Omamas Abathengisa Inthloko - The Mothers That Sell Sheep Heads

Her name is Patricia and I remember the first time I saw her very well. It was a warm day and I was driving pass all the leaning shacks and shebeens when I saw smoke columns on the blue township sky. The road turned and behind the corner appeared a most remarkable sight; in a pile of raffle next to burning fires sat six women with hats, painted faces and what appears to be swords in their hands. I couldn't believe my eyes, a squad of amazon warriors from a post-apocalyptic movie in the middle of Langa - what was going on? I asked my friend behind the steering-wheel; “who are these women and what are they doing?” He smiled at me and said; “that my man, that is the omamas abathengisa intloko - the mothers that sell sheep heads”.

When I return to the spot a few weeks later, there are only three women left in the raffle. Patricia is telling me that the rest went for holidays to the Eastern Cape, the rural area many people in Langa root from and where many people still have friends and family living. This is where Patricia was born and raised herself, but in the 70's she moved to Langa with her mom that wanted a better job and education possibilities for her children. In fact, her mom was also an omama abathengisa intloko until 10 years ago when Patricia decided to take over and let her mom rest and take care of her children. At first Patricia worked as a domestic worker, and I ask her what made her change occupation. She throws a sheep head into the fire and explains that employers started to demand more qualifications and a lot of paperwork in the 90's, and she didn't have any of those two. I nod my head to signalize that I understand but I'm not as sure that I actually do. This story is far more complex than a meal.

Every morning at seven Patricia is at the butcher to purchase the heads. At ten she arrives to the stump that is her working chair and starts the process required in order to prepare the perfect sheep head. The first step is to dry the head from blood. After that all the wool and hair needs to be burned away by using a glowing metal tool. She's showing me how this is done, the smoke is rising, and I am looking into the dead sheep eyes that appears to be so alive, its like I expect some kind of complaining sound, a cry of sorrow, a sheep's lament, even though I know it's just a head without a body. Nothing wailing is coming out, at least not from the mouth. When all the hair is gone it's time to wash the smooth face clean from burned particles. This is the first time I've seen a newly shaved sheep face in my whole life and it looks even more polite and humble than it did with all the facial hair. But Patricia doesn't have any sympathy and I can understand her. It's the sheep or her. The next step is brutal; first she slices the head open with an axe and then she removes the brain that most people don't like to eat. After that the remaining parts have to boil for two hours without any spices, and then it's finally ready to be served. Bon appetite! Patricia says that her favourite part is the ears or the eyes, the parts that consists of most fat, but she's advising me to try the tongue – the part that most people think is most delicious. My mouth goes dry and my tongue roll up in the palate in an instinctive manoeuvre of self-defence. It takes a second or two for me two convince it that everything's fine, it uncoils slowly and I'm able to ask my next question. In 2 hours she's able to prepare 10 heads, and if everything goes as planned every head comes with a profit of 20 rands each. The price for a whole head is 40 rands and for half of a head you have to pay 20. I realize that I actually have to buy something,  but I am bit careful and decide to be fine with just one half. There are already prepared ones wrapped in the Daily Sun and I open the paper. I'm actually too young for festivities such as these, in Xhosa culture it's only the elders that are allowed to eat from the head. This is part of Patricia's business idea and most customers are younger boys that wants to find out what's so special with the ntloko yegusha - the ceremonial sheep head. I am not so sure I am one of them so I grab a tiny bite with a lot of barbecue spice. Chew, chew, chew. Swallow and smile. I decide to ask for take-away. 

Work in the Township

The official unemployment rate of South Africa is 25%. This means that one person in four is jobless, something that has to be considered a huge catastrophe for any state.

The celebrated growth of the South African economy has been highly unequal in distribution and this is easy to observe when entering the township of Langa that is crowded with unsatisfied people not participating in the economic mainstream and that lack any prospect of getting a formal job in any future. Here, ANC has failed providing jobs for ten thousands of its citizens, and the unemployment rate is more likely to land around sixty, or even seventy percentage. The gap between poor and rich remains enormous in the country with the socio-economic increase in the townships since the end of the apartheid era being minimal, if any at all. Many people here have given up the search for work, and Langa is left poor and crowded with people of different ages drifting around without any stimulation or inspiration.

No human society can exist without work. Work structures the way people live and make contact with social reality and affects the individual's social status and mind. Without work it’s impossible to satisfy our cultural and material needs, but we have to “do something” to earn our living, something that requires some kind of effort. However, being unemployed is more than being without an income, work is also important for the psychological health and can help developing faculties of the human mind like consciousness, reasoning and perception. Mental accomplishment is fundamental for everyone and the lack of achievement can lead to depression and loss of self-esteem which often spurs social problems such as crime and xenophobia. Unemployment is therefore causing both physical and mental poverty.

