Being an Eastern Cape refugee in Cape Town

(Pic: Gallo)

A lot is made in South Africa of the “refugee situation”; that is, desperate immigrants from other African countries who have chosen to settle in the continent’s southernmost country.

Protestations that Nigerians, Congolese, Malawians and Somalis, in particular, “have come to steal our jobs” are as ubiquitous as the daily furore at the taxi rank over who saw which customer first.

That is complete nonsense of course, and everyone knows it, but it is one of those topics, like dissecting the merits of the Pep Store funeral plan, that locals like to debate endlessly.

Yet in truth South Africans are among the greatest number of refugees going around, so to speak.

Ask any South African on the street where they are originally from, and they will invariably tell you a location hundreds of kilometres away from where they live now.

And in Mzansi, there is no greater natural refugee than one who hails from the Eastern Cape. I should know – I am one.

According to the 2011 Census, in the Eastern Cape, 436 466 people left the province since the last census 10 years prior. Ninety-four percent of the Eastern Cape population was born in the province, compared to 56% of Gauteng’s population.

And almost two million people born in the Eastern Cape lived in other provinces, with the majority living in the Western Cape in and around the Cape Town metro (0.9 million) and Gauteng (0.5 million).

Desperately poor under apartheid and equally so now, the Eastern Cape has never quite managed to get off the ground, despite vast swathes of natural beauty, excellent schools and universities and being home to South Africa’s motor industry for decades.

Every year scores of us leave to work in Johannesburg or Cape Town, either in the industrial or mining sector or to pursue a career in the corporate or entertainment field. “That’s where the money is” we are told, and off we go; an annual exodus not seen since the days of the Biblical plagues.

I myself am a late bloomer in terms of the Eastern Cape émigré, having only settled in Cape Town several months ago. Yet, even now, I can honestly say my reason for leaving was neither financially-driven nor born out of any especial desire to become a master of the universe.

Yes, I was in need of a job upon my return from Southeast Asia, but the main catalyst for my decision was that Cape Town – with all its hipsters, beardy-weirdies, flash public-relations types and movie-extra hopefuls – represented the ideal opportunity for change.

I was reared in Port Elizabeth and will always be proud to call it my home town. But in the last few years I had seen it become a microcosm of Johannesburg where a rat race, and indeed, sometimes egotistical mentality had begun to infiltrate every aspect of your working and social life.

The result was that the city once deemed the friendliest in the land had become disconnected from what it once was – sleepy yes, but a good place to relax and enjoy your days in the sun.

I worked briefly in Johannesburg some years back, but after a few weeks the hustle and bustle of a heaving concrete beast became too much. There was no tangible downtime to take your mind off the previous week’s work, and everyone seemed in too much of a hurry to get onto the next thing – and prove the next thing to others.

I understand perfectly that these attitudes sometimes are required in an economic hub, but they are definitely not for everybody. And neither should they be, especially in a city like Port Elizabeth which was historically always a delightful place to live despite being blue-collar.

So Cape Town it was, a 700-odd kilometre trek up the N2 for this particular refugee.

It has been two months now, so what do I have to report?

Without a shadow of a doubt, change has been effected.

Cape Town, above all, is comfortable with itself, and that is reflected in the attitudes of its residents. Aside from the odd bad apple one encounters, the people are among the friendliest in the country, and that has a marked impact on one’s own attitudes.

The Cape Town native is acutely aware that their city has a reputation for being “cliquey”, but also knows that this arises from a small cross-section of the community who most people avoid at all costs.

Second point: Cape Town residents do not care one jot for the political wrangling that consumes South Africans in other parts of the country.

Contrary to what some might believe, Mother City residents are not in the least bit interested in spending their dinner times dissecting the latest political diatribe from one or other party leader. While they are immensely proud that their city houses the country’s Parliament, one suspects they are even more pleased that the magnificent building bolsters the central business district’s prime real estate value.

It is almost as though politicians are only rolled out when there is an election, otherwise civil society pretty much runs itself.

To be free of South Africa’s great political preoccupation is a huge relief, and it is little wonder that many Capetonians appear perplexed when they see someone ranting and raving about something or other on television.

And finally, how could anyone continue to harbour feelings of anxiety or anger or concern when in every direction there is either a mountain, ocean or vineyard to gaze upon? It is almost impossible to worry about anything for too long.

As South Africans will have guessed by now, the description of myself as a “refugee” in this piece relates to an incident in early 2012 when Western Cape Premier Helen Zille referred to Eastern Cape pupils flocking to Cape Town for improved education as “education refugees”.

