by Sarah Lotz
I’ve been trying to secure an interview with the South African Civil Aviation Authority’s head investigator, but her office has declined to talk to the press. I dial the number anyway. The secretary I speak to sounds weary. ‘It is all in the report. There were no survivors.’ I am also stonewalled in my efforts to talk to the aid workers who were first on the scene after the crash.
Vincent breezes into the hotel as if he owns the place; equally at home in this extravagant luxury as he is in the heart of Khayelitsha.
I tell him about my strike-outs with the CAA.
‘You can forget them. But I will see what I can do about getting others to talk to you.’
He gets a call on his cell. The conversation is brief and in Xhosa.
‘My associate has rounded up tonight’s boys.’ He sighs. ‘It will come to nothing. But I must follow them up. My boss wants a full report every day.’
We head down towards the docks, slowing when we reach an underpass. The area is gloomy and ill-lit and I feel another stirring of unease.
Vincent’s associate, a small wiry man called Eric Malenga, is waiting for us under a partially completed flyover. He’s surrounded by three scruffy boys, all of whom appear to be unsteady on their feet. I learn later that many street kids are addicted to sniffing glue, and the solvent they inhale makes them uncoordinated. Vincent tells me that these children scratch a living begging and hustling in the town centre. ‘Sometimes they get tourists to buy them cereal and milk, and then they sell it to the backpackers,’ he says. ‘Others sell their bodies.’
As we approach, I notice a fourth child sitting apart from them on an overturned crate. He’s shivering, but I can’t tell if this is from fear or the bite in the air.
The tallest of the kids–a skinny boy with a runny nose–perks up when he sees us approach and points to the child on the crate. ‘There he is, boss. That’s Kenneth. Do I get my reward now, boss?’
Vincent tells me that the latest ‘Kenneth’ isn’t even Nigerian. He’s the racial classification known as ‘coloured’, a word that makes me wince.
Vincent nods wearily at Eric, who ushers the small child towards his car.
‘Where is Eric taking him?’ I ask.
‘One of the shelters,’ Vincent says. ‘Away from this bunch of skebengas.’
‘But he said he was Kenneth, boss,’ the boy with the runny nose whines. ‘He told us, I swear.’
‘You know why everyone is looking for Kenneth?’ I ask.
‘Ja, lady. They think he is the devil.’
‘That’s not true,’ says another boy. ‘He needs to go to a sangoma; he’s possessed by the spirit of a witch. If you meet him, then you don’t have long to live.’
‘He only comes out at night,’ the third one chimes in. ‘If he touches you, the part of the body he touches will die. He can spread Aids even.’
‘Ja. I heard that too,’ the tall boy–clearly the ringleader–says. ‘I know someone who has seen him, lady. If you give me a hundred, I’ll take you.’
‘These boys don’t know anything,’ Vincent says, but he hands them each twenty rand, and sends them on their way. They whoop and run off unsteadily into the night. ‘This is what it is like all the time. But I have to be thorough, make my report every day. Most days I check the morgue in case he shows up there, but I won’t take you there.’
The next day Vincent meets me at my hotel to say that he’s heading out to the West Coast to ‘follow a lead’. He puts me in touch with a cop at a Khayelitsha police station who he says will talk to me, gives me the name of a paramedic who arrived at the scene minutes after the crash, and passes on the cellphone number of a woman who had lost her home in the devastation. ‘She knows something,’ he says. ‘Maybe she will talk to you. A foreigner.’ Then, with another wide grin and a complicated handshake, he leaves.
(Ten days later, I’m at home in Manhattan, when I receive a text message from Vincent. All it says is:
The following statement was taken at the Buitenkant Police Station in Cape Town on 2 May 2012.
SOUTH AFRICAN POLICE SERVICE
EK / I: Brian van der Merwe
OUDERDOM / AGE: 37
WOONAGTIG / RESIDING: 16 Eucalyptus Street, Bellville, Cape Town
TELEPHONE: 021 911 6789
WERKSAAM TE / EMPLOYED AT: Kugel Insurance Brokers, Pinelands
TELEPHONE 021 531 8976
VERKLAAR IN AFRIKAANS ONDER EED:
STATES IN ENGLISH UNDER OATH:
On the night of 2 May 2012 at approximately 10.30 p.m., I was aprehended (sic) at the bottom of Long Street, Cape Town CBD outside the Beares Furniture Store. I had stopped to give a child a lift in my car when I realised that police officers had pulled up in their vehicle next to me.
I told the officers that the reason I stopped was because I was worried for the child’s safety. The boy, who was aged eight or nine, shouldn’t have been out there at that time of night and I had pulled over to offer him a lift.
I deny that I solicited the boy for sex, and when officers found me in the car, I deny that my jeans were undone and that the boy was performing a sexual act on my person.
