Walking in Bombay or What Was I Thinking?

After spending the day working in a coffee shop, I decide to walk south until Hill Road in Bandra West, where I am invited to a Jazz concert. During my first 10 days in Bombay, I had barely walked and used the excuse that I did not know the city at all to take taxis and rickshaws all around. But the night before, I had spoken to a friend about the extreme level of privatization in Bombay. And that the prospect of public space formation looked pretty grim.

“Everyone rather pays someone to drive them to a place,” he said. “I am convinced if wealthy people in Bombay had to deal with the daily traffic jams, they would make an effort to change it, but they just hire someone to drive them.”

It made perfect sense to me and I did not want to be part of it. So I decided to walk.

In the café, I asked the waiters to point me southwards and walked down that way on Linking Road, a major road in Northern Bombay filled with people and shops. Merrily, I took my stroll, looking around, stopping at a shop or two. I had no idea where I was going but pretended like I did (looking confident always seems like a better strategy to me in an unfamiliar place).

I walked through a Muslim part of town, past a beautiful mosque (that I later found out is actually a high school). Kurtas got longer and darker and I felt a bit out of place in my red shawl. Shops filled with ornamented wooden frames and straw chairs populated both sides of the street. I remember thinking that I would have to return. It was gorgeous.

From time to time, I’d ask people on the way whether I was still going south toward Hill Road. A young pedestrian woman and police officer assured me I was on my way. But at some point, having reached a high way situation, I was really not so sure anymore. It must have been obvious, because a young man approached me.

“Where are you?” he asked.

Obviously, he did not speak English. But he kept on asking where I was, so I told him that I was going to Bandra West. He shook his head. I was going the wrong way. I had to go into the opposite direction, he gestured with his hand. I asked him where to get an auto rickshaw and he crossed the high way road with me. “Auto,” he said, pointing in the direction he was going. I followed. This was not Johannesburg, after all, I thought.

We walked for a little while along the road with no pedestrians, only cars, but when we approached a dodgy-looking bridge and he gestured for me to follow him under, I thought that maybe this place was more Joburg than I thought. I shook my head and told him I would not go. I had to find a taxi.

He told me to wait where I was, while he would get one. I crossed over to the other side of the road. Just in case he had some mates waiting under the bridge, I’d have a time advantage because of the cars on the road.

He came back from under the bridge. “Come here taxi,” he said. I was not sure what to do. I walked with him a bit, still thinking. He was shorter than me and looked quite young. He did not smile, but not too many very helpful people I have met in my life necessarily smiled.

 Then he said this: “Will you give me a kiss?”

“What?” I thought I had misunderstood him.

“Just one,” he asked.

So he did speak English! I said no way, man, and quickly turned.

“Give me 100 rupees,” he then said. I had my laptop on me and I thought this was going to be my next mugging. When I looked around, I realized it was starting to get dark and I was in an industrial area in the middle of Bombay. Worse things than muggings happen in such places. I quickly started walking back where I came from, along the road. The young man followed me slowly, throwing curses at the back of my head.

I continued walking, until I saw a little Indian granny holding the hand of a maybe 8-year old girl. Grateful and relieved, I approached them and started up a conversation. And – thank God — the man left. I looked down at the woman and the girl. The elderly woman was tiny (at least two heads shorter than me) and wrinkly, her granddaughter bouncy and cute – I decided could trust them.

They walked me to a taxi place where they tried negotiating a price to my, as it turns out, quite close-by destination Hill Road. The driver was stubborn and I was desperate, so I agreed to the highly overpriced 100 rupees. When the elderly woman came to say good-bye at the window at the back of the taxi, she placed her hand on mine.

“OK?” she asked and I smiled at her thankfully. She nodded but did not smile, as many very helpful people who I meet in my life tend to do.

When the Sun Sets Over Bombay

During my first day in Bombay, I watch the sun set from the 8th floor in Malabar Hills. Concrete high-rise buildings rest next to the shore and the fog swallows the sun, while wind chimes peacefully rustle.

I have been watching the sun set every night ever since.

On Prostate Cancer and Community Formation: Sex Education for Grown Men in Hillbrow

One Friday afternoon in September, I join Mark, a friend from the Wednesday night soup kitchen Paballo Ya Batho, at the Hillbrow Men’s Club. The club of 40 to 60 men meets every Friday at 4.30 at the Hillbrow Clinic. It is an initiative by the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Research Institute to provide a place for men of all ages to have a meal of friend chicken and speak openly about any issue surrounding sex.

