Barely out of adolescence, the multi-purpose stadium at Colesberg’s Riemvasmaak has long deteriorated into a limping, incontinent senility. The courts show signs of early ageing, are pock-marked and riddled with cracks. Shattered bottles and litter lie strewn everywhere, and those posts that aren’t completely broken are tinkering on their last legs. Nobody to swing a racket or shoot a three pointer or to punt for touch nowadays. The toilets reek of the faeces that cakes on the walls and smudges the floors, this only twenty years into the stadium’s lifetime.
As the Springboks had an entire nation sweating bullets in a gruelling final against New Zealand a few months ago, a school in a less affluent part of Paarl were screaming one player’s name louder than any other: Kurt-Lee Arendse! The young winger had risen above the sort of circumstances that would ordinarily have his agemates joining a criminal gang or snorting things. Except sport would become the saving grace that informs that surely there must be something else out of the cesspit of poverty than a jailcell or a coffin.
This, a theme that mimics the equally inspired story of the Bok captain, Siya Kholosi, who himself defied all odds to stand as an inspiration to youngsters the world over. Recently there’s Skomota; a popular culture phenomenon that even arts writers aren’t sure what to make of. Is he a credible dancer, or just some township chancer; a lost cause whose odd dance moves have – inexplicably – become all the rage on social media and have seen him making appearances alongside topshelf artists?
Similar stories emanate from towns and villages across the developing world. Stories where sport and the arts served as the only outlet out of the slums, despondency and the inability to realise that there was so much more to life than squirming under the lash of poverty. Of barefoot kids dribbling a shabby football around the hot streets in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, or the townships of Soweto.
Sadly, what were no doubt facilities intended to open up other avenues of opportunity to the youth, the facilities in Colesberg resemble the guttural poverty that ravages many of the communities. Some are the substandard relics of apartheid neglect. Places of negligible quality and no maintenance, that were never intended to produce the Kurt-Lee Arendses or Makhaya Ntinis of this world. But nearly thirty years into democracy, the picture remains woefully unaltered.
Although government continues ploughing millions into sports infrastructure, is the return on investment worthwhile or are these simply nothing more than bottomless troughs for the perpetually insatiable snouts of tenderpreneurs? (This writer has never seen a single youngster playing any instrument in Kuyasa.) Gone are the days where black youths clad in cheap suits would book the community hall to regale the townsfolk in isicathamiya – acapella tunes in the Mbube tradition made famous by the iconic Solomon Linda every other Sunday afternoon.
Moreover, does the onus of ensuring the upkeep of these facilities rest squarely on the state? After all, it is usually the very people whom these spaces are meant to serve who hop the fence to slash up a tennis net or break a floodlight just for the kick of it.
At the height of segregated sport, scores of black activists would emerge to challenge the apartheid regime despite that such subversion came with harsh penalties. In places like Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha) and East London the defiance would, out of necessity, cross that sacred line between sport and politics. Pressure mounted by these barefoot black sporting bodies, their established white counterparts as well as the international community would result in South Africa being banned from virtually every sports federation by 1990.
Yet it would seem that their flagrant spirit has long been doused if a visit to any one of the few sports areas around Colesberg is to go by. Take the Love Life Y-Centre, in its heyday a technicolour building to learning and sporting activity today stands as a far cry from the hype it used to be. Gone are the iimpintshi – those funky youth mentors running around preaching the gospel of a healthy sexual lifestyle to kids who otherwise came from households in which such topics were off the table. Today the building is charred; a painful reminder of infrastructure being used to settle political and social scores. No more table tennis, or computers and not even the basketball courts have been let off the hook. Every inch of cable has been ripped off the walls, likely sold as scrap. The roofing is gutted and all that remains is the gnawing memory of how the place used to serve as a haven for youngsters looking to have a good time and where many successful careers were kickstarted.
The soccer pitch – actually just a patch of bare land with goalposts – in Kuyasa is nothing to write home about. However, recently it has started undergoing an audacious refurbishment, with millions pumped into it but whether that will result any meaningful gains – outside of the aesthetic – for the community which it serves remains a story for the future.
