Urbanities,
Vol. 4
·
No 2
·
November 2014
© 2014
Urbanities
78
having black skin, but also living in a way which is incomprehensible to you whites.’
After the encounter in the internet café I stayed in touch with Xolewa and she agreed to
have an interview. Listening to her story I discovered how, before going to live in
Khayelitsha, she was living and studying in other areas of the city and that she considered this
as a sort of multiple belonging. In the period when she was living in the centre of Cape Town
she experienced isolation and exclusion. The young woman (27 years old) remembered an
episode when she was studying in a school situated in Bo Kaap. Therefore, we decided to go
to this district where we walked for a long time before we stopped in front of the school.
Click Language in Bo Kaap
Bo Kaap is a neighbourhood located on the slopes of Signal Hill, near the City Bowl District.
The colourful houses and the steep streets that climb the hill give the area an unusual
appearance, making it seem like a city within the city. From the hills of Bo Kaap the
skyscrapers of the City Bowl just a few hundred metres away are clearly visible. But the
architecture, colours and different sounds in this area give the visitor the impression they are
entering a world which is miles away from the centre of Cape Town.
Bo Kaap is a multicultural neighbourhood, which under Apartheid was inhabited mainly
by Malays. Today, it is a poor area, which can be equated to a township. When she lived in
Cape Town Xolewa went to high school in this area. She told me that at high school the
majority of pupils were coloureds, with very few blacks, but no whites at all. The relations
between black and coloured students were conditioned by the social divisions inherited from
Apartheid. She said:
‘The coloured boys and girls felt superior to us and made fun of us, above all for
our click language. They used to imitate us and that used to infuriate me. I put up
with it at first and pretended not to notice, without allowing myself to be
provoked, but my situation had left me intolerant. The fact was that I’d had to put
up with so much in life, and had to put up with even more at home living with my
aunt, meant that at school my patience was exhausted. I remember we were here
at the back of the school and there was a group of boys and girls who were
imitating me as I walked past. I look at them and turned to the biggest of them
who was behaving as if he was the ringleader. I grabbed him by the neck and told
him he’d better not make fun of me and my language, because it was my tradition
and deserved respect.’
The Invisible Line
Xolewa linked the above episode, which had happened many years before, to the event of the
final. Remembering the night spent in Long Street she recalled the difficult time spent in Bo
Kaap. On the evening of the final, Xolewa too was in Long Street for the match. She had an
African National Congress pin with her that she wore on the chest of her Barcelona T-shirt.
Her pride in being black coexisted with that of being able to identify herself with an emblem
that involved people from all over the planet. The Barcelona T-shirt opened a breach towards
