In his latest Slice, Gasant Abarder reflects on how the the Cape Flats –The real Cape Town that never features on postcards – is the soul of our city and why we should cherish it.
Abarder, who recently launched his book, Hack with a Grenade, is among the country’s most influential media voices. Catch his weekly column here, exclusive to Cape {town} Etc.
Every time the City of Cape Town posts a tweet of that perfect postcard picture of our beautiful city, I want to vomit on my phone the way that Springbok chap once wanted to let rip on his green and gold shirt.
I was further nauseated at the weekend when I spotted what I recognised as the Wale Street section of Bo-Kaap, with the iconic bright pink building with an arch as a thoroughfare, in a Lego Display in its Canal Walk store. I did a double take because all the residents were white (well Lego yellow) with blonde hair. The audacity of it all! Not even a brown Boeta with a fez or a Tietie with a doekie.
But through all of this aesthetic cleansing – the City of Cape Town fining homeless people and thereby effectively criminalising poverty refers (a column for another day) – and behind our famous Table Mountain, lies the real beating heart of the Mother City.
For last Wednesday, I found that beating heart in Hanover Park that made me so proud to be a brown person. Here, a few blocks away from where I live, the serious business of saving lives, at the Hanover Park Community Health Centre where our senior citizens were queuing up to get the first of two Pfizer jabs, was underway. I had brought my dear dad and mom, 78 and 77 respectively, for the vaccination. They felt much trepidation but their anxiety soon gave way to a feeling of gratitude due to the pleasant experience.
There, I met Leonard Hendricks. An energetic elder from the area with the patience of Job and the wisdom of Solomon. His peoples’ skills will put many GMs and CEOs to shame, I thought, as he called for calm and spoke to the snaking line of senior citizens with dignity and respect. Several requests and queries were thrown his way at once and he was able to handle each one expertly.
As a junior journo, our mostly white news editors and editors, who had never visited, wanted one story and one story only: a handle on the gang violence on the Cape Flats. A fair ask, of course. But in those newsrooms, where we had to assimilate, we were also told to get the good news stories from the Flats. Those good news stories seldom made the front page and were often buried in the bowels of the paper. Or worse, put indefinitely in the hold queue or even spiked – that place where stories go to die.
And here, in the bowels of our city seldom featured on the postcards, and where the well-heeled from affluent areas fear to tread, the day hospitals of the Cape Flats were giving life to all who needed it. White, brown, black and everything in between.
In their Range Rovers and BMWs, they made their way from Fresnaye and Sea Point to get the jab in Lentegeur, Hanover Park and other areas where state health facilities reside.
As we got through the turnstiles of this modest health centre, with its litter of prefab offices and its moat of neglected potholed streets, it was clear that Leonard’s humane treatment of our elderly was no fluke. Every interaction by doctors and support staff was done with so much heart and respect.
It is not a fluke. Visit a barber shop, a take away where you can buy delicious food or even a supermarket where you’ll get great specials in our Cape Flats communities, and you’ll see the compassion, humour and good cheer from almost everyone – with rare exceptions of course. Come spend your money here and support the local economy.
But let me do a backflip for a second and say that on Friday I visited a toy store called Dooby Scoo in Sea Point with my kids and the owner Allan Watson showed that same care and pleasant disposition that I always find on the Cape Flats.
To those who mimic Cape Flats accents, make stereotypical jokes about missing front teeth and regard everyone as skollies, maybe pay a visit. And when you’re standing in the heart of Mitchells Plain, consider this: there are more academics and intellectuals per capita from this bustling community than anywhere else in our city.
So, Lego, next time I walk past your store, surprise me with a model of our Athlone Stadium or Wembley Roadhouse. Because despite the hardships and poverty, and despite what you’ve heard, the sun also shines on the other side of the mountain.
Read also: We’re a pretty lawless society, aren’t we?