Naturally then, I was worried to offend the Hillbrow men with my quite female, white, 23-year old presence. But Mark assured me they would welcome me with open arms, so I bring my friend Christof along.

The hospital is located in town, just up Esselen Street. We park and enter a gated door. The security precautions are impressive. We are requested to write down our name, phone number and address before entering. Down a long hallway, we find a large shaded room, filled with tables and chairs arranged in a half-circle.

In the beginning, we are maybe 15 people, but over the next half hour, late-comers arrive and join the circle. Everyone faces the front, and the meeting begins soon after we all settle down. Following a strict protocol (as I have previously experienced in Community Policing Forum meetings), the president introduces the agenda and time table of the day. Then Mark gets the word.

By now, of course, people have noticed the two white faces in the room.

“Today, we have some visitors,” Mark explains to the group of men before him.

“And one of them is a lady,” he adds.

Now really everyone turns their heads. Mark explains how him and I have met at the soup kitchen and that Christof and I were curious to know more about the Men’s Club.

Then Mark encourages us to say some words to the group. We pretty much repeat what Mark already said, adding a “thank you for letting us join.”

“But hey!” Mark exclaims. “She is married, hey! So don’t try anything with her.”

Everyone laughs, while I nod seriously. I even consider switching the ring on my middle finger onto my ring finger.

Then the meeting really starts.

A student from the local medical school has prepared a presentation. He sets up the computer and powerpoint and dims the lights. It feels like everyone is leaning forward just a tiny bit.

The word PROSTATE suddenly appears on the big screen.

“Today, we will speak about the prostate,” the med student announces. “Who knows where it is?”

He looks into the room. A man raises his hand.

“In the pelvis,” he says.

“Where in the pelvis?”

The man moves his hand in a circle over his crotch area. “Here somewhere.”

The med student looks at the other men.

“Anyone else knows where the prostate is?”

There are some other guesses, none much more specific, many incorrect.

“Alright then,” says the med student and puts on a knowledgeable face.

What follows is a one-hour sex-ed class. It is amazing. Everyone listens, everyone participates and asks questions. One question particularly stands out to me. A middle-aged man raises his hand, a little hesitantly.

“So… Can you get prostate cancer from a woman?” he asks.

The med student looks a bit perplexed.

“From sex, you mean?” he asks the hesitant man who nods in response. And the med student goes over STDs as well. He seems relieved to have clarified this question.

In the end, Christof and I feel like we know everything one needs to know about the male prostate (including that there’s a female one).

To conclude the meeting, Elliot Mabena, an eloquant, elderly Hillbrowean poet, recites one of his pieces in front of the group. It is about the “Unhealthy Life,” full of sexual diseases and uncertainties (the most memorable line: “These days, beautiful women are silent killers.”)

Everyone applauds and the graceful, old man sits down.

Many men stop by to shake my hand, thank me for coming and ask whether I would come back the following week. I say thank you and that I would try. And we all go outside to have some fried chicken.

Bus #4: Boring Borders

We take the Citiliner back to Johannesburg. Greyhound was an option, but with its departure at 8pm from one of Harare’s unsafer areas probably not a good idea. Our taxi picks us up at 9.15am on a Saturday morning. Loaded with books from our lovely publisher-hosts Irene and Murray, we are ready for a long ride. We arrive at Harare Roadport early and munch on stale popcorn, while waiting for check-in time. Several conductors attempt to win us over on the way to our bus (“Leave to Johannesburg in 10 minutes! Take this one!”), but we resist the temptation and get on the good, old Citiliner.

Surprisingly few people take the bus to Johannesburg on a Saturday morning, and we have three seats to ourselves in the second row. The conductor is as strict and unfriendly as he is efficient. We leave on time and take only one two-minute loo break before the border. Two minutes during which we manage to purchase a tasty Russian.

The driver is of a different caliber compared to the conductor. Without a doubt for our sake, he welcomes everyone in English and plays an animal documentary from the 80s — twice. A Zimbabwean soap (a la Nollywood) and some preaching (at a more tolerable volume than Bus #1) follow. We crisp on bright chips and go over the game plan how to cross the border as journalists with sensitive material again and again.

We reach it about ten entertaining hours later, nervous, rush through (Oh, hello, yellow, round birds in disguise!), and a friendly Home Affairs officer extends my expiring SA tourist visa. Everything goes smoothly. We expected interrogations or at least a body search. I preventively carried my notebook in an inside jacket pocket. Sam did the same with the memory cards to his camera. The day before, we had even burnt the pictures on CDs in order for Sam to delete any problematic ones off of one memory card that remained inside with touristy-ish photos, so we would not to raise suspicions. In short, we were prepared for some badass border crossing.

