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In the late afternoon, the weather changes and it starts raining.
About two hours later, we – I and my brother – are sent to go buy two plastic bags of potatoes in preparation for supper. We wait a bit until the rain subsides and, before leaving, cover our heads in OK Bazaar shopper bags and upper bodies in lindas. A linda is the black rubbish bag as known in Port Elizabeth’s townships, named after a black apartheid government official, Linda Thamsanqa, who is believed to have introduced these bags because they first came into being during his reign of terror on our streets.
While in the company of a multi-racial bunch of armed assistants, Linda was occasionally seen distributing these bags, thereby making his face known and familiarising himself with the neighbourhood.
Linda would often be seen sitting on top of a caspir in front of Fudumele’s shop across the street, right at the entrance into Bekwa Street, warning people to do right and avoidbeing found on the other side of the law: to those who knew they would still be walking the streets between 9pm and 5am at any given day due to employment obligations, he advises they ask for letters confirming this from their employers. And to those who have no reasonable or justifiable business on the streets during the curfew times, Linda promises “ukuhlangana nenyoka iphung’
umhluzi. ” I put my own life on the spot, I swear with everything I have, not one person I knew seemed eager to meet that snake drinking gravy, whatever that means. “Sizam’ ukulungisa. We are trying to make right”, Linda often justifies.
The curfews are part of the state of emergency, bro Suz told Yhoyhoma the other day. I myself did see President PW Botha on TV looking angry and waving his finger. But I did not understand what he said because it was in English.
Linda stayed in Avenue B, a street adjacent to Lamani, itself adjacent to Gunguluza. Linda’s home is always manned by heavily armed soldiers and police officers. Once, a few months ago, I still do not know how, but the house was set alight in the middle of a very chilly night. That same night, the army raided our homes, rudely waking up families, kicking and pepper-spraying all. They took with them teenage boys, young and older men for a lesson or two, which lasted the whole night and most of the following day.
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Some, like Kwanele’s brother, Mzwakhe, were never seen again. His mother went to mortuaries, police holding cells, prisons and hospitals. And there are no records of him having been arrested in the prisons department, either.
By afternoon on the day following of the burning of the house, while passing through Avenue B on my way to one of the shops at the Red Location, I saw Linda’s mother shouting at all those who cared to listen, telling them how ungrateful they were to burn their house, after everything his dear son has done for them.
So ja, with the makeshift raincoats on, I and my brother brave the freezing cold. We run through the muddy Gunguluza. While knocking ezimbotyini – the house that sells beans and potatoes – we whisper to ourselves, wishing they could spare us a cup of the delicious soup they are cooking, for the smell is just torturing us.
We are ordered in.
We say our greetings and ask for the two packets of potatoes while handing over Gloria – the big, silver one rand coin.
We are told to choose from the packs under the table, where the swollen and bandaged lower right leg of the owner can be seen.
The community believe the wound symbolises the muthi the old man is using in order for his business to flourish. A snake the man breeds, it is believed, feeds by licking on the wound.
Should the wound heal, the business will go insolvent, the people believe. Moreover, because Papisi, one of his sons, is mentally unsound, the belief further holds that it is part of the guarantee of a life-long commercial success of the household.
So we take the two plastic bags and, as a gesture of respect, I stretch out my two combined hands when I receive my change. We then leave.
Half-way back home, while chasing each other playfully in the drizzle, we see from a distance a commotion around our house. There are people running out into the street, in different directions.
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A few minutes before, we had left bro Suz and his friends gambling dice in his shack. As we get nearer, we see white soldiers in SADF camouflage and amatshaka in their blue uniforms, giving chase.
Amatshaka are blacks that act like they hate all other blacks. They speak isiZulu. Our teacher Miss Somniso had once told us that the name ‘amatshaka’ is derived from Shaka, the fearless warrior and later ruler of the Zulus. They are more cruel than their white counterparts and can occasionally be seen torturing a black man or woman in the open with their whips, batons and sticks, while laughing out at the grim entertainment.
Back to the commotion, we then spot bhut’ Mangwane running for dear life into Lamani Street.
He is closely followed by a tshaka who then stands his ground, balancing both legs further apart, and starts shooting at him. Having earned himself the bullets all over his body, bhut’ Mangwane falls right at the entrance into his house.
Other matshaka and white officers also shoot in different directions and immediately jump back onto the caspirs. In no time, they are gone.
I run closer to see for myself. Bhut’ Mangwane is bleeding and neighbours start coming closer too. While an ambulance is being summoned, the family are shouting out, calling on bhut’
Mangwane to wake the hell up. He does not heed the call. His eyes are closed. The ambulance arrives and first treats him on the scene, before whisking him away.
Back into Gunguluza, I learn that a lot more people have been shot. And a smell of death lingers in the air. Families are anxious.
Back home, no one is interested in the potatoes we have brought, everyone is still shocked at how cruel the government can be to “harmless poor brothers”. Bro Suz, on the other side, is shouting, letting everyone know how disgusted he is at Mlamli for causing “all of this.”
Mlamli is also a neighbour in his very early twenties. He lives further up Gunguluza.
As bro Suz tells it, Mlamli had left them after losing on a game of dice, on his way home, saw the matshakaand whites approaching, brandishing their weapons. He ran back to where he had left them, gambling.
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“How could he? Could he not have been a thinker for once and run elsewhere to avoid what he had caused?” demands bro Suz.
“Now”, continues bro Suz, “what if some of these guys die in that hospital? Won’t their families blame me? And these whites, won’t they continue victimising me!?”
Neighbours keep coming to listen for themselves to what had really happened. Then, about two hours later, sis’ Nozibele, bhut’ Mangwane’s elder sister, approaches our house already
screaming, blaming bro Suz for the death of her brother. “It’s your fault, your hands are full of blood, Laysuza!” Bhut Mangwane was apparently declared dead even before reaching Dora Nginza.
A few days after the shooting, Coward and Mtywiri and Zola are declared dead, too.
But we are children, so we keep on playing, in spite of the atrocities happening to our people. So, on the day of their burial a week later, we stop our games until after the procession from Lamani passes Gunguluza, into Tshangana and further.
We then start talking about how the dead will one day wake up and those who killed them would have to stand for themselves and account for their deeds in front of the Lord.
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