Carlos Mesquita. File Picture: Brendan Magaar
A day in my life as a homeless person in Sea Point 4 years into my six years of being homeless.
I was doing some re-writing on my book this past week and thought I would this week share with you something I haven’t shared in much detail in it, but which I thought the public might find informative and interesting.
My main goal is to hopefully bring a sense of reality to how people view the experiences of those living on the streets, rather than people being too happy to believe narratives promoted by those who think they are experts on the homeless experience, but have never experienced it.
I am going to take you on a day trip with me during my fourth year of homelessness. I need to emphasise that not every day would be the same and my experience is not the same as that of anyone else living on the streets.
Every person living on the streets is an individual and so their experience will be unique. But, of course, there are similarities and everyday events which are indeed shared experiences for all.
I have chosen a day at a time when I had been living deep on the mountain in Sea Point for about two years.
The morning was cloudy and wet from the previous night’s heavy rainfall. I also chose a Thursday, which is a big waste-picking (skarrel) day for the homeless in Sea Point and also a day when I traded my second-hand goods stall on the Grand Parade in the CBD.
I was still exhausted from the previous night. Waste picking has several (let’s call them) “shifts” early morning (3am-8am), afternoon (3pm-6pm) and the night shift (8pm-midnight).
I usually only did the early morning and late night shifts. On this particular morning, I had probably slept about two hours.
After the late night shift bin picking is done, there is sorting out to be done and cleaning of items which can be sold.
On this particular morning, I was running late, only to be further delayed by the “mounties” collecting their weekly rent.
Once you are discovered sleeping on the mountain, the authorities tax you. Once a week they would visit demanding items (electrical goods, jewellery, cellphones, cellphone accessories, toys for their kids, etc, that we might have found or been given during my week’s skarrel.
If you don’t have anything they want you had better ensure you have at least R200 for them. Otherwise, you are severely beaten up, your place is broken down and you are forced off the mountain. On this particular day, they were happy with what I had for them and so I avoided being punched and kicked and barred from the mountain.
They had scarcely left and I had started carrying down my stock and trolley off the mountain when a brick came flying, hitting me on my head. I could feel the blood start dripping over my one eye.
This was one of the Woodstock gangsters that usually come over the mountain to break into cars in Ocean View Drive, but in the process often rob those living on the mountain who they come across, of anything of value.
By the time this happened, I was already quite a distance from my little abode, which was a good thing, otherwise I might as well have stayed on the mountain and all my stock for my stall at the Grand Parade would have been stolen.
But now I had to try to get away from him. And that would only be possible if I could get down the mountain with all my stock onto Ocean View Drive before he caught up with me.
Now that would be a challenge on a normal day, but on a morning following heavy rainfall, it’s near impossible. You literally slip down the mountain on your posterior and arrive on Ocean View Drive looking like someone who has messed in his pants.
But God was with me. I suddenly heard the mounties warning him off the mountain and telling him that he was there to rob the rich in Ocean View Drive and not to waste his time on the homeless on the mountain. That is their job, they told him. Relief!
I managed to get off the mountain with all my bags full of stock for my stall on the Grand Parade.
I clean the blood off my head and face, change my pants in a bush and off I go on my skarrel. But my challenges are far from over. Sea Point police have had this ridiculous habit of arresting me for possession of suspected stolen goods every time they see me pushing my three-wheel wire trolley given to me by Pick n Pay.
I had a letter from the Pick n Pay manager because I had by that stage already been arrested seven times for this “crime”, but in my rush that morning, I had left it on the mountain and I had no intention of potentially breaking my neck by going back up there to get it.
And so my early morning skarrel started.
It was a blessed skarrel. I was given some good items to sell at my stall. There was an abundance of food and half-used toiletries, so by 8am I was on my long journey to the Grand Parade, pushing my three-wheeled trolley.
By the grace of God the police vans didn’t come past that morning.
By 8.30am I was at the Grand Parade setting up my stall to trade till at least 5pm.
Part two next week.
* Carlos Mesquita is an activist for the homeless and a researcher working in the Western Cape Legislature for the GOOD Party.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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