FREE
JUNE 2014
A PROJECT OF THE CAPE TOWN PARTNERSHIP Molo | Hello | Goeiedag
MILNERTON
SEA POINT
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CAPE TOWN
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The N2
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TABLE MOUNTAIN
Su M5 CLAREMONT
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LOVE MAP
Watch th
Where’s the best place to M4 kiss in Cape Town? PAGE 7
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Record the
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MUIZENBERG
CHANGE MAKER “I’ll stop working when every woman has control over her own body and reproductive health.” Vuyiseka dubula
PAGE 11
GAY IN CAPE TOWN Photo: Lisa Burnell and Sam Reinders
Does Cape Town deserve the title of pink city? PAGE 6
THE LOVE AND SEX ISSUE
Unlikely love stories: famous romances from Cape Town’s past
Relationship tips for citizens
PAGE 8 & 9
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SEX WORK IN THE CITY
Meet one of Cape Town’s 18 000 sex workers. PAGE 10
www.capetownpartnership.co.za
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MOLO JUNE 2014
Molo. Hello. Goeiedag. Molo is a free community paper, focused on the people of Cape Town, and published by the Cape Town Partnership. Created by: Ambre Nicolson, Anneke Rautenbach, Lisa Burnell, Maya Fowler, Ru Du Toit, Sam Bainbridge, Sam Reinders, Skye Grove, Steve Alfreds, Yewande Omotoso
Designed by: Infestation T: 021 461 8601 www.infestation.co.za Published by: Cape Town Partnership 34 Bree Street T: 021 419 1881
EDITORIAL
You & your city a love story
Just like the relationships we share with other people, our relationship with the urban landscape we inhabit has an enormous effect on our well-being. And it works both ways. Just as the city we live in influences who we are, so we create the city through our daily interaction with it. The question is, how can we make this a mutually beneficial relationship?
How can I be a part of Molo?
Get to know each other
We are always on the look-out for compelling stories told by ordinary residents of Cape Town. If you or someone you know has an interesting story to tell, mail us at molo@capetownpartnership.co.za (no press releases, please). Every month, we’ll be continuing the conversations we start in the print edition of Molo online: Join us at www.capetownpartnership.co.za for more stories, more profiles and more citizen perspectives on this place we call home.
When it comes to your relationship with your city, there’s something to be said for taking the time to really get to know each other. In the case of Cape Town our history as an apartheid city has a direct bearing on the divided city we live in today. It’s easy to point out the broad socio-economic factors that influence these divides, but there is stuff you can do as an individual too. Step out of your own hood, get to know someone else’s, be a tourist in your home town.
Where can I get the most recent edition of Molo? Molo is a bimonthly print publication. In the months it is not on street, it is supplemented by stories online. If you or your organisation would like to receive or distribute the print publication, please mail us at molo@capetownpartnership.co.za, including your postal address and the number of copies you’d like to receive.
Communication is key
Contact the creators of Molo:
This goes together with some other conventional wisdom about relationships: honest communica-
@CTPartnership #Molo
Email: molo@capetownpartnership.co.za Tel: 021 419 1881
tion is essential. When the opportunity arises to tell City authorities what you want and who you are, take it, whether that means going to a local community meeting, filling in a survey or contacting your local councillor on an issue that you feel strongly about.
It’s about give and take The best human relationships are based on mutual respect, and the relationship between citizen and city is no different. As a citizen of Cape Town it is your right to expect the city to take your welfare into account. Likewise, being a citizen comes with certain responsibilities. A good citizen is one who participates in the life of a city, whether that means playing a part in the culture
of the city through good urban etiquette or activating public spaces through your presence.
Through the good times and the bad Whether you’re a newly smitten arrival in town, enjoying a whirlwind romance with Cape Town, or a longstanding resident in a committed relationship with this city, taking time to think about the ways you interact with the place where you live, and with the people you share it with, can only mean good things for the city we all call home. Bulelwa MakalimaNgewana Ceo cape town partnership
www.facebook.com/molocapetown Molo, Cape Town Partnership, 10th Floor, 34 Bree Street, The Terraces, 8001
Cape Town Partnership vision Some say cities are the future We say people are the future This is our home This is our hope This is our chance
Believing
there is more that connects us than divides us
Speaking
the language of hope
Working
together for the common good
Building
from the ground up
Sharing
the spaces in between We can plant our tomorrows shape our future, heal ourselves We can make our city warm, open, welcoming, rich in opportunities for all
Cape Town A city with a past. A people with a future
Your say ROCK GIRLS ROCK! When I arrived to meet with the girls yesterday, they were all jumping up and down with excitement because they had received copies of the latest Molo at their schools. They were delighted and also so pleased with the accuracy of the article and the way they are portrayed as strong young women. In fact, a couple said that other girls from their school asked if they could join Rock Girl. Thank you. India Baird, co-founder of Rock Girl
EARLY MEMORIES Hello! Molo! Goeiemiddag! I really enjoyed reading your paper, which my niece sent me from Cape Town. It brought
Readers’ letters We love hearing from you. Let us know what you think by emailing us at molo@capetownpartnership.co.za back many happy memories of growing up in Caledon Street in District Six. On Sunday mornings, before Church, one of us three sisters would take a “bakkie” or an enamel plate to stand in line to buy koesisters from the Somali family that lived two doors away. I used to sing in the choir at St Marks church but all I could think about were the koesisters at home. You see we had to fast for holy communion. What a palaver! In one of your last issues you also mentioned snoek but what about “kyte” – snoek roe, battered and deep fried – delicious! The wit mense loved it. We would also use “misbankers” (mackerel) to make “ingelegte
vis” (picked fish) over Easter. I also enjoyed seeing the photos of the Grand Parade and City Hall. I left South Africa in 1964 but I remember sitting there over my lunch hour listening to classical music. Frances Lewis, Tottenham, London
OUR SHARED FOOD TRADITIONS I just saw a copy of your online magazine and I was so fascinated by the article of Kammie Kamedien, a renowned slave scholar in South Africa as well as worldwide. What he wrote about food is so appropriate for Heritage Day in particular and Heritage Month in general. I think the
sentiments he airs are so necessary in this day and age where we tend to harp on our differences and forget the creolising that has cemented all of our traditions, especially our food traditions. It is refreshing to have a scholar such as Kammie Kamedien give us, the common folk on the street, a philosophical foundation for many of our actions and also for him to endow us with a vision as a South African people yearning for social cohesion. And he shows us that through food we may achieve that objective. Thanks for a great article and building a great magazine so that we as the citizens of Cape Town can have a great city. A.M., South Africa
IN SHORT
COLUMN
MORE COMPLICATED THAN BEAUTIFUL Text by Yewande Omotoso
Does absence make the heart grow fonder, or does distance bring perspective? Yewande Omotoso examines her relationship with the city she called home for close on two decades.
