Coming and Going

I didn't realize til I drove into Khayelitsha this morning how much I've missed being there. Yes, obviously I missed the Seniors Club and the staff at the EWC, but I didn't realize the extent to which I'd missed the place. I can't quantify why, and I hope it's not some romanticized ideal of community playing mind-games with me, but driving over the Mew Way bridge and into Site C I just breathed this deep and relieved sigh, reassuring myself that it's ok, Khayelitsha hasn't left in the last month, it's all still here. Still broken, still unbroken, still fixed. Sure, things have changed, in such a mutable environment meaning comes from change, but it's still here.

A couple of months back, someone asked me what the empty plot over the road from the Site C terminus was about. Today, the construction of the new Shoprite exposes the skeletal beginnings of the building. The tshishanyama fires fill the road with a heavy and moving fog. I wait as I drive down Phaphani Crescent for the woman on crutches to swing her way over the road. The house on the corner, that turquoise one; man, the lavender bushes on the verge outside border on abundant.

I had a meeting at a partner organization in Site C, and then, ofcourse, I made a quick stop at the EWC. I couldn't not. I follow Bonga Drive past the Police Station, past the carwash where the vacuum-cleaner cord hangs from a loose plug a little way up an electrical pole, and comes to rest in a pool of muddy water at its feet. The potholes aren't as bad as I remember them, or perhaps they've been filled up and re-holed in the time I've been away? Those potholes become miniature tidal pools when it rains, with shreds and shards of food packaging swimming lazily about in them. At the corner of Pama Road, there's a salon offering mani's and pedi's for finger- and foot-nails.

My ma's are excited to see me and I sit down for a quick cupcake with them. They're loving the change in the weather, and have new outside furniture that they show-off. They tell me that:
"There are two other ladies who came here," a pause, "was it last week?" Ma'MP asks me.
I shrug. "Two ladies from where?"
"Oh, they are like you," is the answer. "They come from the college to be with us."
I smile. "Ah, that'll be nice!"
"Yes," is the answer. "We showed them your poster," she points to where it still hangs on the wall. It reads: "Ndifunde lukhulu kuni", I have learnt so much from you.
It's not that I'm territorial, not that I'm jealous, but I'm really, really happy that my poster still hangs on the wall, that my presence will be felt by those two other ladies.

I wave at the security guard on the way out, at least after a year I no longer have to go through the ritual of signing her well-thumbed ledger. I swear like a pirate at a taxi on Lansdowne Road after it forces me closer to the pavement than I usually like to be. I can see the tops of the water-reeds in RR-Section, this area really is as much raw as it is urbanized. There's a sign saying "No Dumping Here" just next to the porta-potties lining the Mew Way N2 onramp. A mound of sky blue rubbish bags have started to collect at its base.