I Moved To A Place Called Central

Called Central I Moved to a Place

The grass doesn’t get any greener, the birds any freer and the beach any cleaner than here. By Ziphozakhe Hlobo

Igrew up in a black suburb of Port Elizabeth, one of the most convenient places in South Africa to settle down and have a family.

I had a simple upbringing, walking 10 to 20 minutes to school and church. I did not get out except when it really was necessary or when my family was going out. In any case, we had to be careful of those dirty boys from that dirty Veeplaas next to our neighbourhood.

In all the neighbouring townships, the kids from my neighbourhood were known as spoilt brats and snobs whose parents bought them everything they wanted. If you were from my neighbourhood and could not afford to buy something at the school tuck shop, the other kids would say, “How can you not afford it when you are from Kwa-magxaki?” 1

To be honest, I did not relate to its lifestyle. My family life was not the norm, and I had more in common with the children in the townships. My aunt had taken me to live with her in the suburb when my parents moved to Cape Town.

When I enrolled at the university, I had to move to the city, not far from a place called Central, to be close to school.

“Central?”

“You will be staying in Central, that place full of prostitutes and criminals?”

My family was reluctant to give in to this idea and, to be quite honest, so was I. However, Central was the only place where I could live because I had applied late and had to take the accommodation that was available.

When I told friends from my neighbourhood about my upcoming move, the response was, “That place is as good as these dirty townships full of illegal foreigners!”

The infamous Central was known for absorbing young people into its night life and making them drug dealers or prostitutes and then spitting them out once they caught some dreadful disease. It was supposedly a place where Nigerians, or as they are called, amakwerekwere, 2 would lure young girls into prostitution. Central was to Port Elizabeth what Photo by Chris Allen A statue of Queen Elizabeth still stands in front of the original city library and looks over the City Hall and Market Square at the start of Govan Mbeki. Hillbrow is to Johannesburg. In fact, while I was still in high school, a sex tape of a girl in our school was making all the buzz. People were saying that of her classmates told us, and some people were convinced that amakwerekwere had drugged her and sold the video on the Internet. this was true. The sex tape was the biggest scandal in the school. It

“She thinks she is clever, hanging around those dirty Nigerians even spread throughout my neighbourhood and the ones close by. and sleeping with them. Maybe they paid her,” teachers said. Distressful as it may have been to the girl, I enjoyed the

“She is a porn star, and that is how she pays for her fees,” one buzz because it helped me befriend some of the coolest kids

who had never noticed me in my neighbourhood. I would be walking to a shop or to the library, and someone I have never spoken to would say, “So, what happened to that girl?”

After the scandal, the sex tape became a way by which our teachers warned us not to go to Central because, “Look at what happened to her.” It was our parents’ tool to emphasize the danger in the streets of Central, and we were not even to think about going to that place — otherwise we would end up like her. One of our teachers told us that in Central there was a strip club that he had read about in the newspapers, but whenever we asked him in which paper he had read it from, he simply laughed.

I was going to stay in Central, where daughters had disappeared and young sons had become killers and drug dealers. I attempted to convince my worried family that I would not be swallowed up and that I would devote myself to my studies.

When my cousin dropped me off at South Point residence for the first time, she noticed that there was a strip club named Club Erotica just across the road and the look on her face was priceless.

“Club Erotica? That’s a dirty name. I’m sure dirty things are happening in that club. This is surely no place to raise kids.”

But I was not going to go to Club Erotica or any other club. My friends and I planned visits to the Opera House on nights when one of our friends from a nearby Arts College was performing. We were introduced to his friends, who also were artists and who had lived in Central for a long time.

Soon I was drawn to the non-conventional life of artists who work at unconventional times, refuse to dress “proper,” often smoke weed and do not care that people think less of the work they do.

One night I was introduced to an actor, and while conversing with him, I was stunned to learn he was an atheist. Church had been everything to me. Nonetheless, I was more drawn to him than any other guy I had met during my stay in Central.

When he did not ask for my number that night, I found out where he lived and thought I might accidentally bump into him and have a chat. When I finally did bump into him, we had a long conversation. “Can I have your number?” he asked, just as we were about to part.

On nights that followed, the visits were frequent. We hung out until midnight, tirelessly walking around Central, talking about life, love, art and what the government could do about Central’s rundown buildings.

We went to the Opera House. We listened to the desperate voices and songs of his fellow artists and whispered our criticisms. At the end of the show, we would walk out of the theatre with many other artists who spoke of plans to leave Port Elizabeth because of lack of opportunities, but the next year they would still be there.

When I went back home during the end-of-the-year holidays, I walked the clean streets of that quiet suburb in which I had grown up and longed for the dirty hills of Central.

“I miss Central,” I told my sister. She frowned and asked, “What do you miss about it?”

I stammered a few words, but I could see that she was not satisfied with my answer.

After the holidays, I took a taxi back. The streets were busy and loud cash collectors were sticking their heads out of the taxis’ broken windows, shouting, “Town, Njoli, New Bright!” 3

We passed the townships close to my home where jobless people were walking in their pyjamas. Barefoot children stood on the side of the road waiting for a green light. Then, holding each other’s hands, they nervously crossed the road.

When I arrived in Central, I heard from a woman who was selling fruit that, “There were municipality workers’ riots yesterday.” The rubbish bins were opened and public phones and road signs had been vandalized.

In 2010, the whole nation was anticipating the World Cup, and “Love this place!” was written on a tall building next to the taxi terminus. Whenever I walked past that building, I remembered the smell of urine next to the taxis, the peaceful park where I often sat facing the coast, the beautiful lights that made Parliament Street alive and the disco lights coming out of the clubs. For me, Central has it all.

In 2010, the streets were blooming with people selling everything from hair bands to soccer balls to Vuvuzelas. “Buy a bottle of coke in a store, and get a free Vuvuzela,” Coca Cola adverts proclaimed.

Contrary to those busy streets next to the taxi terminus, the Northern areas of Central were peaceful and calm, and my friends and I spent our Sundays at the park watching mothers and fathers take their children and pets out to play.

I love that place!

I love the mutual understanding we have with our weather, which abruptly turns from happy to sad to depressed, forcing the sea to cry and blow a chill and causing unrest to the entire city. I love the deep coloured green, yellow and red peppers sold by hawkers on the streets. Sometimes you buy from them, and they struggle to count your change. I love the tongues you hear in the corners of Central, tourists smiling and taking pictures, standing at the Donkin Reserve and Queen Victoria powerlessly and idly standing in front of the Main Library. I love how black people walking at Whites Road despise her and wish to take her down. I love how she is part of our history.

On Saturday nights, all you see in Central are students going up Donkin to Parliament Street to dance and share drinks with their friends. I love how impossible it sometimes is to sleep with drunks noisily making their way down the street.

When you ask them not to make noise, their eyes say, “Why are you sleeping on a Saturday night anyway?” and you give up without a fight.

I love how they sometimes say, “Oh, sorry, sorry,” and when you leave, they laugh.

I love the calmness on a Sunday, the way the city refuses to wake up, even when the sun shines through its windows. Sundays remind me that I live in one of the calmest cities in South Africa. The grass doesn’t get any greener, the birds any freer and the beach any cleaner than on a Sunday afternoon in Port Elizabeth.

I love the silence of Sunday night.

[1] Informal settlement outside the city [2] Derogatory term referred to black foreigners by black South Africans. It is a term that mocks foreigners for not being able to speak any South African language, and to some black South Africans, the sound of the foreigners’ language is primitive and sounds like they are saying “kwirikwirikwiri” [3] The stops where the taxi is going to offload.