Being in the wrong place at the wrong time landed Sipho Madini in jail where he saw people pick their own stories up and look behind their bleak surroundings
If you read Finding Mr Madini, or even if you didn’t, maybe the reviews caught you. I am Mr Madini, the guy who went missing.
One Sunday I was drunk and walking towards my gontjie, the burrow where I sleep in Braamfontein. To the front stands Wits, tall and erect, the institute of learning. To the left, Saffas the funeral parlour. And every day as I wake and creep out of my gutter; eyes blinking, a kaleidoscope of kids in volksies and GTIs, hearse after hearse, all driving to a luxurious end.
Anyway, walking down this cold and lonely night, as drunk as can be, I stumble across this bunch of matshingilans who just had to make an arrest. For those who are not in the know, matshingilans means security cops. You know those guys that just stand around really doing nothing. Nothing personal, guys!
Here I come zig-zagging towards this office building that had been broken into and the perpetrators come wooshing past. Only a blur of takkies on the wet pavement, a swoosh and splash as their feet connect with the rain puddles filled only a while ago.
I might look like a pop but I ain’t. I cross that place every day of my waking life and I know that place like the back of my hand. The whole kaboom. A police station in front and two behind and teeming with security police. Serious, my bras, I might be stupid but I ain’t that stupid. With a white jacket that shines in the dark like a beacon you could see me for miles coming. The ginger sturdy walls of colonial design, the building washing in a flood of light in that far-past-midnight hour. Why would they arrest me? Heaven knows alone. Do they work on a commission basis? Or was it a matter of the damage was done and anyone will do? They are widely reputed to snooze on the job. Enter Malunda the homeless one. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Next thing I’m in John Vorster with a torn lip, cracked ribs, a busted hand and all bloody. From there to Sun City, where I get herded into a cold shower on a rainy day. While our clothes are being searched, one of the sturdy, short cell owners screams: “Iphi mali, you shall take it out,” in a demented tone. One chubby fellow gets squealed on. He’s got money. Naked and kneeling he is forced to drink bucket after bucket of water.
“Una manga, you are lying, that money you’ll take it out,” comes the promise of the cell owner. Every time the withholder’s head rises to protest through a gurgling mouth, a smacking shoe is the answer. Another is being felt through the anus for his hidden currency.
“Skhalo, I grieve!” screams one of the victims through the window grille in the morning. As a warder passes the dark and grey corridor, “Voetsek wena!” is his reply.
Ahmed, a slender and handsome Somalian with crinky, wavy hair, says: “I have been awaiting trial for two years and that Nigerian over there is three years going for four with no sentence yet.” I am being innuended with such tellings. Those of you who had been there might have a pretty good idea about what I’m tuning or hoe my broers?”
I never stay in one cell for too long because I am always on the jikeleza (turn), meaning I am always the first one to be chased away when somebody has to go. The total in a cell has to remain constant. But it does not bother me. What scares me is landing up in a certain cell in A2 where its owner Rasta is reported to rape any young man who expects a place to sleep.
“What is the warders doing about this?” I ask the young boy next to me.
“Nothing as long as he keep paying them,” comes the choked reply.
Only in Sun City could you as a criminal own a cell or, more frankly, could it be leased to you.
Phaka (meal) time. Stifling heat. Pushing and shoving. One warder with a green, long hose-pipe held aloft is chasing a trialist, one who cut into the line. Most people are now reduced to such state. Lack of enough food is called “skepper”. Not enough to feed a little boy, less enough a full-grown man. “Mapapa, food lovers,” groans one guy in front of me with disgust. I grunt my agreement and my eyes steal down my now pale and threadworn clothes.
Down the line a trialist is distri-buting pamphlets. One flutters clumsily out of his hand as he shoves it at the people. “Have you seen this guy?” he demands curtly. He is met by a shake of a head or disinterested stares. A quick glance at his photograph, even I do not recognise this guy. But the text gives my heart a jolt: “MISSING: SIPHO MADINI.”