In most developed countries there is only one economy. This is the so called formal economy which consists of businesses that are monitored by a government, that pay taxes and can adhere to union regulations. South Africa has two economies, one formal and one informal, and in Langa, it is the informal sector that rules. Working in the informal sector means that you’re self-employed and supervising yourself; you decide when to start work and when to go home for the day. This might sound nice for some ears, many people dream of being independent and self-made and many workers within the informal economy would never want to change their jobs for something in the formal sector. However, there are downsides with working in the informal sector as well, for example the lack of safety and reliability that you get from a monthly pay check.

As in most developing and developed countries, economic opportunities in South Africa lies in the urban areas, and this is the big reason for the rapid urbanisation and progressive migration to the townships outside of the bigger cities. Even though Langa is considered to be “full” and without any space for new arrivals, more shackles still pop up every week meaning that more people need to find jobs. In order to make a living here, innovation and creativity is most likely necessary and everything has to be seen as an opportunity. I find this fascinating and I want to give the reader the chance to get to know some of these people that through self-entrepreneurship and desperation managed to pull through and turn nothing into something. 

Cell photos from the past few weeks

The boys were dancing before the football game between 
Chippa and Pirates at Athlone Stadium

Santa Claus came to Langa

and all the children at Project Playground received christmas presents! 

The staff had a christmas closing where we exchanged gifts

 It was very warm that day...

Instead of christmas ham and herring it was grilled chicken and sausage
that was served (this would be an amazing cover photo for any hip-hop album)

Home Affairs : The Trilogy

Home Affairs became a trilogy. A breathtaking story about love and desperation, time and frustration. I won the battle against bureaucracy in the end and henceforth have the legal right to continue my beautiful visit in South Africa. However, the fight was long and tiring and I have to admit that I was down on my knees, close to surrender, begging them to please, please spare be from getting home affaired.

Let us start from the beginning. Home Affairs is South Africa's immigration service, and it is located in a boring and run down business district in downtown Cape Town. It is a grey fortress, built in straight lines, strategically designed to send the message that you're now entering enemy land, nothing is free here so you better make an effort. Immediately after entering the main gates it's time for queue number one; in order to know were to go you first have to explain your errand for one of the two heavy weight champions with rolling eyes saying “what in Gods name are you doing here young man, get that look of your face, how dare you showing up here at my door smiling, I'm going to show you what life is all about!” that are stuffed behind the transparent glass desk. It's always important to get a good start – especially when the battle is long - but many newcomers actually loose here on first level, right in front of the desk. The trick is to stay cold, and never ever look them in the eyes, focus on your own task, say the words, and wait until they tell you where to go.

If you pass the first test, then you can continue through the door to the right where a security guard is going to control that you're not bringing any weapons or explosives. This is understandable, the threat towards Home Affairs is indeed existing and there are many potential revengers strolling around under the bridges thinking “one day, one day I'll be back”. However, if this is not your mission, you can take the stairs up to the first floor and enter what many people refer to as the battlefield. Home Affairs is built like one long and narrow corridor filled with lines of hanging eyes, snoring noses and driveling mouths creating a human labyrinth. No signs. No directions to follow. Flesh everywhere and ten different counters and two employees that are walking around like street cops telling people to be patient and not lean against the walls. In order to apply for a visa you first have to queue for an application form. This line took me one hour. After that I was told to fill everything in, and then return again with double copies of my bank statement, motivational letter, flight ticket, insurance papers and passport. Outside the building there are copy stores and ID photo experts everywhere – Home Affairs is their golden mine. Once back, you have to queue in the same line downstairs in order to get what could be seen as an ordinary piece of paper. It is not, actually it's very very far away from being just an ordinary piece of paper - this is your golden ticket, your judgment and your destiny, your only way to get out of hell. Finally I thought, let's get down to business and get this thing done. I crawled my way through the labyrinth, and found a good place to stand where I didn't lean against the wall, where I followed all the rules and felt safe. I looked down at my ticket to control that everything was in order; I couldn't believe what I saw; my eyes were reading “estimated waiting time 971 minutes – please sit down and wait for your turn”.

“estimated waiting time 971 minutes"

After one hour I found a seat where I could sit down. The street police guy passed and I asked him if something maybe was wrong with the machine today, maybe it was 97 minutes or something, “aaaha not at all” he said and smiled with all his teeth and told me that they might have to close before it's my turn, and that I then needed to come back the day after and do everything again. The only thing I could do was to sit down and wait.

Time passed and I tried to read my book (My Traitor's Heart by Rian Malan) but couldn't focus since I was constantly disturbed by all the people, and affected by all the emotions and stories that always exist within the walls of an immigration office. I also felt a bit weird sitting where I sat, and assume that it was because of the chauvinistic and nonchalant mentality that exists within EU boarders – we're so used travelling everywhere in the world without any problems and also used to read and talk about immigration politics with people from other countries coming to us, and not the other way around. This is something that has negative effect on many Swedes minds, people become narrow-minded, and fail to understand that most people don't immigrate because they want to do. People that come to Sweden don't leave their homes and families because they feel like doing it, but most times because they have to. We are all migrants in our nature, and since the birth of mankind human beings had a tendency to move to places where we could live a better life, and create a better future for our children and upcoming generations. Surviving is a basic human instinct, and that is exactly why unequal and unfair societies always will dissolve, most times with the help of violence and other cruelties. It is indeed sad to see how bad we threat each other sometimes.