It sparked a massive outcry, prompting the ruling party and others to label the Western Cape government an “erstwhile apartheid” regime.

Personally, looking back on that incident now and as an Eastern Cape refugee myself, I don’t see what all the fuss was about.

John Harvey is a media relations consultant in Cape Town. He previously worked as a journalist in Port Elizabeth, Plettenberg Bay and Cambodia, contributing to a number of South African and international publications. He is hoping to obtain his work visa for Cape Town shortly.

10 years ago

Ebola epidemic sparks state of emergency across West Africa

A fast-spreading Ebola epidemic sparked a state of emergency in overwhelmed West African nations on Thursday as the death toll neared 1 000.

In Liberia, where the dead lay in the streets, lawmakers gathered to ratify a state of emergency while Sierra Leone sent troops to guard hospitals and clinics handling Ebola cases. Nigeria held out hope it could receive an experimental US-developed drug to halt the spread of the virus.

Since breaking out earlier this year, the epidemic has claimed 932 lives and infected more than 1 700 people across west Africa, according to the World Health Organisation.

Staff and volunteers at the ELWA hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia. (Pic: AFP)

Ebola causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable bleeding. It is transmitted through close contact with bodily fluids, and people who live with or care for patients are most at risk.

Spanish priest, nun evacuated
As African nations struggled with the sheer scale of the epidemic, Spain flew home a 75-year-old Roman Catholic priest, Miguel Pajares, who contracted the disease while helping patients at a hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia.

The missionary was the first patient in the outbreak to be evacuated to Europe for treatment.

A specially equipped military Airbus A310 brought him to Madrid’s Torrejon air base along with a Spanish nun, Juliana Bonoha Bohe, who had worked at the same Liberian hospital but did not test positive for the deadly haemorrhagic fever, the Spanish government said.

Immediately after landing Thursday morning, ambulances took the pair to Madrid’s Carlos III Hospital, which specialises in tropical diseases.

The priest was stable and showing no sign of bleeding while the nun appeared to be well but would be re-tested for Ebola just in case, health officials said.

Two Americans who worked for Christian aid agencies in Liberia and were infected with Ebola while taking care of patients in Monrovia were taken back to the United States for treatment in recent days.

They have shown signs of improvement after being given an experimental drug known as ZMapp, which is hard to produce on a large scale.

The vast majority of those infected face a far inferior level of health care at home.

State of emergency in Liberia, Sierra Leone
There is no proven treatment or cure for Ebola and the use of the experimental drug has sparked controversy as Ebola experts call for it to be made available to African victims.

Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf declared a state of emergency of at least 90 days on Wednesday, saying extraordinary measures were needed “for the very survival of our state”.

“The scope and scale of the epidemic, the virulence and deadliness of the virus now exceed the capacity and statutory responsibility of any one government agency or ministry,” she said.

Liberia’s Parliament is to ratify the decision on Thursday.

In Sierra Leone, which has the most confirmed infections, 800 troops including 50 military nurses were sent to guard hospitals and clinics treating Ebola patients, an army spokesman said. The Parliament was to meet to ratify a state of emergency declared last week.

Nigeria
Fears are growing that the disease is also taking hold in Nigeria after the death of a nurse in Lagos, a megacity of more than 20 million. It was the second Ebola death in Nigeria, where another five people have tested positive for the disease.

Nigeria’s Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu told reporters he was in contact with the US Center for Disease Control on the possibility of getting drugs from them.

“I said we are getting reports that this experimental drug seems to be useful. Is it also possible that we can have access for our people presently being treated and under incubation?” he said Wednesday.

Chukwu said all seven confirmed cases in his country had “primary contact” with a Liberian finance ministry employee who brought the virus to Lagos on July 20 and died later in hospital.

US President Barack Obama said it was too soon to send experimental drugs for the treatment of Ebola to west Africa, however, urging officials instead to focus on building a “strong public infrastructure”.

“I think we have to let the science guide us. And I don’t think all the information is in on whether this drug is helpful,” Obama said on Wednesday.

WHO emergency session
The World Health Organisation is meeting in emergency session behind closed doors in Geneva to decide whether to declare an international crisis. It is not expected to make a decision until Friday.

A Saudi Arabian who had travelled to Sierra Leone and developed Ebola-like symptoms died on Wednesday of a heart attack while being treated in hospital in Jeddah, the Saudi health ministry said.

First discovered in 1976 and named after a river in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ebola spreads through contact with bodily fluids such as blood, saliva and sweat.