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fter living in Cape Town for twenty years, I moved away a couple of years back. Depending on whom I tell this to, people either give me their condolences or applaud my action. It seems as if when you live in a city it means something and when you leave it, that means something too. And as I pondered these meanings I had the thought that they were varied and complex and
as intimate to each person as a fingerprint. As far as the twelve-year-oldme was concerned we were moving from Ile-Ife in Nigeria to Cape Town because my father, who had authored books that, to put it mildly, made the then Nigerian government hostile towards him, had been offered a job as professor of English at the University of the Western Cape. It was 1992 and I didn’t yet know that Cape Town was beautiful. We lived at first in Bellville and there were JA/ NEE posters on lamp posts and there were indecipherable accents and there were white people dining at tables and black people serving them. From when I arrived in Cape Town to when I left – decades later – the city seeped through my skin and into my body. It went from being bizarre to being home. It started to mean something other than “the place my parents brought me to.” And when I try and pick apart what that meaning is, it
shorts
Love in your hood Now we walk on Fish Hoek beach in the mornings. A thin sliver of moon the night before means that the next day’s sand is flat, hard, inviting. Along the grimy tide line, baby box jellyfish gleam like costume jewellery. At the corner, among the hardy winter swimmers, a romance is blossoming between the man with a publicschool accent and the woman with the prettiest bathing cap. We pretend to be watching the trek fishermen. – Finuala Dowling, “Spring and Neap” in Cape
really is as if I am trying to decode the fine ridges along the fleshy tips of my fingers. Cape Town and her beauty are always spoken of. Tourists mention it. Capetonians take pride in it and convince themselves that Joburgers are jealous of it. But beauty is not only skindeep: it also denotes goodness. And beneath Cape Town’s skin there is some goodness but there are other things too. “Beauty”, then, seems inaccurate. I’ve always felt discomfort at the effusiveness and singularity this adjective suggests. My feelings towards Cape Town are not effusive and definitely not singular. I can excuse the assessment if it comes from someone who has dipped in for a few days and dips back out to Europe, East Africa or the UK. But for those of us who live in South Africa, surely we understand that Cape Town is a lot more complicated than beautiful. She is certainly beguiling. The shimmer of her waters. The sheer audacity of one town
If I live in a city am I complicit in its order and chaos, its justice and evildoings? having mountain and sea. But there is an unevenness to her beauty and there are many parts of Cape Town where attempts have been made to fix up her ugliness, like a lady might use concealer to hide a blemish. Twenty years on, democracy doesn’t seem to have affected much change. Save for a few spots there are white people dining and black people serving them. There are dinner parties where I really am “the only black.” How can my love for this place, a place I have spent the bulk of my life, not be tempered by this? At the very least, it makes me curious. What about this city makes it so impervious to deep change?
When I tell people I left Cape Town, those who applaud do so because they think it was a political act. Even though it wasn’t, I understand the assumption. If I live in a city am I complicit in its order and chaos, its justice and evil-doings? Am I especially complicit when I stay and do nothing? Can I enjoy the mountain vistas, the clear seas without implicitly accepting the demographically divided spaces, the squatter settlements? Of course there are other cities with the same and worse but maybe if Cape Town’s mountains were a little less gorgeous and celebrated, if the disparate characteristics were a little less disparate, that would make me more willing to embrace her beauty. For now, though, I prefer to look at her from a distance. Yewande Omotoso is a Barbadosborn writer who spent much of her childhood in Nigeria and is currently living in Johannesburg. Her first novel, Bom Boy (Modjaji Books), was shortlisted for the Sunday Times prize.
References to places in Cape Town - as the setting for romantic entanglements of all kinds - are scattered across the work of some of South Africa’s most well-loved writers. We collected some of them here. Compiled by Anneke Rautenbach
Sunrise in the Bo-Kaap. An imam called the faithful to prayer. Riedwaan Faizal stood in the doorway, hair wet, towel around his waist, two mismatched mugs in his hand, considering his options. The woman under his sheets was naked. Getting back into bed with her would have its advantages. She was usually more amenable half-asleep than awake. – Gallows Hill, Margie Orford
Town, A City Imagined
GRAND PARADE This was the heyday of apartheid, the 1970s (…) You didn’t see many men, but in the Tokai branch of the Pick ’n Pay there was one man I noticed now and again. I noticed him but he didn’t notice me, he was too absorbed in his shopping. I approved of that.
I had never stood with so many people. Hours passed. We shaded our eyes and stared at the balcony. We were waiting for Nelson Mandela, but all I wanted was to touch the inside of her arm.
