Where at eParkeni we tend to find ourselves ambling on the ordinary side of things, today we’re constantly looking over our shoulder. That’s the price to pay when you’ve overstepped the line. Strayed into the underbelly. In a trap house among drug pipes, penknives, addicts, – the proverbial wrong crowd, the unnerving side. Where the subjects regard the small-time reporter the same way they do turf rivals – with contempt, suspicion, ensuring you’re never quite comfortable. That you’re not given the answers that could have the popo sniffing around. In which case, you’d have to pay, probably dearly.
There are stare-downs, and if you didn’t happen to know one of the subjects, it might get pretty ugly very quickly. But you do. You once shared a school desk, the two of you. Maybe even crib notes now that you come to think it. Back then he was just another kid in class, one of dozens in a pressed shirt with big dreams. He yawned through the parts on World History and reveled over the local labour union movements. Said he dreamed of becoming a formidable politician, and if that failed, maybe a shop steward – anything that might put him on TV.
What a fool he was. Fools we all were. The dreams never quite materialized and fewer people are hiring lately. Well, he figures, he’s put in the work, done school, kept the faith but none of those buy the groceries or make an impression with the fairer sex. With little to lose, he soon supposed: what if he got in on making money another way? The way that braver men have done it.
Colesberg in his younger days in the 80’s and 90’s was a God-fearing place, with teachers who whipped errant learners and the closest most ever got to drugs was dagga and wood glue. The former was an abomination associated with the unkempt and delinquent. The sort of crowd you knew better than to associate with if you hoped to make something meaningful of your life or keep a good name.
In time it got pimped-up and amadyadya, the B-grade, seed-filled strains that you rolled into a joint as thick as a thumb or smoked through a broken bottleneck were becoming obsolete. By now Mandrax had come into the fray. R50 could score you a full button (pill), half at R25. Dealers started creeping out the woodwork and law enforcement knew there was a new menace on the streets.
Meanwhile, ordinary dagga had also started making way for the really good stuff. Skunk, cheese, Durban Poison, purple haze. With the influx of hookah smoking, weed became an ‘in’ thing, got cool and the social stigmatising gradually didn’t have the same deterring effect. Users grew increasingly younger, and lighting up outside a teeming tavern was hardly anything to raise eyebrows at. In the place of mandrax (downers), it is the crystal methamphetamine ‘tik’ (a stimulant) that is now seemingly breeding the new generation of home invaders and amapharaphara. Sounds like the nickname you might give to a pet. In reality these are drug-addled youths who rob, cause trouble and are regulars down at the local holding cells.
In 2023, the NC Department of Social Development found that children as young as eight were addicted to drugs. This whilst the province also exhibited excessive levels of alcohol abuse. ‘Historically,’ reports GroundUp, ‘much of South Africa’s crystal meth was manufactured locally: Western Cape gangs would get the chemical precursors used to make meth from Chinese syndicates.’
Nowadays, much of the supply comes from Nigeria and Afghanistan. The proliferation of tik even in small communities has also seen the introduction of methcathinone, commonly known as cat. Visit surrounding towns like De Aar and see for yourself how these drugs are tearing up communities, pitting parents against their own kids. Tik is usually smoked in a glass pipe or dissolved in water before being injected. Because it is affordable and easy to make, it is often the drug of choice across many of the country’s impoverished communities.
For *Simphiwe, tik is something that dulls the pain from an incident that got him serious jail time. ‘A place for animals,’ he recalls of his time there where ‘I mostly tried to keep to myself and not think too hard about the offence that put me there.’ A drunken episode led him to commit the crime, and so he tries to keep away from the bottle. ‘But,’ he says, ‘sometimes a man needs to forget. That’s why I smoke [tik].’
For his odd jobs as a builder, he finds it helpful.’ It keeps me alert, energetic, always on the move doing something.’ But sometimes there’s a downside. One of the effects of the drug is what they call meth-induced psychosis where the lines between reality and thought are blurred. This sometimes comes with hearing voices in one’s head which Simphiwe says can be’ very scary.’
Although Simphiwe tries very hard to give the impression that he has things under control, that ‘it’s me who controls this drug not the other way around,’ it’s hard to buy it. Even to the untrained eye he seems to be exhibit all of the symptoms contained in the literature. Hang out with him long enough and see the fluctuating moods, one moment withdrawn and quite in his corner, the next loud, and all over the place. There is the apparent disregard for personal hygiene, the rough-looking and darkening skin and the younger siblings who sit anxiously outside wondering when the next aggressive affront will come.
Outside of ravaging these already vulnerable small-town communities, it is the young hopes and dreams that it discards to the gutter that truly gnaw at one’s conscience. No longer is the face of tik abuse the young adolescent who is impressionable enough to succumb to peer pressure. There is increased use amongst teenage girl-children as well.
A toxic mix of school dropouts, insufficient lifelines to steer youngsters into education or employment as well as poverty often means that a bulk of these youngsters may find themselves experimenting with substances. Add to this the age-old reality of a general lack of a sense of tangible progress in small towns and chances are, many of them will never quite find the motivation to try dig themselves out of the cesspit.
By now, it might be a little too late to save them from themselves especially as the effects of these drugs are often irreversible. And when they have been abandoned by the system, the R25 to get their hands on the next fix might feel like the only thing that will see them through the purposelessness. And when pocket money can no longer feed the boy’s habit, he will likely forcefully get it from the community. For the girl-child, the sacrifices will be far more degrading.
This is the first in a series into the darker realities happening in marginalised communities in and around Colesberg. Extensively we’ve written on issues of poverty and its societal implications. High time we delved into what these look like in real life.
Featured Image: Crossroads Recovery Centre