{"id":4292,"date":"2020-07-06T21:46:45","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T20:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4292"},"modified":"2020-07-07T10:39:56","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T09:39:56","slug":"poems-in-times-of-distress-eastern-cape-township-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=4292","title":{"rendered":"Poems in Times of Distress: Eastern Cape township blues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Lindani Donyeli<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIt\nwas while a schoolboy in KwaNobuhle on the edge of Uitenhage that\nAyanda Billie discovered writing as a means to express himself, and\nhas recorded the chaos, struggle and joy in this township, with his\nhaunting, gritty poems having been published in a recent collection,\nKwa Nobuhle Overcast<\/em>, which\ncame out in 2018. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His\nwork takes and unflinching look at a community in which people no\nlonger do anything for themselves. He despairs at the people who\nwere born and grew up in KwaNobuhle, who no longer own the businesses\nand enterprises in their hometown, now run by immigrants and\nrefugees. The sense of community and belonging has disappeared; \nWhereas once people greeted each other by name, now everyone is \u201cmy\nfriend\u201d, although there is no friendship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nis particularly apparent in his headline poem, KwaNobuhle\nOvercast, <\/em>in which the poet\nwalks along the township streets noting the crumbling shops\nand failing businesses owned by the people born there. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe\nSomalians took all the shops in our streets,\u201d mourns Billie, which\nbegs the question: why have people allowed themselves to be\novertaken, to lose their own sense of place?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nI was a boy the township shops were owned by people who were born and\ngrew up in the township, but people from Somalia, Pakistan, and China\nhave outcompeted them. Is this the fault of the local municipalities,\nof corrupt governance and broken promises? The politicians talk of\nassisting entrepreneurs and local businesses, but people who have\nfled other lands manage to succeed on new ground while those who were\nborn there wither and die, forced into a corner, pushed out space, no\nlonger able to feed themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChinese\nsquash the children in the corner, now it is them who put the bread\nand salt in your kitchen,\u201d observes Billie. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\nlies behind the fact our sisters now work as security guards for\nChinese-owned shops, being paid below minimum wage and no benefits at\nall? This is not about railing against immigrants and refugees but\nabout people regaining their sense of pride and place and\nself-respect. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khumbulekhaya<\/em>\nis particularly close to home, highlighting the issue of young men\nand women leaving their families to seek their fortune elsewhere and\nforgetting those they leave behind. This may provide some answer to\nthe questions raised in KwaNobuhle.<\/em> \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKhumbula\nekhaya usenamandla\u201d (remember your home while you still have your\npower), urges Billie in this Xhosa poem which mourns the exodus of\nable adults to the cities where they spend their health and fortune,\nonly to return home when they are old or sick, sucking succour from\nthe place and people they abandoned. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nis hardly a home in KwaNobuhle, or Rhini, where I live, or any\ntownship across the Eastern Cape which does not have a son or\ndaughter who has left to expend their energy elsewhere. Fathers who\nabandon their sons. Sons who need them in order to undergo\ntraditional circumcision rites to become men. Yet when those men,\nthose absent fathers, lose their health or their fortune, they return\nhome, expecting to be nursed in the place they spurned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nhis 30-minute performance of poems in English and Xhosa on the\nNational Arts Festival, Billie delves into the socio-economic ills\nthat beset his own community, which mirrors thousands of others\nabandoned by a corrupted government, and exposes the soul of a bereft\npeople whose lives wither in barren soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poems in Times of Distress is on the National Arts Festival programme until 16 July. Watch it<\/em> here<\/em><\/a>.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writer & performer:<\/strong> Ayanda Billie
Music arranged by:<\/strong> Mkhululi Fiesto Gxasheka
Video editor & visuals:<\/strong> Siyabulela Skelem Bolokoqoshe\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lindani Donyeli It was while a schoolboy in KwaNobuhle on the edge of Uitenhage that Ayanda Billie discovered writing as a means to express himself, and has recorded the … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":4293,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[1120,1121,1122,1123],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4292"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4302,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4292\/revisions\/4302"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}