The homeless

I’d spent my later years growing up in the sea side community of Kalkbay, Cape Town. At that time, apartheid had somehow left our little village alone. We were a mixture of cultures, like a good spice shop. 

Mrs Fish as we called her, was a large than life personality whose job it was to hawk fish from the little fishing boats down at the harbor, lived next door to us. “Fieeesh, fresh fieesh come get your fresh fieeesh” she’d shout out, then give you a toothless grin while rubbing her blood-soaked hands on her fish stained apron.

Across the road from us was a long building comprising of small one-man business and closely packed, old large apartments. Cobble stones paved our very narrow one-way street. Kids played under the street lamps until their mothers screeched “Hey Farid you better come in or you gonna get a smack.” 

That little alcove became his home, the business owner respecting the needs of others and only requested that he move his bedding during business hours and not use it as a toilet.

Winter visited Kalkbay and the cold blowing off the sea whistled their way up the cobble street.  Our bedrooms were upstairs in that old school house with a view of the harbor and street below. One night I heard my mother shouting, at 2 o’clock in the morning. “Oh for goodness sake I’m never gonna get a nights rest” The bergie across the road had caught a cold and kept her up all night with his coughing. So, marching down the stairs armed with a large bottle of cough mixture and hot med lemon she paid the bergie a visit. Night after night she made sure he was warm and fully stocked to keep that cough away.

Locals kept in touch without cellphones in those days and did the feeding rounds for those that lived underbushes or subway stations.

Each morning before the sun came up, my rather eccentric grandmother with her gown tightly wrapped around her and her little dog on a short leash would make their way down those cobble streets, toward the sea. Shaking a plastic packet over her head calling in a high-pitched shrill “come, come, come” to the sky. Her cries invited large escorts of seagulls that circled over her all the way to the pools. Under the subway she’d grab the rails with one hand and made her way slowly down the steps, she was in her seventies and her sight was failing her. On mornings when I felt brave enough, I’d join her on this journey. At the bottom of the stairs along the sides, the walls were lined with sleeping bodies curled up on cardboard or matrasses. “More Missis”(morning madam) they called out as she passed. “Morning, morning”, she’d call back.  Back up the other end of the subway, she’d shake her packet out for the gulls. Let her little dog loose and throw her gown to one side. Holding onto the rails she’d slowly inch her way down the stairs that led into the large ocean pool.  She never hesitated as her thin white body disappeared into the freezing sea water. Morning after morning through winters and summers. Through froth and foam and blue bottles, she swam her ten lengths.

One morning I was up early when she returned home. The large blue front wooden gate opened and Scampie her little dog came running in first. Follow by my grandmother and a local bergie, nursing a large rock. She followed my grandmother obediently like a child. Ate the food my gran made and happily exchanged her rock for a pot plant. At the gate my grandmother bid her farewell and she left.

On my wedding day dressed in my large Diana type gown with flowing vale I was bought to tears as my street came out to wish me well. Mom’s with babies on their hips, whistle calls from the top window and children running after the car down those cobble streets,waving.

We were a mixed bunch, each filled with our own stories, each on our own paths. Mingled together in a little fishing village with a very BIG heart, our home.  

A shelter was built for all the homeless in our area, the larger supermarkets donated food. For R2 one got a three course meal and a bed. That was if you were sober. A job was found for you and you were given counselling. Many chose to return to the streets and some made it through the system.

One night a man arrived at the shelter dressed in a smart leather jacket. Marline answered the door, had a brief chat with the man and told him this wasn’t really the place for someone so smartly dressed and well educated. They said their goodbyes. But then Marline felt something wasn’t right. He called the guy back and found out that the man wanted to end his life by driving his car off the harbor wall, he was lost and lonely and depressed. Marline and the home took him in. Helped him find his feet. Two years later the man was running a sister shelter in the center of Cape Town. God had a bigger plan for this man’s life.

We were a small community, a mixed bunch of odd characters flung together in life.