My First Time

I had been waiting and preparing myself for it for years and expecting it to happen any minute since last year when I first came to Johannesburg. What would it feel like? How would I react? Would it hurt? In a way, I was looking forward to it. And then, yesterday, it finally happened: I got mugged.

My friend Sam from the States and I were walking on Empire Road, trying to get to a GRE testing center that I wanted to make sure existed. I was telling Sam a story from my childhood involving a big, hairy spider and suspension from school. So I was understandably agitated and understandably annoyed when a man, who was walking behind, caught up with us.

“Hey guys, howzit?” he said.

“Good, good,” we responded and carried on walking.

“Are you guys good?” He extended his hand to Sam, shaking it. He was wearing a hat that, ironically, said ‘Sam’ on it.

“Yes, we are good,” I said, and I tried to continue my naughty spider story.

“Where are you from?” the man asked Sam.

“From the U.S.,” Sam answered.

“Oh, so you guys are not from here,” the man said.

We were now ascending a little sidewalk next to busy Empire Road. The cars were driving past quickly.

“You are not from Johannesburg,” he continued.

“But we work here,” I said, getting irritated. I did not want the guy to take me for a guide-needing tourist. “We work here and we live here.”

I tried to continue my story that was about to reach its climax, ignoring the man.

“OK, guys. Do you have the time?” he asked. He seemed impatient to move on.

“I don’t know, maybe 1.15,” I guessed.

Sam got out his cell phone, a cheap 150 Rand (18USD) Samsung piece, looked at it and said: “Yea, it’s 1.18.”

“OK, guys,” the man said now. “This is what will happen: If you shout, the guy behind you will shoot you.”

Sam looked and saw another man right behind us. He was carrying a white something in his right hand. It could have been a gun in a bag. It could have been nothing at all. He looked nervous, Sam later told me.

Meanwhile, the first man who was on my right repeated his threat.

“If you yell, he will shoot you. He has a gun. Now, give me your cell phone.”

Sam handed him his cell phone.

“Now, you give me your cell phone,” he said to me. I had a hand bag and started rummaging in it, trying to gain time.

“Hurry, lady. Faster,” the man said to me. Strangely, I cannot remember what he was doing with his hands or whether he was looking at me when he said that.

I got angry. “Yes, wait. I am searching for it.” I looked into the purse and saw my wallet. This day, I had decided to make an exception and take my credit card, in case the GRE test center turned out to exist. Oh please, do not take my card, I thought. Please do not take it. It would take at least two, three weeks to get a new one from Bank of America in Boston via Germany. I looked around. Noone. The cars many meters away. And I thought about what trouble it would be explaining to my parents that I had gotten shot because of a phone.

I found the black sachet with my phone inside and handed it over. I felt sad when I did. With this phone, I had taken pictures of my insane “La naissance de la psychanalyse” professor during lecture at the Sorbonne two years prior; I had captured street graffitis and stencils when I did not have my camera on me; my dear friend Wanda and I had laughed tears over a phone picture of him with his half-unbraided hair, making faces into the camera in our living room. And finally — the best — my ring tone, given to me by KayaFM traffic announcer-friend Tseho: Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s get it on.”

He man took the phone, and the two left. We stood on the road, watching them jog away, not sure what to do. The likelihood of them actually having a gun and shooting us down in the middle of the day in the middle of road full of cars was almost zero. But do you take the chance? We crossed over to the other side of the street and walked back, looking for them. I asked a girl if she knew where the closest police station was. Nope. We went to a gas station, asked there. Hillbrow. Or Brixton. I thought of the credit card in my bag. I’m not going anywhere with that thing still on me.

We walked back, speaking about what to do. I had just spent a month asking people what they would do if someone took their phone. They said there was nothing to be done. I would poke further to find out why. It was their job as citizens to give the police a chance, I thought. The least they could do before despairing completely.

At home, I ate some, calmed down, and then went to the police station. The police officer asked me for my ITC Number. What? The number my service provider, MTN, would tell me once I dialed ‘808’ on an MTN phone. How I was supposed to do that with my MTN phone long gone? She shrugged. I used a friend’s. The MTN people could only tell me my ITC Number if I gave them my IMEI Number. Thank god for wikiHow. But how was I supposed to get my IMEI Number when it is found on the back of my now longer-gone phone? We cannot give you the ITC Number without it, the MTN people insisted and hung up.