And after all that — nothing! I’m not complaining, but it was almost a bit disappointing.

After our bus is searched, we are allowed back on, and an uncomfortable, uneventful six hours later, we arrive at Park Station in Johannesburg. We are on time, 5.30am, grab our bags and a taxi. As we drive home, we watch the skyline. I miss you, Johannesburg!

Trip Duration: 18.5 hours

Rating: 9/10

Bus #3: The Police, Man

After five days in Rey’s village — having delayed our departure by a day already for not wanting to say bye with his wonderful family — we heavy-heartedly decide that it is time to return to Harare and Johannesburg.

On a Tuesday afternoon, after a two-fresh-chickens-with-rice lunch, we descent the Mapakata Mountain into the village, to the shops and main road. On the way, we meet a goat that joins us. At first, it is quite sweet, some “ba-a-a”s and confused looks, but soon, it is just irritating and sad. No matter what we do — politely ask it to leave, yell at it to leave, run towards it or throw our arms in the air, stones on the ground or, finally, at it (I know, we are horrible) — it follows us. Lost without its kettle friends, the poor thing is led farther and farther away from home. At the end of it all, its voice is so hoarse from all the “baa-a-a”ing that we decide we need to get rid of it. When crossing a bridge, we trick it. It runs under the bridge and follows us with its longing eyes, as we carry on.

Reymond’s father’s brother (or something like that) owns an apartment not too far from the main road. And since the bus usually arrives sometime between four and six in the morning (and there is only one a day), it makes more sense to spend the night closeby (rather than mission down the mountain in the dark with our luggage).

Currently, Rey’s father’s brother (or something like that) is renting the apartment out to a priest. We had stopped by to say hello to him once before, on which occasion we had been greeted by an oblivious, lovely little boy, all dressed up in his Sunday suit, sucking on a battery. When we entered that first time, the family – who, as it turned out, was all dressed in Sunday garment actually – was watching a Jesus video. Sitting on a straw mat, they were watching a white Jesus with a British accent bless the people of Nazareth.

When we come to stay at the house the night before our departure from Bikita, nobody is dressed in Sunday suits, but the same video is playing. With not much ado, we join to watch. As the priest’s wife baths the youngest child and the (no-longer-battery-sucking) first-born pulls faces at us, we curiously follow the film’s story line. There is Adam and Eve (band-new high-def footage), followed by footage from the 80s of Jesus in the barn, Magdalena, the apostles…

“So, are you both Christian?” the priest suddenly asks us.

“Hm…,” I say. “Me… I was raised Christian.”

I glance over to Sam.

“Me, I was raised Jewish,” he says.

We both look back on the screen.

The priest seems alright with that answer. We watch until Jesus is about to be betrayed. Then we excuse ourselves, wish a good-night and sleep.

At the horrendous time 3.45am, we get ready to walk over to the main road. It is unclear when exactly the bus comes through, and we do not want to miss it. The priest accompanies Rey and us, as we stumble through the pitch-dark village, flashing out the path with a cell phone or torch occasionally. At 4.15am, we reach the main road, and sit to wait by the moon light. Drowsily, Sam and I listen to sweet Shona words, until the bus arrives about 45 minutes later. It is the bus going straight into Mbare, Harare. Supposedly, it takes longer than Bus #2, but we won’t have to wait in Nyika growth point. Not really in the mood to risk being yelled at by old, drunken men, we are OK with spending some extra time on the bus. And so, we bid Bikita farewell and climb on. In the front of the bus, we have more leg space (good) but we are also right by the engine (hot). We pay $10 each and wobble along, as the bus drives through one village after the next.

“This is the bus that I took, when I first went to Harare,” Reymond tells me. “I am sure there is somebody in this bus now who is going to the city for the very first time.” I curiously look around, as if you could spot fresh villagers. All I see is sleepy faces.

After four hours of dozing, reading and snacking, our newly made friend (we gave him some cookies and he gratefully accepted), the driver, stops the bus and announces that the vehicle has overheated. The journey ends here and we must go find another bus. Everyone gets off, complains to the driver, the conductor and everyone else involved. We are in the middle of nowhere, about an hour and a half away from Harare. Then, everyone settles down next to the bus to wait for another one to arrive. A young man approaches Reymond. He heatedly speaks in Shona; some other people than Reymond respond to him. Rey tells us later that the guy was aggressively trying to press information out from Rey about where he was headed with two white people. Apparently, he wanted to join and got mad when Rey refused.

