the tale of the zombies

when you sit back and comfortably playback the story of your life, there are always moments that you can pause and, with the remote in your hand, while staring at the frozen frame with your mouth open, keep on wondering WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING ABOUT????

the worst thing about that thrilling digital image is that it starts long before, at a dinner table, for instance, when five white girls agree that they feel like party and their best shot is a street bash in soweto. and it looks perfect: not far, a hip crowd and good friends of ours that know the place and are known and respected by everyone in the neighbourhood and have copiously demonstrated their loyalty. but still, you feel it's a bad idea.

we have been a couple of weeks in soweto. working closely together with people of the neighbourhood and we feel ourselves at home. we feel friendship, comradeship, trust. that has not been the case in johannesburg: half the times we went there we had to witness violence, racism or an insulting snobbism. but soweto has been the opposite: the biggest discussion we have had is about how respect is expected to be shown in the sowetan context. and we have learned a lot. our way to enter a room or any other environment, the way we talk or look at people, our handshakes, everything has changed so rapidly that we fear about our adaptation when we go back home, in less than a week.

that's why we MUST party tonight. we CAN'T go back home without really being out there with the real people. out there... we have been living and working in the same venue, a cultural centre that boils with almost-professional artists performing all over the place. dancers, singers, actors, poets, filmmakers, us and our "little project", all of us find shelter at this oasis located in the geographical centre of the SOuth WEstern TOwnship. but since we work and live there, sometimes it becomes too much. we wake up, greet people, take a shower, have a meeting, give and take workshops, evaluate, eat, have a chat and sleep there. soweto comes to us. we are somehow in soweto, but not quite.

so i can understand the girls. i would also feel happy with the idea of going if i wasn't the only "white" man around (because the others were too tired). and they ask me if i feel like going and i must honestly answer that i don't, but they understand me too...

so when D arrives we get into our rented wreck, two girls on front, three girls and me in the back.

i have to say this too: the five of them are beautiful. and they have lovely smiles. and they love dancing. which makes everything more difficult.

we follow D's car and we park on front of the place. it's still early. the people are cool, hip, the kind of people that the opening of a fashion store would attract, anywhere in the world.

we meet D's friends there. our friends. D and friends are locals. well known and respected. they organize events and perform, even internationally. so there is hardly a better crowd to hang around with in soweto. the music is on and DAMN GOOD. some kind of latin house they call kwaito. we're a big group and we are dancing. just a second later i decide to visit the shop and my welcome sign is the flash of a digital camera. just being there deserves a picture. "mlungu in soweto" could be the title on facebook. toubab in senegal. umuzungu in burundi. tourist, gringo, musiu. mlungu. balungu if we're more than one.

the shop is nice. the clothing is clever. the accessories are cool. it's easy to start a conversation with anyone.

i go back to the group. we're all having fun. i start taking pictures and relax. i feel a flash that's not mine: "balungu in soweto" could be the title on facebook.

But then I realize that two of the girls are missing. B tells me that S and P went to look for a drink with two of the guys. that was the end of the fun for me. when paranoia starts in my head, it does not stop until i sleep it over. B hopes they bring enough to drink for everyone. i hope they come back. all township stories start on the same way: just when you start feeling comfortable, something happens. and since you arrive here everyone starts telling stories. “people get robbed, raped, kidnapped, you know”, so yeah, it's paranoia time for me.

i walk to the corner hoping i could have a gaze at walking female balungu, but nope, i can't see nothing. on the way, i realize we're the only balungu on the street. and it seems every unknown man has something to comment about it: "hey, those are tasty chicks you've got there"...

i go back to the group and receive an SMS from P: "looking for something to drink. lasts longer than expected. everything OK". i feel she understands my role of the evening.

that's when B turns her head at me and says: "well, maybe i'm being naive, but i don't feel particularly white at this moment". and well, i can understand why she felt that while i was feeling whiter that ever: she is having fun and looking at people that smile around her. i'm looking at the streets getting crowded. at the people that do not smile. at men that stare with lustful sight at shaking balungu flesh. particularly because the local girls are actually a lot more decent and laid back. seen from outside it really looks like we want them to notice we're there...

the drinks arrive. i have a drink and start dancing too. i relax a bit.

we're a group, but if we start dancing in couples there is an almost immediate switch to a far from convenient flirting atmosphere. the thing about soweto, about that party, about that night, is that everything can be so... so... volatile. that one detail can unleash a whole group dynamic in a second or less.

but yeah, midnight arrives and we're exhausted so we decide to go back. and we start saying goodbyes and negotiating with the cars that are blocking our rented wreck. and i'm the only one standing on the street and everyone has been drinking a bit to much and someone feels adventurous and screams "hey, you've got five, why don't you give me one" and i must laugh without a spark of mockery, because i don't know what to do, but have the strong feeling that anything else could be a wrong reaction that could ignite a problem.

i get in the car. P drives. D sits on front and S sits on his legs. it's a car with 5 white girls, one of them letting her shiny and smiley white face hang out the window. it was an invitation to have fun with us. and no invitations are left untaken in soweto.

5 meter later the first guy jumped on top of the car. the street was so crowded that P would have never been able to drive anywhere. two other kids jumped on top of us. screaming and laughing. P was in panic. everyone around was looking at us and laughing and more guys walked in our direction, screaming things i did not understand.

i would have said that it looked like a safari if it was not that politically incorrect, so i'd rather say that i suddenly found myself in a zombie film.

and the worst of all was what i did: i stepped out the car.

and as i see myself walking towards the front of the car, in slow motion, i keep on asking myself WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING ABOUT????

and i think everyone around me thought the same way. WHAT THE FUCK IS HE THINKING ABOUT????

but then a tiny voice that now I'm sure was the voice of GOD came from my right and said "hey boy, if I were you I'd stay in the car". and I looked at her. and i said nothing before getting back in the car, happy that i did not have time to open my big mlungu mouth.

so D got out and managed the situation in ten seconds and we went away.

but every time i replay that scene, it happens in slow motion. maybe, because it happened in slow motion.

so the street opened up like the red sea and the kids stopped jumping on our wreck without losing the fun of it, because D knows how to handle these things. and i don't. i understood that I make soweto, the party, the night, volatile.

we drove home. P was still shaking. B was laughing. D was as cool as always. nothing had happened for him.

we arrived. the others were still awake. we told our stories. we had fun, we were scared, we were bored, we were happy. all the different ways in which 6 different people can experience an evening.

this is mine. i was scared. and had fun. and was happy. in the volatile sowetan night.