Now I know the answers: It feels bad, degrading. It definitely hurts. I could not react. And it was inconsequential, as first times often tend to be.

“I hate being African.”

Marlone Ndlovu does not live in Hillbrow but he has been coming to the Youth Center at corner Edith Cavell and Kapteijn, three streets up from Joubert Park for over three months now. He is 18 years old, loves the arts, plays drums, sings and dances. He does not feel particularly safe nor unsafe in Hillbrow. According to him, it is the same situation all over Johannesburg: The police is not to be trusted, but private security companies are reliable. The reason? They are connected to overseas companies.

I ask him what he means.

“We are always behind here in Africa,” he answers. “Did you know that the Blackberry only came to us last year? You guys have been using it for years!”

Blackberry usage as a development measure, I see. Overrated, overused and a status symbol instead of useful tool for business people, in my opinion. We have finished the formal interview on security and I am about to close my notebook and say something snotty about BBs being even less relevant to the average person than a flatscreen TV, but Marlone is not done quite yet.

“I hate being African,” he says, not in a particularly emotional or loud voice. Just those words. I look at him.

“Never are we on top of anything. We just follow and try to catch up. The only thing I want to take from my country is being a professional percussionist. The music is the only thing this continent can ever teach me.”

I ask him about his plans after school.

“I want to go to Germany,” he says. How ironic, I think, but let him talk. “I want to go to Germany, because they make nice cars. And they know how to party. The economy has always been on top, and they respect their country, Germany.”

How he knows that, I ask, hectically scribbling down his quotes.

“From the World Cup. I remember seeing them with the painted faces and the flags and the Germany bracelets. They were singing the national anthem, and they looked so proud.”

There is a smile on his face, as if he truly — in awe — remembers the sight.

“So many people emigrate to Germany,” he continues. “And I want to do that too. I want to be a DJ there. I even have a name already. It is hard for Europeans to pronounce my surname, Ndlovu, so at first, I thought of calling myself SwahiliBoy, but it is going to take people too long to pronounce this name. I decided it will be Marloneschusterz.”

He looks at me proudly. I stare back.

“Schusterz, you know, a very common name in German. So they will pronounce it without a problem. But first, I have to build a reputation, you see.”

He shuffles with his feet. 

“Next year, the art group here at the Hillbrow Theatre is going to Norway, Finland and Sweden for an arts conference. It will be my first time in a cold place.”

Another one of those dreamy smiles, as if he is thinking of something very beautiful.

“We will dress in animal skins, the African way. I am a little shy to dress in African skins, because people can see my body, but anyone who has been overseas and came back knows that Europeans want to know about traditional Africa. They don’t want to know the Africa now and I don’t want them to see the real Africa, because it is poor, it is dirty and there is crime.”

“Will you ever return?” I ask.

He considers the thought. Sitting there in the afternoon sun of a warm August day, on a bench in the middle of Johannesburg, his hometown, taking a break from his practice with the Hillbrow Theatre group, he really considers whether he would ever return to this very same place.

“If I did,” he finally says. “I would come back with ten people and go straight to Kruger National Park.”

What about the city?

“If we’ll go to Joburg, we would come here in the beginning, see the poverty and then go have fun in Kruger Park, so we all forget about the poverty.”

I shake my head.

“Listen to me,” he suddenly says, reaching out his hand to get my attention back. “You know Zimbabwe? It has gone to shit. It used to be a nice place, good economy. Then Mugabe chased away the white farmers and that’s when the economy collapsed and now they are poor.”

Someone is calling him from another building. We both look in that way. Then he turns back to me. 

“I can say, as a black man, that we cannot make it on our own. We need the help of the white man. And there are so many people who think this way. They think since Independence, our situation has become very bad.”

The person calls again.

“I have to go,” he says, standing up, reaching out his hand to shake it in good-bye. “Where are you from, you said?”

“I’m Russian-German.”

“Germany?!” he cries at me. “I have never met a German in person! Why did you not tell me?” He grabs my hand and shakes it euphorically.

I am about to try giving him a most likely incredibly unsatisfactory answer when the voice calls another time. “Come back to tell me about Germany,” he says, smiles his awe-full, dreamy smile once more — this time at me — and runs off.