– Summertime, J.M. Coetzee
Freedom”, published in the The Sunday
– Darrel Bristow-Bovey, “A Feeling for Times, 19 July 2013
Apartheid forced me to use Observatory Station toilets, but Apartheid was destroyed in those toilets. By men who had sex with men, regardless of race or class. – Zackie Achmat, My Childhood as an AdultMolester
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MOLO JUNE 2014
FAMILY LOVE STORIES
For better and worse Most families have a couple of favourite love stories that are told and retold over time. We meet four couples who conquered unjust laws, stigmas, illness and geographical divides to be together. As told to Anneke Rautenbach and Ambre Nicolson Images by Lisa Burnell and Sam Reinders
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Yvonne and Neil Myburgh
Yvonne and Neil Myburgh met in a student digs in Johannesburg, and became a couple not long after. In 1982, Neil moved to Cape Town to do his dentistry community service at Crossroads, and Yvonne accepted a position in Namibia as the financial manager for the Bishop. However, they kept up a longdistance relationship, and over a weekend together in Port Elizabeth, decided to tie the knot. Because it was the 80s, and because Yvonne was classified as Indian and Neil as White, it was illegal. “We were breaking both the Mixed Marriages Act and the Immorality Act,” said Neil. But they found a man who was willing to help them do it. Rob Robertson was a United Presbyterian Congregational Church Minister, teaching and practising as an activist. As a political act, he married people across the race divide. While many mixed race couples married across the border in Botswana or Lesotho, many others went to Rob. After the couple had made their decision, Yvonne had one week to go back to her hometown of Pietermaritzburg and get her family on board. “It was very difficult, because no one could know about it,” she said. “Only our close family. It was such a serious thing. If the news got out, we would be in huge trouble, as would Rob.”
Yvonne’s mother did not take it well. “For her, what was against the law was against the Church. There were many tears. Mixed marriages were also a taboo.” Because it was such a big secret, the wedding would not be planned, but would take place during a normal Sunday morning service. “I was the first daughter to get married,” said Yvonne, “My mother wanted the whole shebang.” Unfortunately, this was not possible, and Yvonne and Neil stood up to get married to the surprise of the congregation. “Some baby was baptised, we got married, and afterwards we had tea,” said Neil. It was 1983 and Yvonne and Neil were officially married. “It wasn’t recognised by the State, but we had the stamp in our ID booklets,” said Yvonne. Their decision was met with resistance, curiosity and confusion, but “in the end,” said Neil, “we managed to defy the odds.”
It was very difficult, because no one could know about it. Only our close family. It was such a serious thing. If the news got out, we would be in huge trouble... Yvonne and Neil Myburgh
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Gladys and Edmund Henry
Gladys: Our story is 50 years old, that’s how long we have known each other. We met in Bridegtown when were 17. We married at 23 and had three children, two girls and a boy. Out of that we have nine grandchildren.
worked for Woolworths in their meat department. I took early retirement at 45 due to health problems with my thyroid. I believe God performed a miracle to help me regain my health. It’s been 20 years since then.
Edmund: Our story started in the 60s. We became friends first, then she started to hang on my shoulder and make tea and things like that! At that time I was a guitarist in a band, we played music a bit like the Shadows. When we used to enter into band competitions, Gladys would polish the guitar I had, a red and white one. I didn’t ask her if she wanted to marry me, first I asked her parents. They said they would be happy to have me in the family. My father was in the meat trade. I wanted to be a donkey boy – which is the person who delivered registered parcels to people’s houses for the post office – but then I thought about the rain in Cape Town. In the end my dad took me by the scruff of my neck and started me as a delivery boy at a meat business, and later I
Gladys: In 2011 I was diagnosed with cancer and had a double mastectomy. It was a difficult op, until today I still can’t do some things, and I now have lymphodoema, which is swelling due to fluid retention. But throughout it all and even until today Edmund has always helped me. Edmund: I just help her with the heavy stuff. We have been here
When we used to enter into band competitions, Gladys would polish the guitar I had, a red and white one. Gladys and Edmund Henry
with NOAH now for five years and it’s a big help because all we need now at this age is peace and understanding to carry us through. Gladys: I think what has always helped us is that we have to sort out any problems or arguments before we went to bed. We never went to bed cross with each other. That and love, because there are so many times, not every day but often even now, when he will tell me, “You know, I really love you,” and I will say, “I love you too”.
ACTION ITEM: NOAH (Neighbourhood Old Age Homes) provide a practical, human rights approach to providing elderly and vulnerable people with communal homes, health care services and social outreach programmes. www.noah.org.za
FEATuRE
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MaRiUs LiEbENbERg aNd wERNER MULLER
wErnEr: We had a very magical meeting at Cafe erte, a vegetarian restaurant, internet cafe and bar in Sea point. I was happily minding my own business, when I got hit in the face by a shoe! marius: I was having a jol there with some friends and my friend Tanya, in her drunken state, tried to throw her beach slop at me. She missed me, but hit this tall, dark and handsome guy, sitting in the back. he came over to return the slop and we apologised. wErnEr: I was still seeing stars floating around my head, when I gave back Cinderella’s slop, but it was her prince who caught my eye so I asked if he was single. Luckily for me he was and we went home together. Marius had just recently ended a relationship, so we lived together for about six months before we became intimate. We really enjoy each others company and work great as a team, so we spend most of our time together. After three years we moved to Mpumalanga to help my parents on the farm outside hazyview
after my father was in an accident. hazyview is a very different place from Cape Town, we enjoyed living there but we didn’t have too much of a social life. We are very blessed because our families are accepting of us and they also get on with one another. I think on both sides me and Marius are the favourite in-laws. marius: We did open a couple of minds when we were on the farm I think. When we first arrived Werner’s father was getting something from the pharmacy when the pharmacist pointed out the two of us running across the parking lot in our sarongs and slops. he was very disapproving but Werner’s dad said, “hey, that’s my son and
I was still seeing stars floating around my head, when I gave back cinderella’s slop, but it was her prince who caught my eye so I asked if he was single. werNer Muller
daughter-in-law you’re talking about!” A couple of days later we were all good friends, helping the pharmacist do stocktake..
dress that she had painted in all these groovy colours and all our friends witnessed us saying our vows.
wErnEr: We haven’t officially married on paper yet because we have our reservations about making it official on paper when internationally, and especially in Africa, there is still so much stigma attached to same-sex marriages. We did have a wedding ceremony though. It happened very spontaneously at a trance party. I wore a friend’s wedding
marius: After we came back to Cape Town we had a bit of a series of unfortunate events. In 2011 we were both beaten up by a bouncer in a club. I had a major head injury and was in a coma for seven hours and then had to have brain surgery. Werner has two plates and 13 screws in his cheek from where the bouncer hit him, breaking his cheekbone.
