After an hour’s drive to Paarl, Naima, Mayra and I arrive over heated and sluggish at the old library meeting centre. Though we are a few minutes late, the gate to the centre is locked and the road in front looks decidedly empty. Nearby, under the shade of trees, stands a young girl who Mayra and I recognize from the meeting the previous week. She looks stylish, wearing last week's outfit of jeans and a green silk tank top. From her we learn little, other than that the meeting is supposed to be happening now and she doesn’t know where anyone else is. A quarter of an hour passes and I am beginning to assume that we will soon be heading home disappointed, when a crowd of women turn the corner and we breath a sigh of relief when we recognize two leaders of Zonwabele among them.
Soon the centre is open, all of our previous doubts dissipated, and we are inside talking to a group of four young girls who have volunteered to be the first to be interviewed. Yolanda Qomfa and Thandiswa Ncise are the youngest, at 13 and 14 years respectively. They are also the most quiet, neither of them making eye contact, preferring to examine their sneakers than look at us. This may have been due to shyness in front of strangers or to the language barrier, for they were also the only two who needed to have our questions translated into Xhosa by Ntombi, one of the Zonwabele leaders. The first to volunteer to talk is Sinothando Dyasoni––her name means “we have love,”––and she quickly proves to be the most extroverted of the bunch. At 16, she has the fresh faced beauty so often found in youth and a small frame that seems at odds with her large personality. She speaks eloquently and thoughtfully, concentrating for a moment after each question is asked before speaking confidently to this panel of strangers. To her right is Looney Ngomani, a seventeen year old self-professed tomboy who at first refuses to speak above a horse whisper. Her large smile sits below aviator sunglasses and a flat-rim cap, which we later learn signals her allegiance to her neighborhood dance team. An hour later, after having played too-cool-for-school up until then, Looney astonishes us all. I ask the girls to give me their definition of love, but to think hard before they answer. Even the bubbly Sinothando cannot come up with an answer longer than one word––when I push her, she replies: crazi-otic (which I can only imagine to be a very apt mix of crazy and chaotic). After a moment's pause, Looney removes her sunglasses revealing a face more rounded and soft than her aloof persona would suggest. She slowly leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees so her arms hang in between her legs, and I get the first good look at the depth in her dark brown eyes. She speaks hesitantly at first, but her voice is loud and clear: “Love is...what can I say? Love is what you make it. If you want something to happen in love, it happens, but only it happens worse. They always say, be careful what you wish for, and at that moment you’re thinking you know that this thing will get difficult but you want the experience of it. Love is looking over endless experiences, that’s what I take it to mean. At the same time, after you’ve had that experience...it builds up in a pile, then it comes tumbling down, then you have to go to another person and start over...Building a tower of love. And sometimes you dive from the top to the bottom of that tower because you want to...and most times you do want to.” We are floored. Looney leans back, putting her aviators on and crossing her arms; once again the untouchable tomboy.
After talking to the girls, we ask their permission to take photographs and they are only too willing to oblige. Even Andy, Sinothando’s shy girlfriend, is able to break out of her shell in front of my lens. It seems as though the ubiquitous nature of photography has made its way even here, where teenagers unwilling to speak a sentence will gladly strike a pose. Andy pushes in between Sinothando and Looney, asserting her place as the protective girlfriend while Sinothando poses with lips pursed, her finger tip resting on her chin, in such a deliberate manner that I wonder where her inspiration comes from––friends? TV? Magazines? Looney balances out Sinothando’s efforts by leaning casually against the wall, comfortable in her cloud of effortless cool, occasionally changing the position of her flat-rim cap as if to maximize her sense of ease.
After getting a photo of the entire Zonwabele group in front of the old library, we realize too late that our bags (which include my camera equipment, wallet and phone) have been locked inside the building and the person with the keys has gone home. At this moment, Andy truly shines. Without a word she runs around the back, climbs the security gate agile and surefooted, and begins slipping our things through the bars. My camera bag, too full to make it through, must be unpacked and passed through item by item. I silently thank the fates that I took out anything embarrassing beforehand (dirty laundry has an inexplicable habit of finding its way into my camera bag). This last hiccup smoothed over, we thank Andy profusely, who once again has gone silent, before we pack up the car and head back. We drive towards Table Mountain, a dark grey shape against the pinkish sky, and I am stunned all over again by the banal beauty of Cape Town.
******All photographs have been taken by the lovely Naima Sebe!******