Sergeant Manjit Kumar pulled me out of the car and gave me a smack across my face, which I insist be recorded here. Then he asked the boy his name. The boy did not answer. One of the other officers, Constable Lucy Pistorius, said to the boy, Are you Kenneth? The boy said yes.
I did not resist arrest.
HANDTEKENING / SIGNATURE
Andiswa Matebele (not her real name) is the head carer at a place of safety for abandoned and abused children in Cape Town (the exact location cannot be disclosed for obvious reasons). Andiswa agreed to talk to me via phone on the condition that I not reveal her name or the location of the place of safety.
Shame, when the boy was first brought to us he was very undernourished, and even before I gave him a bath, I made sure that he had a large bowl of putu and lamb stew. I was very worried about him, and not just because the sores on his legs and arms were infected. He had seen a doctor, who prescribed antibiotics, and he was given a course of ARVs as there were signs that he may have been working as a sex worker. This is not uncommon for street children. Many of them have been abused by their parents, and they know of no other way to survive.
What can I tell you about the boy? He did not have a Nigerian accent as far as I could tell, but it was difficult to be sure as he so rarely spoke. He seemed to be older than seven years, which is the age of Kenneth Oduah. As he ate, I asked him, ‘Is your name Kenneth?’
‘Yes, my name is Kenneth,’ he said. But then, later on, I found that I could ask him anything and he would agree with me.
The next day, a forensics team came to the shelter and took a saliva swab from him so that they could run a DNA test. I was informed that the boy would be staying here until they could be sure that he was indeed Kenneth. I felt very strongly that if the boy did in fact turn out to be this child, then he should be reunited with his aunt and family as soon as possible.
I am not from Khayelitsha, but I have been to the memorial site and seen where that plane went down. I do find it hard to believe that anyone could have survived such a thing, but it was the same with the crash in America and the ones in Asia and Europe, so I did not know what to think. Little by little, by asking him direct questions, I managed to extract the boy’s story. He said that he had lived for a while on the beach in Blouberg, then in Kalk Bay and then he had decided to make his way back to the CBD.
I kept a close eye on him to ensure that the other children did not bully him–this can happen–but most of them gave him a wide berth. I did not tell them who he might be. I was the only person who had that knowledge. Some of the other staff are superstitious and already there was talk that if a boy had survived the crashes, then it was certain he was a witch of some type.
Two weeks later we heard that the DNA did indeed match Kenneth Oduah’s aunt, and it wasn’t long before the authorities organised a big
press conference. I assumed that Kenneth would be taken away almost immediately after that, but then the police called to say that Kenneth’s aunt had fallen sick (perhaps from the shock of hearing about her nephew) and so could not travel from Lagos to formally identify and collect the boy. They told me another family member, a distant one, was en route instead.
He arrived the next day, and said he was the cousin of Kenneth’s father. I asked him if he was sure that the boy was his relative and he was adamant that he was.
‘Do you know this man, Kenneth?’ I asked the boy.
‘I know this man,’ the boy said.
‘Do you want to go with him or stay here with us?’
The boy did not know what to say to that. If you asked him, ‘Do you want to stay?’ he would say, ‘I want to stay,’ but then, if I asked him, ‘Do you want to go with this man?’ he would say, ‘I want to go.’
He did not seem to know what was going on.
He was taken away that night.
The following article was published in the UK’s Evening Standard online edition on 18 May 2012.
Rapture Fever Sweeps the US
An enterprising pastor has opened the first drive-through baptism centre in San Antonio, Texas, where, for the price of a Happy Meal, you can secure your place in heaven.
‘You can get saved on your lunch hour!’ Pastor Vincent Galbraith (48) beams. ‘Just drive on in, take Jesus into your heart and drive back to work in the knowledge that when the Rapture comes, you’ll be one of God’s chosen.’
Pastor Galbraith, a follower of Dr Theodore Lund’s End Times movement, came up with the idea after his church was overrun by panicked wannabe Christians who had taken on board the bizarre theory that The Three, and now Kenneth Oduah, are the harbingers of the apocalypse. And so far, even though it’s been open for less than a week, the lines snake around the block. ‘People are getting desperate and rightly so,’ the former insurance salesman turned pastor says. ‘Those signs can’t be ignored and I knew someone had to come up with a solution. We’re not picky. I don’t care what your religious affiliation was before. Muslim, Jew, atheist, all are welcome. You never know when the Lord is gonna call us to Him.’ He chuckles. ‘And at this rate I’m thinking about franchising it.’
Pastor Galbraith’s new enterprise is only one of the many indications that thousands of people in the US’s Bible Belt and beyond are taking the Riders of the Apocalypse theory seriously. In a recent poll undertaken by CNN in conjunction with Time magazine, a whopping 69% of Americans believe that the events of Black Thursday could be a sign that the end of the world is imminent.