A couple of years later we had a serious motorbike accident. This time Werner was the worse out of the two of us. he broke his leg in two places and had to have pins in his leg for over a year. But now we’ve both recovered and I think it made us really realise how much we rely on one another. We’re now continuing with our dream of sailing around the world, first on other people’s super yachts but later we want to have our own catamaran.
I always said I would never marry a doctor, but somehow I just knew that he was the one! JosIaNe aNd paTrIck bouIc
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JOsiaNE aNd paTRiCk bOUiC
When Patrick Bouic moved with his family from Mauritius to South Africa, he was nine years old and could not speak a word of English. But South Africa soon became home, and he grew up to study medicine.
As a student, he was awarded a bursary to do his phD in Lyon, France. For his doctorate, he measured the protein levels in the blood of transplant patients, and had to collect blood samples at four prescribed times daily. When he went to inform the transplant unit of his project, the nurse in charge happened to be
Josiane, or Josi. “She was not impressed,” said patrick. “She complained that doctors just want blood samples from their patients all the time. She said they don’t have veins left anymore.” Meanwhile, said Josi, the nurses had a discussion and came up with a plan. “We decided to
draw a large amount of blood in the morning only, and disperse this blood throughout the vials that were meant for the other intervals of the day. It was to protect the patients – the doctors were like flies.” patrick soon realised that there was something radically wrong with his data. Instead of showing a gradual curve of change, the blood seemed to remain the same throughout the course of each day. patrick and Josi met again at the hospital’s dialysis unit on the coast of southern France. not recognising each other from their initial encounter, they became friends and were soon a couple. When the time had arrived for patrick to return to South Africa, Josi joined him and before long they were married. “I always said
I would never marry a doctor, but somehow I just knew that he was the one,” says Josi. one day, back in South Africa, they received a visit from patrick’s old supervisor. “We started talking about my puzzling project, and he said he still could not understand how the data did not make sense.” At that moment, the penny dropped for Josi – she realised that she must have been the one to skew their results. “I still got my phD though,” patrick chuckled. While Josi said she would never marry a doctor, she finally found one she could stand – in fact, someone worth moving countries and comfort zones for. And patrick found the nurse who challenged his authority all those years ago: he’s married to her.
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MOLO JUNE 2014
GAY CAPE TOWN
NOT JUST
A BED OF rOSES
While Cape Town is marketed as a pink city and is favoured by gay travellers from the world over, the freedom to live an openly gay life still depends on which part of the city you call home. Text and image by skye grove
+ - R1.8 bn Estimated amount that gay tourists contribute towards the Cape Town economy each year.
w
e are returning from the perfect hide-away – a little seaside town in the southwestern Cape to which my girlfriend and I escaped for five days. Away from the hustle of the city, the deadlines and the constant demands of motherhood. We see Table Mountain from afar – a beacon for many travellers before us. I sigh: “There is no place like home”. We will soon be back in our normal routine – our lives as two mothers with five children between us, running a busy but harmonious household, navigating two careers, attending school fundraisers together and not thinking twice about showing affection in public as a lesbian couple.
have criminal laws against sexual activity by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex people. Cape Town, and indeed South Africa, has come a very long way. We have a multi-layered history regarding LGBTI rights. The legal and social status of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people (LGBTI) have been influenced by a combination of South African traditions, colonialism, the lingering effects of apartheid as well as the human rights movement that contributed to its obliteration. South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution was the first in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation, and South Africa was the fifth country in the world, and the first in Africa, to
and quality of life. Gay tourists are estimated to contribute around R1,8 billion to the Cape Town economy each year. In 2016, the city will host the 33rd annual International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association (IGLTA) global convention. Living an open life as a LGBTI person in South Africa was not always easy. In my own lifetime,
I owe a lot of gratitude to Cape Town. In my everyday life I seldom give thought to my sexual orientation. I was reminded during our trip to the countryside how I take the freedom of expression for granted. While booking into the quaint country lodge, my girlfriend and I were asked three times if we were sure we didn’t want a suite with two single beds, we were stared at in cafés and openly mocked in the grocery check-out line. The trip made me reflective, reminded me not to take my free life for granted. Today more than 70 countries across the world
legalise same-sex marriage. Cape Town has a huge percapita gay population and boasts possibly the most developed gay community on the African continent. Britain’s guardian newspaper named it “one of the 10 most popular gay travel destinations in the world today.” The US publication out and about similarly named it as “world-wide favourite.” Cape Town Tourism estimates that 15% of the city’s 1,5 million annual visitors are gay tourists – drawn here because of Cape Town’s reputation for tolerance
many of the LGBTI establishments were underground because the community was forced to keep their activities low-key and away from the government eye. During apartheid, homosexuality was against the law. Today many South African leaders are promoting LGBTI rights, including nobel laureate Desmond Tutu who declared that homophobia was “utterly unjust as racism ever was”. While the situation for the LGBTI community has certainly improved, discrimination is still alive and well and I am very aware
Many gay capetonians continue to face considerable challenges, including social stigma and homophobic violence.
that quality of life and the ability to live openly as a gay person depends greatly on where you live in Cape Town. Deeply embedded homophobia exposes many lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people to severe violations of their basic human rights. Many gay Capetonians continue to face considerable challenges, including social stigma and homophobic violence (particularly “corrective” rape). At least 31 lesbian women have been brutally murdered in the last 10 years and it is reported that at least 10 lesbians are raped or gang-raped per week in Cape Town. This is according to Luleki Sizwe, a charity that helps women who have been raped in the Western Cape. Gay Constitutional Court judge Justice edwin Cameron says: “our impressive constitutional and statutory framework stands in stark contrast to continuing discrimination and violence perpetrated against gays and lesbians. I feel a sense of sobriety about what we have achieved since democracy. South Africa aims to be an island of nondiscrimination on a continental sea of hatred, ignorance and persecution. But we have very far to go. The ideal world is one in which young people growing into a sense of themselves will feel no stigma and no fear about a possible LGBTI identity. That is still very far away.” Constitutional equality and legal protection are clearly not enough. But they are a crucial beginning. In a pew Research Center survey from June 2013, over 60 percent of South African respondents said homosexuality should not be accepted by society. Whether we’re gay or straight we all have a stake in a free and equal Cape Town. part of the work is vigorous public education and awareness. I love Cape Town, the city where I raise my child, where I am home and free to live my life because of struggles of others who paved the way to heal the divisions of the past. I plan to marry the woman I love in this city and I am committed to keep working to uphold a society based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights. To do this I will keep engaging real discussion around prejudice with a sense of humility, vulnerability and compassion for myself and those around me.