It has killed around two-thirds of those it has infected over the last four decades, with two outbreaks registering fatality rates approaching 90 percent. The latest outbreak has a fatality rate of around 55 percent.

10 years ago

The film adaptation of ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ is a triumph

Nigerian novelist Chibundu Onuzo reviews Half of a Yellow Sun, which premiered in Nigeria on August 1.

I went to two screenings of Biyi Bandele’s adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s famous novel, Half of a Yellow Sun. The first screening was in an obscure Vue theatre, with a largely Nigerian audience, that whooped and called out throughout the movie. The second was in the Bafta building, with a sedate crowd that venomously shhhed me when I whispered a comment to my sister. The first time, I zoomed in on what I believed were the movies fatal flaws: Thandie Newton’s unplaceable accent when speaking English, Thandie Newton’s unplaceable accent when speaking Igbo and the lack of the epic in a movie that is set during the Biafran War, one of the most brutal conflicts of the 20th century. The second time, I approached with a more open mind, ready to accept the movie for what it is rather than what I wanted it to be and I discovered that the director, Biyi Bandele, has made his own film, his own triumph. This is a subtle movie of a large war, intimate and revealing of the personal tragedies that took place from July 1967 to January 1970.

The movie opens with the sisters Olanna and Kainene played by Thandie Newton and Anika Noni Rose. They are beautiful, rich and fashionable in the stylised chic way of the sixties. The period is evoked with footage from the era as well as a beautifully researched set. Olanna and Odenigbo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are soon introduced as lovers. Kainene and the English, somewhat spineless Richard (Joseph Mawle), also become lovers. Through these two relationships, the vibrancy of pre-war Nigeria is explored: the highlife music, the Lagos high society, the heated intellectual discussions at the University of Nsukka where Olanna and Odenigbo are both lecturers. And then the war comes.

The Nigerian Civil War was global news and personal tragedy. I know this from my father and my uncles who lived through the war and speak not of genocide and federalism but of exams left midway, school terms disrupted and clothes destroyed. Bandele captures this movingly in the scene where the war arrives on the doorstep of Olanna and Odenigbo’s carefully built citadel of books and philosophers and good wine. They must hastily compress their life into a few suitcases, flung into the back of a car. What to choose? What to take before they must run? Olanna is cooking. She carries the pot with her as they flee.

In my first viewing, I was annoyed by the fact that the Biafran War seemed reduced to the love triangles and squares of these four main characters. General Emeka Ojukwu, leader of Biafra, is seen only in black and white footage. There is no character cast to flesh out this charismatic leader of the Biafrans. General Jack Gowon, leader of the Nigerian army is never mentioned. The grand actors are mostly silent. In my second viewing, I was drawn into the intimacy of these four lives. The brief clips of original news footage; the short radio bursts of famous speeches: this was how those living through the war would have experienced the events now neatly highlighted by History as grand. People lived through the epic in very mundane ways. They got married like Odenigbo and Olanna. Brides fussed over the fit of their wedding dresses and sometimes, wedding feasts were interrupted by bombs. The next day, life went on.

(Pic: halfofayellowsunmovie.com)

It is Chiwetel Ejiofor’s first feature since Twelve Years a Slave and this role is sufficiently different for one to be excited to see what he will do next. I did Thandie Newton a disservice in my first assessment. She may not correctly pronounce ‘kedu,’ a common Igbo greeting, but she is utterly compelling as Odenigbo’s long suffering and contradictory lover, who will not marry him in peace time but will do so in the middle of a war. Anika Noni-Rose and Joseph Mawle also give strong performances, with Noni Rose capturing the hauteur and vulnerability of Kainene with great skill. Yet the standout performance for me, was given by Onyeka Onwenu who played Mama: the mother-in-law from hell.

Onwenu or ‘the elegant stallion’, is better known as a singer. Yet she was perfect for this role of eye-rolling, abuse spitting venom. Eavesdropping on conversations after the Bafta screening, I heard the noun ‘caricature’ thrown around a few times. “Such people exist!” I wanted to say, but I had already been shushed once that evening. In the Vue screening, surrounded by Nigerians, there was only adulation for Onwenu. We all knew women like Mama, who tried to control their families with manipulation and tradition. There was no talk of caricatures there.

The movie is not a facsimile of Chimamanda’s much beloved novel. Most strikingly, in the novel Ugwu, the houseboy, is the main narrator. Yet in the film, the sisters, Olanna and Kainene take centre stage. Biyi Bandele, explaining this choice at a pre-screening, said that too often the African domestic had been given the foreground in films made of the continent. It was time for new stories to emerge. Stories of women like Olanna and Kainene; stories of sophistication and accusations of witchcraft because Africa is not one thing. There will be time for other epics on the war; for gun battles and air raids, for army commanders and young Generals. For now, let us celebrate Bandele’s movie for what it is: a triumph.

