STEALING A PRIEST’S PHONE

In our community everyone goes to funerals. They are weekend events and you go even if you don’t know the person who died. You get good food and see your friends. But there are two kinds of funerals. There are the topshayela high-class ones. If you try to attend without an invitation they will send you away. Or you will only get food after everyone else has eaten. Then there are the low-class ones. My family is in that class. Not because we are not clever or educated, but because we don’t have much money. Everyone will help to kill the cow and cook. They borrow pots and neighbours and friends help to clean up afterwards.

Some weekends back my aunt told me there was a funeral at the Mokoena family. This young boy, Lehas, had died. Everyone suspected it was nyaope that killed him. I was asked to go and help because they are our friends. When I arrived the cow had been slaughtered and there were lots of nyaope boys hanging around.

The priest that day was Mr Khawula. He was a former convict, arrested in 1980 for a heist and released in 1988. When he came out of prison he started a church. In Diepkloof they call him Bra K. He is the only priest I know who has a gun. This man of God takes no shit from anyone.

Some time in the afternoon the priest wanted to make a phone call and reached into his pocket. His cell phone was gone. He checked in his car and asked anyone if they had seen it. Then he shouted at the family. ‘Your nyaope visitors took my phone. Someone dial my number.’ We called his number and he instructed everyone to stop singing and be quiet. Silence.

Then we heard a phone in the distance. It was ringing in the pocket of one of the nyaope boys who was sleeping under a tree. Bra K was furious. He stormed up to the boy and started kicking him really hard.

People shouted at the priest, ‘You are a man of God. Stop it. You will hurt him.’

‘This has nothing to do with God,’ Bra K replied. ‘It’s my phone, my money, and I want it back now!’

So the drugged and sleepy boy handed the priest his phone back.

Tshabalira Lebakeng

A PAINFUL HAIRCUT

Near my house there’s a small shack made of old boxes where people go for a haircut. The owner, Nelson, is from Maputo. He’s a friendly guy who smokes a lot of ganja. Nelson is the man who made me buy my own cutting machine, never to go to a barber again.

One day I went to have my head shaved. I sat down and he put a cloth on my shoulders. He switched on the machine. It was making a very strange noise, like an old truck. The next thing the electricity went off and the machine, still grabbing my hair, got stuck on my head. I jumped up like a crazy person.

Our street has one electricity box and it had shut itself down because it was being overused. There are too many people pulling from the same supply, stealing their neighbours’ electricity. Eskom has tried to secure the box but people have managed to open it. The box is supposed to supply ten houses but it is being used by more than 15 homes. I sat there with the machine still stuck to my hair.

‘You must not jump. Relax or I will hurt you,’ Nelson said, leaving me in pain, holding his hair-cutter machine to my skull while he went to the electricity box. With a broomstick he lifted the socket up.

But he forgot to switch the hair cutter off, so when the electricity came back on it started vibrating like crazy, grabbing my hair. URGH!

Finally, he removed the cutter, and took a paintbrush and put methylated spirits on my head. It burned like crazy. I jumped up and dashed home to put water on my burning skull. He followed me to my house and asked for his money. I told him to f… off.

I never went back to Nelson for a haircut again.

Tshabalira Lebakeng

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