South Africa has eleven official languages. After democracy came, people said, “Okay, how do we create order without having different groups feel like they’ve been left out of power again?” English is the international language and the language of money and of the media, so we had to keep that. Most people were forced to learn at least some Afrikaans, so it’s useful to keep that, too. Plus we didn’t want the white minority to feel ostracized in the new South Africa, or else they’d take all their money and leave.
Of the African languages, Zulu has the largest number of native speakers, but we couldn’t keep that without also having Xhosa and Tswana and Ndebele. Then there’s Swazi, Tsonga, Venda, Sotho, and Pedi. We tried to keep all the major groups happy, so the next thing we knew we’d made eleven languages official languages. And those are just the languages big enough to demand recognition; there are dozens more.
It’s the Tower of Babel in South Africa. Every single day. Every day you see people completely lost, trying to have conversations and having no idea what the other person is saying. Zulu and Tswana are fairly common. Tsonga and Pedi are pretty fringe. The more common your tongue, the less likely you are to learn others. The more fringe, the more likely you are to pick up two or three. In the cities most people speak at least some English and usually a bit of Afrikaans, enough to get around. You’ll be at a party with a dozen people where bits of conversation are flying by in two or three different languages. You’ll miss part of it, someone might translate on the fly to give you the gist, you pick up the rest from the context, and you just figure it out. The crazy thing is that, somehow, it works. Society functions. Except when it doesn’t.
A YOUNG MAN’S LONG, AWKWARD, OCCASIONALLY TRAGIC, AND FREQUENTLY HUMILIATING EDUCATION IN AFFAIRS OF THE HEART, PART III: THE DANCE
By the end of high school I’d become a mogul. My tuck-shop business had evolved into a mini-empire that included selling pirated CDs I made at home. I’d convinced my mother, as frugal as she was, that I needed a computer for school. I didn’t. I wanted it so I could surf the Internet and play Leisure Suit Larry. But I was very convincing, and she broke down and got it for me. Thanks to the computer, the Internet, and the fortunate gift of a CD writer from a friend, I was in business.
I had carved out my niche, and was having a great time; life was so good as an outsider that I didn’t even think about dating. The only girls in my life were the naked ones on my computer. While I downloaded music and messed around in chat rooms, I’d dabble in porn sites here and there. No video, of course, only pictures. With online porn today you just drop straight into the madness, but with dial-up it took so long for the images to load. It was almost gentlemanly compared to now. You’d spend a good five minutes looking at her face, getting to know her as a person. Then a few minutes later you’d get some boobs. By the time you got to her vagina, you’d spent a lot of quality time together.
In September of grade twelve, the matric dance was coming up. Senior prom. This was the big one. I was again faced with the dilemma of Valentine’s Day, confronting another strange ritual I did not understand. All I knew about prom was that, according to my American movies, prom is where it happens. You lose your virginity. You go and you ride in the limousine, and then you and the girl do the thing. That was literally my only reference. But I knew the rule: Cool guys get girls, and funny guys get to hang out with the cool guys with their girls. So I’d assumed I wouldn’t be going, or if I did go it wouldn’t be with a date.
I had two middlemen working for me in my CD business, Bongani and Tom. They sold the CDs that I copied in exchange for a cut. I met Tom at the arcade at the Balfour Park mall. Like Teddy, he lived nearby because his mom was a domestic worker. Tom was in my grade but went to a government school, Northview, a proper ghetto school. Tom handled my CD sales over there.
Tom was a chatterbox, hyperactive and go-go-go. He was a real hustler, too, always trying to cut a deal, work an angle. He could get people to do anything. A great guy, but fucking crazy and a complete liar as well. I went with him once to Hammanskraal, a settlement that was like a homeland, but not really. Hammanskraal, as its Afrikaans name suggests, was the kraal of Hamman, what used to be a white man’s farm. The proper homelands, Venda and Gazankulu and Transkei, were places where black people actually lived, and the government drew a border around them and said, “Stay there.” Hammanskraal and settlements like it were empty places on the map where deported black people had been relocated. That’s what the government did. They would find some patch of arid, dusty, useless land, and dig row after row of holes in the ground—a thousand latrines to serve four thousand families. Then they’d forcibly remove people from illegally occupying some white area and drop them off in the middle of nowhere with some pallets of plywood and corrugated iron. “Here. This is your new home. Build some houses. Good luck.” We’d watch it on the news. It was like some heartless, survival-based reality TV show, only nobody won any money.
One afternoon in Hammanskraal, Tom told me we were going to see a talent show. At the time, I had a pair of Timberland boots I’d bought. They were the only decent piece of clothing I owned. Back then, almost no one in South Africa had Timberlands. They were impossible to get, but everyone wanted them because American rappers wore them. I’d scrimped and saved my tuck-shop money and my CD money to buy them. As we were leaving, Tom told me, “Be sure to wear your Timberlands.”
The talent show was in this little community hall attached to nothing in the middle of nowhere. When we got there, Tom was going around, shaking hands, chatting with everybody. There was singing, dancing, some poetry. Then the host got up onstage and said, “Re na le modiragatsi yo o kgethegileng. Ka kopo amogelang…Spliff Star!” “We’ve got a special performer, a rapper all the way from America. Please welcome…Spliff Star!”
Spliff Star was Busta Rhymes’s hype man at the time. I sat there, confused. What? Spliff Star? In Hammanskraal? Then everyone in the room turned and looked at me. Tom walked over and whispered in my ear.
“Dude, come up onstage.”
“What?”
“Come onstage.”
“Dude, what are you talking about?”
“Dude, please, you’re gonna get me in so much shit. They’ve already paid me the money.”
“Money? What money?”
Of course, what Tom had failed to tell me was that he’d told these people he was bringing a famous rapper from America to come and rap in their talent show. He had demanded to be paid up front for doing so, and I, in my Timberlands, was that famous American rapper.
“Screw you,” I said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Please, dude, I’m begging you. Please do me this favor. Please. There’s this girl here, and I wanna get with her, and I told her I know all these rappers…Please. I’m begging you.”
“Dude, I’m not Spliff Star. What am I gonna do?!”
“Just rap Busta Rhymes songs.”
“But I don’t know any of the lyrics.”
“It doesn’t matter. These people don’t speak English.”
“Aw, fuck.”
I got up onstage and Tom did some terrible beat-boxing—“Bff ba-dff, bff bff ba-dff”—while I stumbled through some Busta Rhymes lyrics that I made up as I went along. The audience erupted with cheers and applause. An American rapper had come to Hammanskraal, and it was the most epic thing they had ever seen.
So that’s Tom.
One afternoon Tom came by my house and we started talking about the dance. I told him I didn’t have a date, couldn’t get a date, and wasn’t going to get a date.
“I can get you a girl to go with you to the dance,” he said.
“No, you can’t.”
“Yes, I can. Let’s make a deal.”