Fok, that’s me. I take the pamphlet and shove it in my pocket.
“Have you phoned him?” asks one guy stroding down the dark corridor.
“Who?” I ask, perplexed.
“That white guy who had come looking for you the other week. Your ngamula [boss] man, the one whose number is on the poster. He came here with another picture of him, you and his little daughter.”
I palpilate: “Jonathan, I did not know,” and return to my cell to think about tomorrow’s meeting with my lawyer. After another sleepless night of TV and singing and non-stop fights I am surprised to see that he is a bushy.
“You see my broer, plead guilty, that would make things a lot easier,” he convinces me with his soft, plumb face. I catch a faint whiff of his French cologne.
“But I am innocent. I did not do the crime,” I tell him.
An immaculate, cultured voice with a hurried expression, he waves away my explanation. “It is just the same or you want to go and sit another six months,” he says, eye-glasses clutched in hand.
Ai, these city lawyers drive a hard deal. Now I had been in this spit bucket called Sun City for more than five or six months and, darn, it has a way of wearing you down. Imagine living in constant fear and vigilance, intimi-dation, beatings and robbing as commonplace as tomorrow itself. People being forced to sing till the early hours of the morning without rest. Songs of rebellion and lamentation. “Hello darling; come and visit me, I am in jail, I got caught.” Over and over, when all you want is desperately to sleep.
“Go and wash these clothes,” one boy is commanded as a pile is thrown at his feet. He refuses and a whole gang jumps out of their hidings like a hungry pack of hyenas. Beating him with broomsticks and whatever comes handy. Till he lays still like the death.
Every day things are like that.
Sleeping on a cold floor with one blanket and a colony of lice crawling and biting you all over every second of your waking and sleeping life. But still you dare wonder why I pleaded guilty? I didn’t expect four years but it was what I got. I was sent … oops better not to call names, bras, I’d not like to anger them up there, I am goody-goody two shoes now … let’s just say to one of the farm prisons to complete my sentence.
But since then my own story has grown beyond me or about me. Innocent or guilty, it seems not to matter so much. In prison I formed a writing group, by and large with the gentle prodding of my erstwhile mentor and friend Jonathan Morgan. To utilise my experience I learned from him while writing our first book and to teach my friends in there some writing skills. To give us all a chance to be creative in the place where it is hardest to be just that and to give them a platform to put their voice to paper and bring their experiences to life. For I had come to respect narrative writing and to value its therapeutic side. Giving the inmates a chance to open their souls and heal their wounds. You can even say we had our own mini Truth and Reconciliation Commission. And now I give you a peek into the stories.
In this new book we fell in line with the old book’s format, except here I am the front guy and not Jonathan. Standing in front of them, creating an environment where the free flow of ideas is guaranteed and harnessing their creative and narrative skills. With people from different walks of life/cultures telling their own stories/experiences in their own words.
From where they were coming to the place we were, conglomerated in prison. By writing into windows affording you, the reader, a glimpse into their life. Window 1: Where and when; pushing the story back to before he was born. Window 2: An early childhood memory, and on like that. Written in a bleak surrounding, showing once more the overcoming power of the human spirit.
But unlike its predecessor we had to go ahead in a very underhand fashion to bring it into existence. For fear of interference, and the possibility of censoring. Getting caught might mean a spell in isolation up to 15 days or more. A moving back of your parole date. For nothing comes out of prison without their express say so. So at the end of the day it was very cloak-and-dagger stuff.
Six o’ clock folla time, head counts are being done as we fill into the cell. Seven o’ clock phaka time, soft porridge and two slice. Eight, job time, for those who refuse, who feel lazy today. Get beaten, manhandled. “You have eaten the food of the jail, you’ll work!”
Standing in the cell toilet saunters this impeccably dressed madala over to me. “Look here, gazzie; I will buy you food, dagga, everything,” says he smoothly with what is properly his disarming smile. I know what he wants. To be talked to like I’m a woman is not funny. “Fuck you!” is the all-encompassing reply.