FEATURE
MILNERTON
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PLATTEKLOOF N1
SEA POINT
MAPPING ROMANCE
CAPE TOWN
The first kiss The serenade N2
The surreptitious smooch
TABLE MOUNTAIN
SHARE THE LOVE
Sundowners
We would love to hear about your favourite spot for romance in Cape Town. Mail your suggestions to molo@capetownpartnership.co.za or find us on Facebook.
M5 CLAREMONT
Stargazing Watch the sun rise A moonlit stroll
M4 The proposal
You see lots of kissing in good places. Fred Kent
M3
Stargazing
Tie the knot
Stargazing in Cape Town during winter can be uncomfortably dependent on the weather, but not if you take your amateur astronomy indoors.
Record the romance The break up
he planetarium T 25 Queen Victoria Street 021 481 3900
MUIZENBERG
Watch the sun rise
Mapping romance XO marks the spot
The first kiss With so many different activities on offer, from strolling to skateboarding, people watching, pools and playgrounds, the promenade must surely offer the most varied amount of opportunities to seal the deal with a kiss.
Sea Point Promenade Beach Road, Sea Point
The serenade Use one of Cape Town’s grandest facades to create your very own balcony scene. And rest assured you’re in good company, the City Hall balcony is the same place where Nelson Mandela gave his first address after being released from prison in 1990. City Hall Darling Street and the Grand Parade 021 480 7156
surreptitious smooch Find love amidst the shelves of Cape Town’s Central Library. With hundreds of thousands of books it should be easy to find a private corner for some canoodling. Central Library Old Drill Hall, Cnr. Parade & Darling Streets Central.library@capetown. gov.za 021 444 0209/12
Sunrise Beach Parking near Sunrise circle, Muizenberg
A moonlit stroll
According to renowned public space advocate Fred Kent, you can tell how welcoming a public space is by whether people are willing to express affection in it. Or, as he puts it: “You see lots of kissing in good places.” We put Cape Town to the test. PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION
Early-risers or all-night party goers? Either way this beach is a good spot for a breakfast picnic.
OUTDOOR LOVING
Sundowners If you’re looking for the postcard view of Table Mountain, and an unparalelled view of the sun as it dips into into the Atlantic, this is the place to do it. Sunset Beach Milnerton
A full-moon hike up Lion’s Head reads like a recipe for seduction: moonlight, star-scapes, secluded benches … Lion’s Head Start off at Signal Hill Road, at the base of Forestry Road
GETTING HITCHED
The proposal
Marriage proposals deserve beautiful backdrops. Plattekloof offers a panoramic view of Table Moutain and the sparkling lights of the city below. Plattekloof Plattekloof Hill Tygerberg
Tie the knot What better beginning for romance than the panoramic 360-degree views available on the top of Table Mountain? Table Mountain Lower Cable Station Tafelberg Road Weatherline: 021 424 8181 www.tablemountain.net
Record the romance The shady paths and green lawns of the Arderne Gardens, just off Claremont Main Road, are famous for being the site of hundreds of wedding photo shoots each year. Look out for one of South Africa’s largest trees, the Moreton Bay Fig, better known as the Wedding Tree. rderne Gardens A 222 Main Road Claremont www.ardernegardens. org.za
THE BITTER END
The break up Breaking up is hard to do, but if it must be done then the station is not a bad place to do it. If a suitably tear-stained, handkerchief-waving farewell is not an option then at the very least you can make a quick getaway by train, bus or long-distance taxi. Cape Town railway station and foredeck Adderley Street 021 449 2991
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MOLO JUNE 2014
UNLIKELY LOVE STORIES
Love in the time of the colony
Text by Anneke Rautenbach Images by Lisa Burnell & Supplied
A port city, slavery, passion, alcohol and poison – it sounds like a concoction worthy of Shakespeare or Márquez, but each of these elements played a role in the real-life entanglements between Dutch masters of the Cape and their captive mistresses. We took a look at some of the Company’s most iconic tales of love, sex, intrigue and despair.
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n 1658, just decades after Jan Van Riebeeck first docked at the Cape, the first two boatloads of slaves reached our shores. While these ships were from Angola and West Africa, they would later arrive from the East – China and India, Malaysia, Madagascar and Zanzibar. Thus began a practice that would change the city’s DNA forever. In the decades following Van Riebeeck’s arrival, the Cape was a
rough and weatherworn port city, a lonely way station for ships en route to Asia. A small grid of 254 white-washed town houses, neatly branded on the foreign landscape, formed the colonial town – separated from its castle by an expanse of open land that would later become the Grand Parade. For a while, the kings of this coop would be the Dutch, or “free burghers” (citizens), as these settlers came to be known. You will recognise their language in Cape Town’s street names – Buitenkant (outer edge), ran down to the Castle. Buitengracht (outer canal) framed the top of the town grid, Waterkant was the water’s edge, and Strand Street was where the beach used to be. Castle Street marks a track from the town to the quarry from which the Castle’s stone bricks were mined. For strangers, the powers that be had an impressive warning: just north-east of the Castle stood the justitieplaats, or place of justice. For the first 150 years of European rule, this was where the gallows stood, where transgressors were
ABOVE: Dutch ships sailing into Table Bay, painting by Aernout Smidt, 1683. Right: A performance art piece on Church Square by Mhlanguli George, inspired by the site’s history of slavery. NEXT PAGE Above: The entrance to the Castle of Good Hope, where Trjintje of Madagascar was briefly detained before she was executed, where Laurens Campher would visit his beloved Ansela van de Caab, and where Eva Krotoa is buried today. NEXT PAGE Below: Jan Smuts, former Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, is believed to be a descendent of Eva Krotoa. His statue sits in front of the Slave Lodge.
