Eight bullets just like that.

My reply is silence. Going by the pulse monitor, I am wearing, my pulse has just gone up.

 

Alison has a daughter called Jolene. We are invited to Jolene’s eighteenth birthday party. Held at scout hall in Howick. Jolene is an apprentice hairdresser.

The young people stand around outside smoking and drinking. A lot of the males are fat and immovable. The females are not. They are hyped up. Look like trainee hairdressers.

A car, bakkie, does donuts in the dark with someone standing up in the back. This is called surfing.

 

Shopping. I meander into the CNA newsagent.

Lady

Lady (Starts to speak Afrikaans and switches to English. She holds a pen): Is this pen rejectable?

The shop assistant stares hard and harder at this lady.

Lady: Is this pen rejectable?

The shop assistant stares and suddenly her face lights up. She has worked out that the lady wants a replacement for her pen.

 

Pavilion: An enclosed shopping centre. Car guards and a fence. Mainly clothing shops. Shoppers are mainly white and Indian. Almost no inter-racial groups or talking between groups. The smoke inside this starts to irritate my throat and eyes. See hardly anyone smoking but you can smell it everywhere. Everybody in the shopping centre sees Bradley and says: He’s so cute.”

Back at the car there is a different car guard. I say: give him R2.

XXX: I wouldn’t. It’s not the same car guard.

Debbie: They work shifts and hand over all the cars to the next guy.

 

Drive up the highway. Trucks flash by. Speeding cars sitting behind and flash their lights. Bradley screams. We are trapped. No escape as we listen to Bradley cry.

We drive past a chicken farm. A sign says “Chicken farm. Please don’t hoot.”

 

Shopping at the Indian market.

We stand and wait as they cook samosas and curry puffs.

Lady Indian vendor: These Indians won’t pay for this. We are poor. Our blessing is the people who like the food. That’s better than money.

Another stall kills chickens and ducks to order.

A lady selling sheep’s heads (cleaned) asks me if I want to take her photo.

The car guard complains about Indians: All they give is 1/2 cents or nothing.