A stroll along the western entrance into Lowryville reveals that the vandalism is an omniscient scourge. The winding footpath that hugs the edge of a small koppie used to be a treacherous jaunt; dark and unpredictable at night. The municipality stepped in, putting up paving and erecting elegant streetlights to make things easier for everyone. The paving is still there – thank God – but the lights are smashed or sawn off at the base making it unsafe when the sun has set.
Tennis enthusiasts still reminisce of a time where one could whistle up a friend and off they’d go to knock a few sets at the tennis courts in town or against the practice walls. On any given day, you’d find the place vibrant with youthful abandon and occassionally as a setting for vigorous competition between local schools. Not so nowadays. The premises look like they could use some paint and a lawnmower to whip them back into something that at least resembles their former glory.
Evidently, an enduring soccer culture persists in Kuyasa. Then it makes one hopeful that despite all the general gloom of youths who while the days perched on upturned beer crates at the local taverns, a few of them occassionally put on their boots to kick a soccer ball around from time to time. But outside of the beautiful game – known down here as diski – other sporting disciplines are virtually unheard-of. Few tennis aces and even fewer cricket in-swingers. But then you arrive at Buka’s humble home in Masiphakame township and you can’t help but experience a stirring that the community must sometimes rise up to be the facilitator of its own betterment.
The room, all 3x3m of it would be just another featureless township backroom were it not for Mdupi Buka’s one-man crusade to stupidly trying to revive the sports of body building and strength training. Don’t expect any fancy equipment, though. No cable fly machines, squat racks or rowing machines. Only two parched, rickety benches and a formidable collection of free weights. It’s a throwback to something that looks like the time when those mavericks were hurtling along to film the nowadays cult film that the whole world knows as Pumping Iron. Buka’s, however, is a tad more rugged. No big monies. No big novelty. No Schwarzenegger. Here, it’s just a bunch of township guys who turn up in frayed cut-offs and old t-shirts to heave and groan under the bars. Not many of them, though, because the popular trend is to do those bicep curls with a frothing quart of beer instead.
Nonetheless, something impels these charges to put aside the prevailing temptations and pound at it awhile. Back-breaking work when you’re doing it just for the sake of, especially when there’s no funding, bravely soldiering on a poor diet and your mind is riddled by concerns of things like unemployment.
So Buka – bless his heart – is stellar enough to do it Ubuntu style. No application forms to fill. Or joining fees. The man doesn’t even charge a cent and his only ask – which is never overtly expressed – is the common decency to at least be nice enough to remember to pack away the gear when the session is over. Pump it, then pack it away for the next guy or at least so that Buka does not arrive to a messy house after honouring his duties as a paramedic.
Vukuzenzele. Remember that word? The hustler’s spirit. Whilst the rest of us wait on somebody else to come save the day, people like Buka have seemingly learnt to first do it yourself and hope your efforts will get you noticed. And that’s what our negligible rag did; payed him a visit, initially to do a write-up. But the man’s passion was so infectious that our hack hung around for a session. Then another. Now some seven weeks into it, there is no turning back.
Our man has grown rather adept around the nomenclature. Progressive overload, super sets, bent-over rows, presses, protein… It’s a disciplined business; five days a week of torture under the weights and two days off to contemplate how you’re going to torture yourself the next five days. Of course some days are easier than others. Often you really don’t feel like going but then you notice the t-shirts tightening around the arms, the chest bulging slowly through and you know it’s time to kick away the blankets.
You’d think he is blowing his own horn but our man is proud to report that he has put on at least five kilograms of lean muscle since hanging out at Buka’s. Hence he has persuaded his colleagues to run a regular feature documenting the journey. To do what we do at eParkeni; be some sort of guinea pig in service of our small readership. As usual, though, it comes with a disclaimer: we are no experts in any discipline, so before you take our word on anything, best consult with the relevant professionals.
Although a few committed individuals have emerged out of Buka’s haunt all “jacked up” as the slang goes, whether we will see a pro-buidybuilder emerging from the streets of Kuyasa nobody knows. But for Buka’s magnanimous spirit, the least we can do is let him know that his modest premises are a beacon of what it means to be umntu, a person amongst other people.