Brittle Paper is an African literary blog featuring book reviews, news, interviews, original work and in-depth coverage of the African literary scene. It is curated by Ainehi Edoro and was recently named a ‘go-to book blog’ by Publisher’s Weekly.

10 years ago

Haircare share: Africa’s multibillion-dollar cut

With all the skill of a master weaver at a loom, Esther Ogble stands under a parasol in the sprawling Wuse market in Nigeria’s capital and spins synthetic fibre into women’s hair.

Nearby, three customers – one in a hijab – wait for a turn to spend several hours and $40 to have their hair done, a hefty sum in a country where many live on less than $2 a day.

While still largely based in the informal economy, the African haircare business has become a multi-billion dollar industry that stretches to China and India and has drawn global giants such as L’Oreal and Unilever .

Hairdressers such as Ogble are a fixture of markets and taxi ranks across Africa, reflecting both the continent’s rising incomes and demand from hair-conscious women.

“I need to braid my hair so that I will look beautiful,” said 25-year-old Blessing James, wincing as Ogble combed and tugged at the back of her head before weaving in a plait that fell well past the shoulder.

While reliable Africa-wide figures are hard to come by, market research firm Euromonitor International estimates $1.1-billion of shampoos, relaxers and hair lotions were sold in South Africa, Nigeria and Cameroon alone last year.

It sees the liquid haircare market growing by about 5% from 2013 to 2018 in Nigeria and Cameroon, with a slight decline for the more mature South African market.

This does not include sales from more than 40 other sub-Saharan countries, or the huge “dry hair” market of weaves, extensions and wigs crafted from everything from synthetic fibre to human or yak hair.

A man prepares wigs as he waits for customers in downtown Johannesburg. (Pic: Reuters)

Some estimates put Africa’s dry hair industry at as much as $6 billion a year; Nigerian singer Muma Geerecently boasted that she spends 500 000 naira ($3 100) on a single hair piece made of 11 sets of human hair.

Informal economy
Haircare is a vital source of jobs for women, who make up a large slice of the informal economy on the poorest continent.

But business in Wuse market has slowed recently, said 37-year-old Josephine Agwa, because women were avoiding public places due to concerns about attacks by Islamic militant group Boko Haram.

The capital has been targeted three times since April, including a bomb blast on a crowded shopping district in June that killed more than 20 people.

“The ones that don’t want to come, they call us for home service,” she said as she put the finishing touches on a six-hour, $40 style called “pick and dropped with coils” – impossibly small braids that cascade into lustrous curls.

Haidressers attend to clients in Lagos, Nigeria. (Pic: AFP)

Nigerians are not alone in their pursuit of fancy locks.

“I get bored if I have one style for too long,” said Buli Dhlomo, a 20 year-old South African student who sports long red and blonde braids. Her next plan is to cut her hair short and dye it “copper gold”.

“It looks really cool. My mum had it and I also had it at the beginning of the year and it looked really good,” said Dhlomo, who can spend up to R4 000 rand ($370) on a weave.

Daring styles
While South Africans change their hairstyle often, West Africans do so even more, said Bertrand de Laleu, managing director of L’Oreal South Africa.

“African women are probably the most daring when it comes to hair styles,” he said, noting that dry hair – almost unheard of a decade ago – was a growing trend across sub-Saharan Africa.

“Suddenly you can play with new tools that didn’t exist or were unaffordable.”

The French cosmetics giant this year opened what it billed as South Africa’s first multi-ethnic styling school, training students of all races on all kinds of hair, something that would have been unthinkable before the end of apartheid in 1994.

While the South African hair market remains divided, salons are looking to boost revenues by drawing in customers across ethnic groups, meaning hairdressers who once catered only for whites will need stylists who can also work on African hair.

L’Oreal is looking to build on its “Dark and Lovely” line of relaxers and other products with more research into African hair and skin and has factories in South Africa and Kenya producing almost half the products it distributes on the continent.

Hair from India, via China
Nor is it alone.

Anglo-Dutch group Unilever has a salon in downtown Johannesburg promoting its “Motions” line of black haircare products, and niche operators are springing up in the booming dry hair market.

“We supply anything to do with dry hair, across the board,” said Kabir Mohamed, managing director of South Africa’s Buhle Braids, rattling off a product line of braids, weaves and extensions that use tape, rings or keratin bonds.

