Between two corners

Everytime I visit the Wellness Centre, I drive past the neighbouring Daycare Centre. It's on the corner of the road with its brightly painted sign hanging off the building's awning. I've met the manager a couple of times before, there in the Seniors' Club bungalow. We've chatted, been friendly, but today I needed a favour. See, two of my students were meant to volunteer at a daycare centre in Barcelona but the daycare manager couldn't get some community leaders to sign an agreement about staffing for 2013 nor to decide on who from the community was going to help in the container where they run their programmes. So that process has stalled somewhere between a megalomanic and a bunch of kids who'll go back to running around the afternoon lanes and alleyways of Barcelona. Obviously, my students could no longer go there. The director of the homeless centre in Salt River, which was option number two, called me early Monday morning, she was angry and upset. Her organization is being evicted from the building they lease, the owners want to sell. It was unexpected, very sudden and unfair. "Good luck," I told her as we ended our conversation, "if there's anything you need from me, just let me know." I hung up the phone and stamped around in my pajama's for a bit, frustrated and pissed-off to be honest, about how my partner is being treated. Then I headed to work, started to stop running out of ideas and, as I do these days when this whole community development vibe gets to much for me, I phoned Tabs. "Sisi!" she called when she answered the phone, "how are you?"
"I need some help Tabs, how are you?"
She laughed, listened to my quandary, and we made a plan.

I drove into Khayelitsha this morning to drop off a pair of students at a high school there and to meet with the principal. They were short four teachers last week, and the principal explains, "the department is only giving us three, so we'll have to redo the timetable." She smiles apologetically at my students, as though it's her fault.
I don't know if it's the 7am meeting that's got me off my game, but I have an overwhelming urge to scream and shout and throw things. I get why kids burn their schools: in that moment I could have set fire to something. No, it's not constructive, but neither is not having enough teachers: as though one teacher too few is even the most serious issue here... I leave the school and drive to the Wellness Centre, slowing down to avoid the people walking in and around the taxis idling near the Pama Road bridge.

Tabs hears me talking to Lulu at the reception desk and pulls me into the kitchen, "you want a cup?"
She makes me sweet coffee and we stand for a while and chat. Ma'Monica joins us and I sit up on the counter like I always do, Tabby leaning her arms on my legs, hitting my knees for emphasis when she makes a forceful point. I've been there a while, our cups are empty, and we're paging through the Shoprite advertorial. "Don't you want to help me find Gloria?" I say to Tabs. The internet and phones haven't been paid so were cut off from last week already; there's nothing for her to do here. "Mmmm" she answers emphatically, "let's go."

We walk over the road to the Daycare Centre, greeting and hugging the staff. Gloria's in the office and she doesn't recognize me at first. "I had long hair last time," I tell her, and then she remembers.
"I wanted students from last year," she tells me, when I propose my offer, "so yes, ofcourse they can come." She walks Tabs and I around the centre and explains that there was a burglary last night. Someone broke in the window of the outside room and stole the keys to the other bungalow. "Why do people steal from children?" I want to know, Gloria just shakes her head.
"We're waiting now for someone to come to open the bungalow" she says, "so for now the children must all sit in here." There must be about 20 of them, squeezed into a sliver of room. Their little bodies fit into one another like puzzle pieces. There is no room to play or move really, just to be inside and to listen to the mas tell them stories and teach.

I drive back to the office via the corner of Lansdowne Road and Mew Way. The lights were out when I came in this morning: no red, no orange, no green, just the blue of the traffic car parked on the island in Mew Way. The officer stood leaning against the bonnet of the car watching the wheels and feet negotiate their way over and across the intersection. But the lights were back on now. They'll be off again this afternoon, I can almost guarantee it, but I don't know, just for a moment--maybe it was Tabs, maybe it was Gloria--I felt kind of hopeful.