After half an hour, a smaller, colorful bus arrives. The conductor asks for 3$ to get on. Most people are outraged, but we are just exhausted, so we gladly hand over the money. Once again, we wobble along, squished into the back seat. For two hours or so, I find myself in a state of bliss, on my way to Harare, reading a book.

Bliss is gone when road blocks enter the picture. The police, man.

In Zimbabwe, the police sets up roadblocks close to the city. The closer you get, the more you find. They check the state of the vehicle and give you tickets accordingly (e.g. “This light is broken – 10$”). It turns out that our new bus driver had already encountered half a dozen of those that day and could no longer pay. So the bus stops and we wait.

We wait for two hours, interrupted by the bus driver’s pleas to the police to let him go. Our bus community is hanging out in the shade, eating popsicles and smoking cigarettes, but when the police threatens to go on lunch break (…), we all go to beg for mercy. We cross the street, approach a sandwich-munching police man and ask if he could please, please, please let our driver go.

He looks us up and down, takes another bite, thinks hard and reluctantly gives in. I have a hard time controlling my emotions (all I could think about was a certain song actually), but this is not the time to give way to my authority problem.

An hour later, we enter Harare, take two more taxis and get to our cottage for some hot showers and foods.

Trip Duration: 10 hours

Rating: 4/10

Bus #2: The Superquick Chicken Bus

On a Saturday morning, at 4am, we wake up, have a bite to eat, get our brains washed with the Zimbabwean Herald and make our way to Mbare. Mbare is the oldest and probably most dangerous part of Harare, and we are here to catch a bus to Reymond’s village, Bikita.

It is hectic. When we got off the taxi, everyone freaks out. White people! Bus conductors come running, yelling — at Rey, at us, at each other. Tsotsies pretend to fight to distract and steal. We are glad when we finally reach the bus and get on. Mind the time: 6am.

Squished together in one row with our backpacks, we feel a little claustrophobic but good. The bus is not overfilled, and the music plays at an appropriate volume.

We pay $9 and wait for departure.

Babies in fluffy fleece hats sleep on women’s backs. I relax, and soon enough, we are on our way to Nyika growth point, a location ten kilometers from Rey’s village. From there, we’ll be able to take another bus to the village. Rey’s relatives will come, pick us up and help carry everything for the remaining two kilometers to the village.

Sam and I speak about how funny it would be if our Slate friend Peter were on this bus. But when we think about it, we find it hard to imagine anybody we know here. In a chicken bus on the way to a Zimbabwean village. I remember an inner city slum I’ve been to once, in Kampala, Uganda, probably the most intense experience I’ve ever had. I got sick from a combination of the smell of burnt plastic, the sight of wounds being dressed (through a camera lens) and the thought of the untreated second-degree burn on my own right calve (long, slightly drunken, story).

Meanwhile, on the chicken bus, a lady gets dropped off on the side of the road. The conductor warns everyone to check their bags, because she might have taken one with her. Why else would she have paid for the full ride?

We drive past black and white cows and plastic-infested fields. Farm pickers in colorful rags and big, rough bags duck in field of purple trees, Jacarandas. I can smell the countryside approaching: a light, sweet shit stink in the air.

We are driving on the N1 that reaches from Cape Town to Cairo (maybe a good idea for another trip?), and the bus stops occasionally for police controls at road blocks.

After five hours, we arrive at Nyika growth point. We get ourselves and the bags out of the bus and heave it all towards and on top of a taxi. Then we sit and wait for the taxi to fill up. We wait for two and a half hours, and while we wait, everyone stares at us. For their entertainment, we accept to try a couple of fried bugs that some young women sell by the taxis. They love it, and everyone laughs.

Then, an older, obviously drunk man comes over to the taxi window. Spitting saliva all over me, he begins shouting. He does not seem to like us there very much. He yells something about how when he wants to to go England, he cannot. And what we are doing in Africa. Maybe I misunderstood him — I don’t know. When we ask Rey, his answer is simple: “Eish, he is drunk.”

The drunk yeller leaves after someone mentions the police. It reminds me of the other day, when we walked around Harare town with Rey. Someone saw us and said “Mr. And Mrs. Smith.” It could have been a reference to the film (how flattering). Or to Ian Douglas Smith, the former PM of Rhodesia (not so flattering).

Three hours later, we lie flat, exhausted and (once more) happy on a bed in Rey’s village.

 

Overall Trip Duration: 8 hours

Rating: 7/10

(to be continued)