SOWETO
Let me tell you about my hood....
...and how it has made me who I am.
It has a million and one nicks. The ones that come to mind include M'sawawa, Kasi, Sotra, M'sauden.
Anyone who's spent half their life inside of it either loves it or hates it.
Author Mokone Molete speaks of it exactly as I know it in his book, POSTCARDS FROM SOWETO.
A lot of successful people who have moved on and out really treat it like a relationship gone wrong. They see all its faults only after they've left it.
If you know it well enough, you should know that it has absolutely any and everything, there's nothing you can not find inside of it. A true defenition of the phrase 'Melting Pot'.
If you haven't experience it, you probably still think 'gangsters walk its streets looking for their next victim'. And, you are WRONG.
It is SOWETO, my hood, the place I call home, the place that has everything to do with the way I walk, talk and live.
Last week a friend of mine asked me, "Why do you love the hood so much"?.
I half asked, half answered, "How do you know that, I love the hood"?.
She replied, "A lot of people who've experienced half the things you've gotted to experience, move out of the hood, shake it off and write it off as a closed chapter of their lives".
When I heard all this, I though about Sunnyside - Pretoria, Sandton and Weltevreden Park,
between all three places I'd explored and tried to call home, something was always missing.
I was never able to put my finger on it and to this day, I still don't know why I'm so hooked on the hood.
If there's one thing I can tell you about SOWETO, it has to be the fact that, it is the ONE place I know where you are almost obliged to be yourself. Nothing more, nothing less and absolutely nothing fake.
In SOWETO, you get more beef and preassure for discarding your identity and blackness than you ever will for stealing something.
See, the hood is like one big yard. If you don't know enough people - you are totally lost and there's no other way to put it.
In my hood, every parent is my parent. They can tell me crap, chase me to Timbuktu and back and demand respect from me. We all believe that it takes a community/village to raise a child.
Everyone who is about 7 years or more my junior calls me Aus' Tumi. An unspoken or unsigned agreement.
In the hood, everyone is up in your business and no one ever misses a thing, so people always end up doing pretty fucked up things out in the open.
Not many people understand why SOWETANS never agree to the suggestion that SOWETO is a dangerous place, but, it really isn't. Infact, I feel much safer in SOWETO than I do in any CBD or residential surburbia.
Of course SOWETO is home to some of the most notorious criminals, it is most probably home to more criminals than any prison in the country. In the same breath, you too deserve to know that they are less likely to steal from you, harm you or violate you in SOWETO. To them, anyone in SOWETO is one of us - PERIOD.
Lack of Ambition - that's another one. One of my biggest worries about the place I love so much is how my people are so relaxed about everything. Nothing bothers the average township dweller. The thought of success, to my people is simple. Making it through the day. Abolova (uneployed young adults) wake-up just to chit-chat, share a joint (marijuana) and gossip about others.
In my hood, black diamonds, business moguls and CEOs are unheard of. Not that we've never had any, actually - we've had lots.
Irvin Khoza still stays in SOWETO, Sipho 'Hostix' Mabuse is still in SOWETO, Richard Maponya is a SOWETAN, Aggrey Klaaste was a SOWETAN, Lucas Radebe, Kaizer Motaung, Dr Nthato Motlana and lots of other prominent and successful people were raised in SOWETO.
It's just that, this kind of success is not a norm in the hood. The above mentioned people are the kind we refer to as diOne-in-a-million.
I guess all this is part and parcel of what people normally base their thoughts, definitions and ideas of SOWETO on. The dirt, the loudness, the chikitas walking the streets wearing nightgowns, PJs and nighties (they piss me off too), the high levels of alchohol consumption.
But think about it this way - SOWETO is home to a lot of hard working people. People who get-up daily to go make a difference. People who make the biggest difference to our economy, people who make the much heavier contribution to how this country looks, feels and functions and yet they sit at the bottom of the food chain.
My hood is home to people that have suffered so much, the only thing that matters to them is just making it through each day.
My kasi is made up of people who still believe they are no better than anyone whose skin is lighter than theirs.
In the SOuth WEstern TOwnships, all income groups are one. We share the hood, interests and hopes.
SOWETO, just like any township here in S.A, is home to people who've had to fight for everything they have including the right to express themselves in a language of their choice.
M'sauden is home to people who've raised and nurtured people who now take them for granted.
Msawawa is where talent exists in ocean loads but the know how or confidence to take it further exists in cup loads, hence the Maponyas and Khozas stands out.
My hood, is the one place I know, where you are allowed to be yourself. NOTHING more, NOTHING less and absolutely NOTHING fake....
I haven't said all there is to say, for now I'll leave it here. Leave a comment, let me know if all this is making any sense to you. Till then ....