FEATURE
hung, their rotting remains left for nocturnal scavengers to feast on. For those entering the town by horse, carriage or foot, this gruesome sight sent a clear message. It was a small community, and for a bachelor in search of a wife it must have seemed even smaller. In 1677, only 19 of the 100 free burghers were women – making the boatloads of exotic-looking slaves all the more tantalising. Slave women were used for whatever their European masters might have needed: mostly labour, but also sex – sometimes even companionship. Just strides from the Groote Kerk, where the burghers worshipped on Sundays, is the Slave Lodge, which by night clandestinely operated as a brothel. Inevitably, many children resulted, and it is said that one of the Lodge’s very own matrons, Armosyn van de Kaap, was the daughter of a slave, Isabella of Angola, and a Dutchman, Cornelis Claassen. Many slaves also went on to marry Dutch settlers – at times they were their masters, at other times merely admirers. In any case, if the cobblestones could talk, they’d have many a story to tell.
Passion, Poison and Beer:
The Case of Brewer Menssink and Trijntje of Madagascar Trijntje was a young and beautiful Madagascan slave, bought with the inheritance of Elizabeth Lingelbach, wife of the town brewer, Willem Menssink. In retrospect, Elizabeth might have deeply regretted this decision. Her husband already had a bad track record of extra-marital relations with their slaves, documented by Nigel Penn in Rogues, Rebels and Runaways (David Phillip, 1999) and described by Mike Nicol in his essay “The City I Live In.” “On one occasion Elizabeth awoke in the night to find her husband sandwiched between herself and his favourite slave,” writes Nicol. “On other occasions she found them consorting in the attic, on another in the dairy.” Eventually, Elizabeth moved out of her husband’s house and back to her mother’s. But Brewer Menssink’s lust for Trijntje was incurable – she was his greatest addiction yet. Folklore has it he would pay her nightly visits at the Lingelbach home, climbing into to the attic using a ladder carried by his two loyal
In 1677, only 19 of the 100 free burghers were women – making the boatloads of exotic-looking slaves all the more tantalising.
slaves, Gerrit and Isaac. Over the course of four years, they had sex in every room of the house Elizabeth inherited upon her mother’s death. Eventually, Trijntje fell pregnant. Ground-up human bones, hair, nail clippings, the scrapings of roots, kapok (a wild cotton) – even a human hand – are all rumoured to have been ingredients in the various poisons Menssink tried to administer to his wife, through Trijntje. These potions were concocted for various purposes, whether to induce sleep while Menssink and Trijntje had sex at the foot of Elizabeth’s bed, or whether it was meant to be fatal. However, Elizabeth soon cottoned on to their plan. While Menssink was placed under house arrest, Trijntje was condemned to the gallows. Her crimes, “matters of evil and dangerous consequence”, included not only attempting to poison her mistress, but also murdering her own child.
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Many slaves also went on to marry Dutch settlers – at times they were their masters, at other times merely admirers. In any case, if the cobblestones could talk, they’d have many a story to tell.
When a love story gets better with age:
The case of Laurens Campher and Ansela van de Caab Not all stories of Dutch-slave relations are as toxic and fatal as that of Brewer Menssink and his Trijntje. Some are rather romantic. At the foot of the Simonsberg mountains, some 40km from Cape Town, you will find Muratie – a wine farm with an extraordinary oak tree and an extraordinary love story to go with it. Ansela van de Caab’s mother was Guinean – captured by the Portuguese, whose slave-carrying vessel was intercepted by the Dutch. The co-opted slaves were brought to the Cape, where Ansela’s mother was relegated to the slaves’ quarters of the Castle. Here little Ansela was born and named “van de Caab” – of the Cape – as was the case with all slaves born in the Cape at the time. Ansela grew up working at the Castle, the Company’s Garden or Greenmarket Square by day; by night she was locked up in the slaves’ quarters. Laurens Campher was a young German soldier employed by the Dutch East India Company. During an official trip to the Castle, he met Ansela and soon fell in love. Laurens went on to become the first owner of Muratie, a farm he was bequeathed by the Cape governor Willem Adriaan Van der Stel. However, he could not forget Ansela, and regularly made the three-day journey to the Cape on foot. Their courtship lasted 14 years, and Ansela bore him three children. After being baptised in the Dutch Reformed Church in
1699, Ansela was released from a lifetime of slavery, free to marry Laurens at last. Laurens brought his new wife and their three children home with him to Muratie, where she played a pivotal role in developing the farm, planting what would become today’s majestic oak. Laurens and Ansela spent the rest of their lives at Muratie, and today each has a wine named after them.