While my mind was spinning around people around me actually started to move. They had been waiting for hours, but when the TV-screen showed their numbers and asked them to go to the counter they just stood up without a single facial move, without any signs of excitement, not even relief, and slowly dragged themselves over the floor in the same way as one would drag oneself from the couch to the fridge on a sunday afternoon in order to refill some coke in the break of a Nollywood soap opera. The level of energy was zero. 

After 3 hours, half of the numbers had passed, and I realized that many had given up. This was not going to happen to me. Never. Was there still life outside? My memories of something else slowly fainted away and I could only remember small fragments of my past and even less about what I was going to do after this. The future was unimportant in this moment, everything that mattered was that voice and that screen that all of a sudden started give away numbers in much higher tempo than before – I couldn't believe my ears – there were only 10 numbers left before it was my turn. 10 tiny numbers. Ten. There was still hope for me. 

The last numbers were very slow but I didn't matter because I was caught up in fantasises. I was daydreaming of how I was cartwheeling out through the main gates to the tunes of Abdullah Ibrahim and how people outside would throw flowers in the air and hug me. Then it happened. "Ticket number 3092 go to counter number 25." That was me! I flew up from the chair and searched for happy faces, someone to celebrate with, someone to hug. Nobody. I didn't care and bounced over the floor, up to counter number 25, where I smiled at the girl behind the desk with all my teeth, who responded by looking at my chest with tired eyes. "Papers" she yawned and I gave her my application. Three minutes later everything was over. The papers were handed in and I was told to wait for a text message. The first mission was accomplished! 

One and a half month later I woke up to the following message; Home Affairs – Your application has been finalised, please collect the outcome after 5 working days. Excellent I thought, I just have to go there and pick everything up, I know the place by now and the queue can't be so bad for collecting applications. So I waited and on the sixth working day I decided to go there again. I arrived around 9 in the morning and to my surprise there was no queue at all down by the entrance – this was a good sign. I told the lady that I was here to collect my visa and she printed my ticket; estimated waiting time 220 minutes - please sit down and wait for your turn”. A wave of regardlessness washed over my mind when the security guard scanned my front pockets. Three and a half hours. I walked up the stairs and dragged myself over the floor. The same seat was available in the corner. Cozy. I sat down. The first hour passed even though someone shut down the concept of time – I was searching across the room for Sisyphus. I felt even more annoyed than the first time, mostly because I thought that this was going to be the easy mission. Suddenly something changed,, voices were lowered and some kind of vacuum emerged - just as if everyone in the whole building had inhaled at the same time. People were braking laws, leaned against walls, because in the middle of the aisle comes a bride with a white long wedding dress dragged along the dirty floor. She's shining, she's beautiful, it's the best day of her life and she's at Home Affairs. She's getting married and she's walking towards me with a big smile. I'm trying to smile back but realize that I look ridiculous with my long face – I couldn't believe my eyes, a wedding, here....in Satan’s own stronghold?

Two hours later of intense sitting I started to feel hope. I was almost there now, just call me up, so we all can go home. She did, the robot lady told me to go to counter number 26, and I knew that I only had seconds left before I was completely free. I gave her my ticket and my reference number and she clicked everything in on the computer. I was excited. She wasn't. “Your application is still in Pretoria, come back in another three days.” What!? I showed her my text and gave her my biggest protest face – “so you're telling me that I have to come back and do everything again? Don't you understand that I took a day of work in order to be here? What shall I do?” She rolled her eyes and said “well, that's what happens” before she pressed the button – someone else walked up to counter 26 and I walked out completely devastated.

I waited another 10 days just to be on the safe side. It was a very warm day and I walked decisively into the building for a third time. I told the lady that I was here to collect my visa and she nodded her head and gave me my ticket; estimated waiting time 187 minutes - please sit down and wait for your turn”. Not bad I thought and took the steeps up to, less crowded, but someone else had taken my seat. Typical. I spotted another one that looked comfortable, and sat down. This time I was prepared with bringing my laptop. Two hours passed like nothing thanks to “Under African Skies”, a brilliant documentary about Paul Simon's visit in South Africa and his recording of the celebrated album Graceland. I felt like the bride. I was enjoying my time at Home Affairs. The big lady next to me peeked at the screen and gave me a warm smile. Everything was great. The last hour - my eleventh at Home Affairs - worked as a nice epilogue and then I was called up by the robot voice that in my ears sounded sweet as Miriam Makeba. I walked to counter number 27. “Is it here? Is it approved?”.“Yes it is” she said and smiled (!). It was almost like I had forgotten why I was spending all this time here, but when she handed over the visa to me everything became clear again; I was allowed to stay in this beautiful country for another two months, this was an amazing feeling and I danced my way out from Home Affairs. 

Hopefully for the last time in quite some time.