I also learn how not to ask for water at the fields in the searing heat. How not to flinch if a thorn pricks my soft hands among the weeds I pull out. A strange vegetable named an egg-plant becomes my friend. I hold a milking certificate proudly, although I know I am never going to use it. It is not worth the paper it is written on.
Story meetings are being held in half-empty cells with an eye on the door. And out in the open, with furtive glances over the shoulder. Pieces of papers are being delivered in a slight of the hand. Concealed in socks, innocent-looking books and places better not named for reasons of propriety. Rounded off by poor Jonathan leaving the visiting room with bulges where there were not before and a flushed face in the bargain.
The people who participated in the book come from different parts of the country. From Lesotho to Botswana. The North West to Mpumalanga. Me, I’ve been all over, but most knew me to begin from the Northern Cape. All coming together one way or another to live in Jozi. Only Rudy of the group having not yet lived there but passing through.
“How about we write a book?” I ask the small group of friends down the almost empty cell. Major, impeccably dressed in his tailored green, smiles enthusiastic. “I had always wanted to write a book.” Shorty grins from ear to ear. “Wait, I’ve written some things,” and bursts off to fetch it. Only Sonny looks sceptical at me through hooded eyes, hands in pocket; where he leans on to the double bed.
How did I choose them, or the more appropriate term, how did they choose themselves? First, it was because of their diversity and uniqueness and their willingness to participate. They represent a varied spectrum of the ethnic groups and race here in our beautiful country. And some of them the different gangs in prison. Like 26s, whose main oath is money and the smoking of dagga. Big 5s, who believe in close cooperation with the authorities, literally translated squealing, just to name a few. For you could not purport to write about prison without including the gangs for they are an integral part of prison life.
The stories they got to tell are nail-biting, riveting, humorous. And others just plain astounding. There is David, the country-bumpkin meets Big City. He came to Jozi to work the mines like his father before him and instead found himself abducted by his fellow countrymen, to join the Amarashiyans a traditional Sotho gang more known for their blankets. David’s stories are like paintings in the sky, an eye for detail, that you can almost smell the taste of grass and hear the rustle of the river there in his hometown Lesotho. Shorty, the skew-eyed little devil with a jolt in his step, who is in jail “vir staan en kyk”. His stories are funny if not sad. A real ladies’ man with a twist. Sonny, a 26 from Eldos who single-handedly vanquished a gang, which bothered him too much! His story to look out for: Sonny: Tant’ Sannie and the Spices! Deon, the sweet-faced Mpumalanger, who if he don’t find something that is intelligent in your house might just trash your place. And Rudy, our white golden boy with a psycho temper.
Their stories are told behind a grim backround where everything is not a right but a privilege. Where things they have taken for granted suddenly rears its importance. And where you suddenly realise, like a nagging tooth-ache, that your life is no more in your own hands but somebody else’s (warders and all that cabal). The word that sums it all up comes from Rudy: “Tronk is ‘n kak plek, my broer!”
But they managed to pick their own stories up and look behind their bleak surroundings. To a fresher start and life behind crime. Sonny has decided to open up a pavement restaurant in Industria selling pap en vleis after his release. Rudy: “I’m going to design a simple machine that fix water-pipes. It’s gonna be a money spinner you’ll see!” Shorty proudly holding a church certificate aloft: “I am going to be a preacher outside, you just wait and see, you just wait!”
This book is not just statistics in The Citizen or victim stories, it is from both sides. Why a cute little baby loved by everybody today belongs to the most loathed section of our population. It is also not a book to justify them or be analystic. It is just to give you, the reader, a glimpse into the other side. And now we are looking for a publisher to make their effort into a book and our dreams into a reality. For if it hits the bookshelves it promise to be a very revealing, gripping, page-turning book.
To contact Jonathan Morgan or Sipho Madini: Tel: (011) 477 1682 or e-mail [email protected]