Stammoeder of the Volk:
The case of Eva Krotoa Before slavery became general practice in the Cape, the Van Riebeecks had Eva. Eva’s original name was Krotoa. Because she was Khoikhoi, she is not generally referred to as a slave, as the Khoikhoi were – as a rule – not used in slavery. However, Krotoa was taken in by the Van Riebeeck family at age 10 or 11, where she worked as a domestic servant. As she became fluent in Dutch and Portuguese, she later worked as an interpreter. This she had in common with her uncle, the prominent Khoikhoi interpreter Goringhaicona Chief Autshumao, known by the Dutch as Herrie de Strandloper. Maria Van Riebeeck raised Eva as a Christian and her assimilation with European culture was
encouraged; she was baptised in the Dutch Reformed Church in 1662. As an adult she worked as a political liason between the Dutch and the Khoikhoi, and was instrumental in ending the first Dutch-Khoikhoi war. She moved back and forth between the two cultures, trading her European attire for traditional Khoikhoi skins and vice-versa. Unfortunately for Eva, both cultures grew suspicious of her and began to see her as a potential traitor. When the Van Riebeecks left the Cape in 1662, Eva was vulnerable without their protection. She soon married a Danish soldier, Pieter van Meerhof. The couple had three children and moved to Robben Island, where van Meerhof was appointed superintendent. Sadly, van Meerhof died in a skirmish during an expedition to Madagascar. Eva was, once more, alone. The widow and her children moved back to the mainland, where the European society grew increasingly hostile towards her. She drank for comfort and turned to prostitution. Eva became a tragic figure in the Cape, an embarrassment for the Company. Her drunken behaviour at one General Waegenaar’s dinner table, especially, prompted a warning by the Dutch that should her poor behaviour continue, she would be banished to Robben Island. The rest of her life was spent
between the mainland and Robben Island until she suffered an alcohol-related death. Today she is buried at the Castle. It is not certain how many children Eva bore in total, but the ancestry of some of history’s most prominent Afrikaners has been traced back to her. It turns out she is the stammoeder (ancestral mother) of Paul Kruger, Jan Smuts and F.W. De Klerk, to name a few – heritage that these leaders kept secret. The genealogy of many other leaders that gave rise to the Afrikaner nationalism that underpinned the ideology of apartheid can also be traced back to slaves. Maaij Ansela (Beautiful Ansela), also known as Angela of Bengal, was a slave of Van Riebeeck’s who married Arnoldus Willemsz Basson, becoming the stammoeder of the Basson family in South Africa. Through the marriages of her children she is also the stammoeder of the Bergh and Van As families. One of her descendants was the Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius, who married Anna Retief, niece of Piet Retief. It is ironic that three centuries later, the Immorality Act (1927 and 1950) and Mixed Marriages Act (1949) made marriages and sexual relations between so-called Europeans and those of other races illegal, because, as it turns out, mixed marriages are as old as the Cape itself.
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MOLO JUNE 2014
My story
The sex industry in Cape Town is estimated to include 18 000 sex workers, the majority of whom are women. Here is a small part of the story of one. As told to Ambre Nicolson Images by Sam Reinders
Sex work in Cape Town “M y name is Angeline, but you can just call me Angie. I have always worked on the street, my darling – on the front line. When I was 14 years old I was taken out of school. I started working first in a factory then in a restaurant where I met this Englishman. He gave me pocket money. When he left I realised I could make much more money doing sex work than working in a restaurant. I started being a sex worker when I was 22, and that was more than 20 years ago. I moved from one place to another but always along Main Road, first in Plumstead, then Wynberg, then Kenilworth and Claremont. My clients come to a room I rent in Rosebank. Other times you can hire a viewing room at Adult World for R60 or a client will take you to his house when his wife or girlfriend is not around. But then you have to be careful not to leave anything behind, even the condom, you have to take it with you. Our clients are just normal people you see every day, ministers, lawyers, teachers, parliamentarians. But let me tell you, we are not here to steal people’s husbands, we are here to provide a service and to do business so people mustn’t turn us into the scapegoats because they are scared. A marriage, in my opinion, even though mine didn’t work out, it has to be a 50/50 thing. I got married when I was 26, to a
In the future I would like the police to look out for people doing real crime, like drugs. You know there are people that pump children full of drugs and then they use this as a way to force them into sex work.
man from the country and he didn’t know that I was a sex worker. Only later my niece told him that she found condoms in my cupboard. When he found out he got very angry. He wanted to assault me. We were married for five years. Maybe I was in love with him, and it wasn’t that he was good looking. After he found out he got very abusive. We never had any children, although I was pregnant twice, but I lost both babies through the abuse
step-sister, she went around showing people a newspaper article I was in where I was advocating for sex work to be decriminalised. In that article I wanted to speak out to tell people about how the police were abusing us, how they beat us, swore at us. The police know which girls don’t want to be locked up, and which ones they can pick on for sex if it means the rest of the sex workers will be let off. In the end my parents found
should sex work be decriminalised? “Criminalisation of sex work is unworkable, unsustainable and harms the women and men who engage in consensual sex, for a fee. Under decriminalsation, sex workers will be able to work in safety with labour protections, and will be able to freely access health and justice.” Sally Shakleton, SWEAT
ACTION: SWEAT (Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce) is a nonprofit organisation that works to defend the rights of sex workers. n To find out more visit www.sweat.org.za
and because they were ectopic pregnancies. Yes, this work can be unsafe but I know how to handle a client. I tell them if you want to rape me you’re going to have to kill me first. And let me tell you if you try to kill me you’re going to be too tired to rape me afterwards, because I’m going to put up a fight! People are always judging. My
out and let me tell you, they were church people, very conservative. But I didn’t care, by that time I was earning my own money, I was relying on myself only. That’s the thing with these people, they never came round to give me bread when I had none, but afterwards they’re happy to judge me. I don’t have regrets because I have been doing sex work to support myself. I don’t make a
lot of money, but I make enough. I don’t plan to ever work in a brothel because I like being independent. The money has to come to me, because I am the one doing the work. In the future I would like the police to look out for people doing real crime, like drugs. You know there are people that pump children full of drugs and then they use this as a way to force them into sex work. Selling your body is not a real crime. We say here at SWEAT “my body, my business”. People shouldn’t discriminate against us. They must understand we are trying to support ourselves, our children. We don’t do it for fun. I want the government to support the NGOs that are supporting sex workers and working hard to fight against human trafficking. I am going to continue to be a sex worker and I am going to continue to be a peer educator and outreach worker for sex workers. If I’m prepared to go out at night, I know where to find my clients. I just won’t step out of church to go to do sex work. I need to go fetch my blessings too.”
