Straatwerk

My first meeting with Bianca was a strange one. She was dressed purely in white: white dress, white blouse and very pointy high-heeled shoes. That white evening she would scream to me: “I’m not interested in your Jesus stories. Can’t you see, I am a virgin bride, spotless. Don’t talk to me anymore, you’re chasing away my clients.”

Little did I know that Bianca and I would still become very close friends. At the time of our first meeting I didn’t know that Bianca was actually Jaco, and that he would still undergo a sex change and would one day shout at me: “You are my friend! You say you love me? How can anyone love an IT? I’m not a man, and I’m also not a woman, I’m an IT!” Little did I know how complicated and painful one person’s life could be.

About Bianca there are a lot of stories to be told, but one of my favourites is about her time staying in the Gardens of Cape Town (illegally, of course), about ten years ago. This is my shortened retelling of a widely told story…

My English teacher always tried to explain irony to us by saying the following: “Laughter with a tear”. Bianca’s life in Gardens was just that- laughter with a tear.

During that time there were no OPHELP Projects to work for cash, so each person would need to be creative in meeting their own daily needs. For a while Bianca would walk around with a dilapidated sign around her neck and beg where she could, but this was not her gift. Bianca and a telephone were big friends and she eventually managed to find a job at a call centre in the Waterfront. She would regularly phone me from there and our conversations went more or less like this: “Good afternoon M’am, today I want to tell you about our wonderful new product… How are you? Are you coming to the Gardens tonight? Please bring me some soap and a razor if you can… M’am, you stand a chance to win a wonderful holiday for two…And if you can, my shoe broke, the heel snapped in two and I can’t come to work like this tomorrow…Thank you M’am. Goodbye M’am.

That Bianca found the job at the call centre was already a big step, and that she bathed herself every morning in cold water at an outside tap in Gardens was even more of an achievement, but to make-up, put on stockings, dress with a matching handbag and go to work blending in with everyone else was something from another world. In the two months that she worked at the call centre, no one guessed that she actually stayed on the streets. She was a people’s person and soon her work colleagues would want to visit her after work, but she was always ready with an excuse. If you are wondering why she didn’t make a plan to find other accommodation, that is another story entirely. She was famous and infamous at every cheap boarding house and night shelter, so the stoep of the museum in Gardens was her only hope (and the gracious security guard who always looked the other way). And yes, she said: “Every morning and evening I had money for coffee and cigarettes.”

Naturally, when she got “home” every afternoon, she would change from her working clothes and put on her “other” working clothes- dirty, torn clothes and barefoot she would walk from flat to flat in Tamboerskloof and Gardens, asking for food and donations. “I have two jobs, a day job and an early evening job – Impressive right?”

“That I did not drink, was my saving grace. Today I can laugh and make jokes about my stockings and my innovative plans, but that was a difficult time. Very difficult. I miss my bright red outfit that I wore to work every second day.”

Unfortunately the biggest part of Bianca’s life wasn’t in the Gardens. Twenty years of her life she was caught in prostitution. Her time in the Gardens was a phase when she just didn’t have the strength for prostitution anymore. This was only for a short period though. I remember my visit to cheap boarding houses, hotels, backrooms and flats and rooms in houses and the running around to find a new place to stay when Bianca managed to get herself evicted for the umpteenth time.

I remember how my path crossed with many of her clients, at her front door, her back door or in her driveway. Many times she had to shout to her clients in the streets: “She does not work here, she is a woman of the church!” There were the times I had to visit her in psychiatric institutions, times where she ended up in hospital from physical abuse, and times she tried to commit suicide and hated God and humanity with passion. There were many hard times in our friendship, but also wonderful times of listening to country music, watching rugby and drinking big cups of coffee.

On the 23^rd of January 2009, Biance died suddenly at the age of 38. Her body was broken and simply gave in. During the years we had many conversations regarding Jesus and forgiveness and grace, but in 2008 these conversations gained depth and Bianca started understanding something about God’s love. We saw how a peace from the Lord became part of her life.

Bianca’s life made me think a lot about life in general. I cleaned her room out after her death and was amazed at everything she had collected. The only things she had to show for 20 years in prostitution fit into the back of a Corsa bakkie. Later I made her mother a packet consisting of her photos, cd’s and a few other sentimental things. All of those could fit into a TYPEK box. Funny to think that I could pack Bianca’s entire existence into a TYPEK box and send it to her mother.

I myself decided to carry the good memories with me. And a book. A book where Bianca wrote down all the numbers and addresses of her clients, a book in which she tried to write down her budget, a book where she wrote her prayers and where some of the names of her clients were scratched out and marked: NEVER AGAIN. (I assume that the Never Again episodes caused her to end up in the psychiatric institute. She never talked about this experience).

This book reminds me of the fact that prostitution does exist and that it is far removed from the glamorous worlds of “Pretty Women.” The book reminds me that the Valuable to Jesus Campaign is very important and that everyone needs to be warned against the destroying world of prostitution.

Bianca, Gardens definitely wasn’t your home, but Paradise will be.