Today there are more than 100 brands of hair in South Africa, making the market worth about $600-million, he said, roughly four times more than in 2005.

Much of the hair sold is the cheaper synthetic type and comes from Asia. Pricier natural hair is prized because it lasts longer, retains moisture and can be dyed.

India’s Godrej Consumer Products acquired South African firm Kinky in 2008 and sells synthetic and natural hair, including extensions, braids and wigs.

Buhle Braids, like its rivals, sources much of its natural hair from India, which has a culture of hair collection, particularly from Hindu temples or village “hair collectors”.

The hair is then sent to China where it is processed into extensions and shipped to Africa. Hair from yaks, to which some people are allergic, is now used less.

In one clue to the potential for Africa, market research firm Mintel put the size of the black haircare market in the United States at $684-million in 2013, estimating that it could be closer to $500 billion if weaves, extensions and sales from independent beauty stores or distributors are included.

What is certain is that Africa’s demand for hair products, particularly those made from human hair, is only growing.

“It hurts, but you have to endure if you want to look nice,” said Josephine Ezeh, who sat in Wuse market cradling a baby as a hairdresser tugged at her head. “Hair is very, very important.”

10 years ago

Lagos brought to life on Instagram

Nigerian photographer Andrew Esiebo, a recent convert to social media, uses pictures to tell the story of Africa’s largest metropolis and beyond.

“I was sceptical at the beginning,” says Esiebo of Instagram. “From what I’d seen about social media, it was all about pictures of parties and holidays rather than a way to tell a story.”

When Esiebo did give the photo-sharing service a go, two of his most popular photos came to include a shot that captures Lagos’s party spirit and another of a child asleep on a beach in Freetown. With an Instagram account brimming with photos that reflect the everyday colourful chaos of Africa’s largest metropolis, Esiebo is one of a crop of rising stars whose mobile-shot photos are helping to revolutionise the way outsiders and local people see Africa.

A child takes a nap on a beach in Lagos. (Instagram/Andrew Esiebo)

“Instagram has been quite remarkable in the impact it’s had, especially in the northern hemisphere where people have little idea of everyday life here,” says the 36-year-old Lagosian, whose previous projects range from a series documenting West Africa’s barbershops to a local neighbourhood team of grandmothers in South Africa when the country hosted the 2010 World Cup.

In a continent where mobile phone usage is exploding, Esiebo isn’t the only one who has realised the potential of Instagram. Along with 17 others, he is part of the Everyday Africa project, a collective of photographers who have taken on the “common media portrayal of the African continent as a place consumed by war, poverty, and disease”.

“One of the biggest pluses [of mobile phone photography] is it makes you much more invisible and therefore much more intimate,” says Esiebo. “From a technical point of view it’s more limiting, but the idea of using Instagram for storytelling just makes a lot of sense.”

Appetite has even come from those already familiar with the tapestry of Nigeria. “There are some images I’ve posted that weren’t meant for a Nigerian audience that sometimes got the biggest response [there],” he says.

Esiebo captures different elements of life in Nigeria’s most populous city. (Instagram/Andrew Esiebo)

Esiebo becoming a photographer was remarkable in itself. Nigeria has a vibrant arts scene, but artists work in challenging conditions. Recently a show featuring Esiebo’s work in northern Nigeria’s main city of Kano had to be scrapped after a series of bomb attacks by Islamists Boko Haram.

But it is the daily grind that drags most artists down. Well-maintained galleries are few and far between, and most exhibitions depend on word of mouth for attracting visitors. “Infrastructure is a major problem. There’s no funding, no support networks for indigenous photographers,” Esiebo notes. “Much more attention was paid to westerners, who would document our story and then bring it back to us.”

While working at the French Research Institute in Ibadan, Esiebo was “lucky to have access to photography books”. Then in 2006, he met the celebrated Nigerian photographer George Osodi.

“That was a turning point. It gave me the confidence, that if he could tell our story as a Nigerian, then I could too,” he said. “The best thing about being a photographer is having a chance to tell your own story.”

Eisebo relishes the chance to tell the Nigerian story from a local perspective. (Instagram/Andrew Esiebo)

Challenges of copyright and distribution are magnified in Nigeria, as evidenced from bootlegged videos, CDs and books openly sold in every city. And though mobile photography has other limits, believes it’s only going to grow bigger. “It’s just an alternative way to reach out to people. For me, pictures are not just about quality, it’s about the story behind them.”

Monica Mark for the Guardian Africa Network.