Feature
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CHANGEMAKER
Treatment Action Campaign works to ensure that every person living with HIV has access to quality comprehensive prevention and treatment services to live a healthy life. Visit www.tac.org.za or call 021 422 1700.
photo: Lisa Burnell
Sonke Gender Justice works to support men and boys in taking action to promote gender equality, prevent domestic and sexual violence, and reduce the spread and impact of HIV and AIDS. Find out more at www.genderjustice.org.za or call 021 423 7088
What was your life like growing up as a teenager in Cape Town? I was born in the Eastern Cape but came to Cape Town when I was 15. I lived with my father and stepmother in Philippi. We had only two rooms in our house, shared between more than six people and we relied solely on my father’s income. My father felt the pressure and as a result was very abusive to my stepmother and us children. As the first born I had a lot of responsibility, not only to look after my younger siblings but also to look after the house and do chores like the washing. There was never any free time. I found three different afterschool jobs to try and save some money or get money for clothes since my father was only willing to pay for school uniforms. Although I was not interested in boys there was also pressure on me to find a boyfriend, both as a source of income but also as a means of escape from a very difficult home environment.
What happened after you were diagnosed as HIV positive in 2001? At the time I had completed a college course in HR but I couldn’t find a job in that field so I was working at McDonald’s in Sea Point. One day, just out of curiosity. I went to the clinic in Green Point. I walked into that clinic with confidence. The test took 20 minutes and lasted an eternity. When I heard the news that I was HIV positive I was completely dumbfounded. I walked home in a daze, and the only thing I could think was: this
Living by example At age 22 the odds were stacked against Vuyiseka Dubula. She was young, poor, black, female and she had just been diagnosed as HIV positive. Today Vuyiseka is a successful activist, mom, Comrades marathon runner, wife, Ph.D student and inspiration to many. What happened in between? Text by Ambre Nicolson
means death. In my mind I was going to die almost immediately and I kept thinking about how I hadn’t done anything yet and that five people, my family, relied on me. I went into a deep depression. I moved back in with my mom because I thought it would be better to die at home and although I didn’t show anyone, I cried every day. I was 22 years old.
What made you become an activist? After three months of being very depressed I decided I had to do something. A counsellor at the clinic had told me to go to a place in Khayelitsha. I knew there might be a lot of stigma attached to my family if I went there but I went anyway. That day I met a woman, a TAC educator, that I think may have saved my life. Because there she was, a woman like me, the same
age, HIV positive and with an HIV positive child and yet she wasn’t feeling sorry for herself, she was doing something. She knew everything she needed to know about the disease; I knew nothing. She introduced me to TAC and from that day on I went every day, religiously, because I wanted to learn. I started to learn more about HIV and what role being a woman played in me getting the disease. I was able to put my history in perspective. I also realised how important it is to keep busy, to think “What can I do, what can I contribute?”
You started at TAC as a receptionist, and 10 years later you left as general secretary. How? I started working for TAC in 2002. I was so hungry for knowledge that I studied day and night every book that
We need to do something about the inequality that exists here because as long as people go hungry they will choose survival over the safety of their health. AIDS is something that happens in the future, hunger is something that happens today. was available so I mastered the science very quickly. Soon I became an educator and I worked to open branches of TAC in the Klipfontein area. Since I was telling people to start treatment I realised I must lead by example. When I started
treatment I realised I had to shift my mindset and start thinking more long-term about my dreams. I had to redefine my identity as something more than just an HIV-positive woman. I went back to school to get a degree, I got married (to someone who was HIV negative) and I had a child. I learned to find the positives about being diagnosed with this disease: without it I wouldn’t have learned so much about myself and so much about the struggles that exist in this world. When I left TAC I did so as general secretary.
What’s next for you? Everything. I will stop working when every woman has control over her body and reproductive health. Maybe I’ll run for president! Right now I am the head of Sonke’s policy development and advocacy unit. I want to run the Comrades again, and I am busy getting my Ph.D in public health policy. My husband worries I try to do too much but I want to show people that being HIV positive doesn’t have to stop you doing anything.
What do you hope for your son and daughter? For my son I hope that he can grow up as a man who respects women and in a society where there is gender equality. When I compare myself to my sevenyear-old daughter I see how things are changing, how much she knows at a much earlier age and how well she can articulate herself. But, when I look at Cape Town as a major South African city and the challenges it faces, I worry. We need to do something about the inequality that exists here because as long as people go hungry they will choose survival over the safety of their health. AIDS is something that happens in the future, hunger is something that happens today.
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MOLO JUNE 2014
YOU SAY
STREET TALK
Love lines
Turns out you were only too happy to tell us about some of the best (and worst) lines you’ve heard.
Images by Sam Reinders
Abdullah Edries, 26
My best pick-up line? Um, will you have a drink with me? Sometimes that works, you know?
Lindy Loxton, 30 Stacey Greeve, 21 (right)
My friend told me about a guy who walked up to her and said, ‘Could you hold this while I go for a long walk?’. He was holding out his hand. I thought that was pretty cute.
“I got chatting to someone on social media and we really hit it off. After a while of chatting we decided to meet up and when we met the first thing he did was to greet me by the pet name – ten toes – that he used on whatsapp. He kind of leant in close and whispered it and I remember thinking at the time, “Oh boy, let’s just take a deep breath here …” It definitely won me over.”
Toufique Behardien, 21 “I just approach a woman like she’s a normal human being. And a compliment doesn’t hurt either, it’s a good way to get a conversation going. Yes, it’s worked in the past but I’m soon going to be a married man. I met my fiancé in December last year and we’re getting married in a couple of months.”
Lorna Abrahams, 55 (LEFT) “The most romantic spot in Cape Town? Hmm, I think that would have to be the Waterfront because it’s beautiful with the water and the mountain and there is lots to do.”
Melanie Sam, 37 (right) “The one I have heard most is, ‘You look familiar …’ And I have to admit, it’s a good way of getting a conversation started.”
Alaa Taha, 21
Sanele Nondabula, 25
“A little while ago I got into an elevator with a guy and he noticed the ring I wear on my wedding finger that was a gift from my best friend years ago. He asked if I was married and when I replied no, he said, ‘Well, I hope the next ring you wear is mine.’ I thought that was pretty charming.”
If I wanted to take a first date somewhere romantic I would take her to one of those restaurants by the sea in Sea Point.
Simphiwe Mbatha, 26
You’re beautiful. I think that works the best.