In Kentucky, Hannigan Lewis (52) is proselytising the ‘Down Tools’ movement. ‘The Rapture could happen at any time,’ says the ex fork-lift driver. ‘If you are flying a plane, driving a bus, and you’re one of the saved, well hell, when you’re taken up to Heaven all of a sudden, think of the carnage.’ Borrowing a phrase from an unpopular UK Conservative Party campaign, he’s encouraging Rapture believers to get ‘back to basics’ and divorce themselves from any technology that could potentially harm those left behind when the faithful are raptured.
But not all American believers are buying into the theory. Pastor Kennedy Olax, the head of the Austin-based Christians for Change organisation, says: ‘We would counsel people not to give in to the hysteria sweeping the country at this time. There is no reason to panic. The ridiculous and unproven horseman theory is nothing but fear-mongering, stemming from a desire to whip up the religious right and get Reynard into the White House now that we’re in an election year.’
Other groups are worried about the political and social changes this religious hysteria could bring. And now that Dr Lund and his rapidly growing End Times movement have publicly backed hard-line Republican presidential hopeful Mitch Reynard, their concerns appear to be increasingly legitimate. ‘We’re worried,’ said Gay and Lesbian League spokesperson Poppy Abrams (37). ‘We know that Dr Lund is working hard to draw together all the disparate evangelical and fundamentalist groups that make up the religious right, and Mitch Reynard is running on anti–gay marriage and pro-life platforms. He may not be ahead in the polls yet, but his support is growing daily.’
Iman Arif Hamid of the US Islamic Coalition is more philosophical. ‘We are not worried that there will be a backlash against Muslims like we saw after 9/11. Most of the vitriol appears to be targeted at the abortion clinics and the homosexual community. So far there have been no reports about Muslim citizens being marginalised.’
Although the horseman theory hasn’t yet caused the same level of panic in the UK, many British clerics of all denominations, from Catholic to Church of England, have seen an increase in church attendance. And now that the so-called fourth horseman has been found, maybe it’s only a matter of time before we’re super-sizing our own baptisms on this side of the Atlantic.
Reba Louise Neilson.
It pains me to talk about this, Elspeth. But I feel I need to tell my side. People out there need to know that there are good Christian folk in Sannah County who never wanted any harm to come to those children.
I reckon Pastor Len really started letting the devil into his heart just after Kendra upped and left, and Dr Lund broke away from him for good. Then there were all those reporters making fun of him (Stephenie said they even did a skit about him on Saturday Night Live, though she doesn’t usually watch that kind of programming). And all those folks, the Lookie-Loos, they didn’t help any. A whole new wave of them came after they found Kenneth Oduah out in Africa and people started saying that Bobby Small’s grandfather had started talking again even though he had that Alzheimer’s. There were so many I heard he had to hire in some of those chemical toilets and you could barely see Pastor Len’s ranch from the road for the number of Winnebagos and pick-ups that were parked on his property. I’m not saying some of them weren’t good Christian folk, but I’d see them around town sometimes and some of them had a lost look in their eyes, as if their souls were broken. People like that Monty.
But in my opinion, the real tipping point was Jim.
Glory, that was a terrible day. I can recall it right down to the last detail. I was in the kitchen, fixing Lorne a sandwich–bologna and cheese, his favourite. I had the TV on in the kitchen, and Mitch Reynard was being interviewed by Miranda Stewart, talking about how the US had been going to hell in a hand basket, and that the time was ripe to get the country back onto a good moral footing (Stephenie thinks he looks a little bit like that George Clooney, but I’m not so sure). He and Dr Lund were always on the news around that time. They were being lambasted left, right and centre by the liberal element, but they stuck to their guns, and rightly so. The phone rang just as I was about to take Lorne his lunch. When I heard Pastor Len’s voice on the other end of the line, I don’t mind admitting that I felt uncomfortable. I thought maybe he was going to ask me why I hadn’t been at church or Bible study for a while, but all he wanted to know was if I’d seen Jim. Pastor Len said he was planning one of his special early-morning prayer meetings, and Jim had agreed to come over to the ranch and talk to the new Lookie-Loos about what a good woman Pamela had been. I said that I hadn’t seen Jim for a week or so, but I was fixing to take him a lasagne that evening. Pastor Len asked me if I wouldn’t mind going over there early to check on him as he wasn’t answering his phone. He said he hoped to see me at church that Sunday, then hung up.
I couldn’t settle for a good half-an-hour after that–part of me still felt guilty for turning my back on the church like that–and then I called around the Inner Circle to see if anyone had any news about Jim. Fact is, by then, most people had stopped taking him food and checking up on him. Stephenie, Lena and I were the only ones left who still went by occasionally, though he never seemed grateful. Next, I tried Jim’s number three or four times, but there was no answer. Lorne was out back, and I asked him if he’d drive me over to Jim’s place to make sure he hadn’t passed out drunk and maybe hit his head.
I t
hank the Lord every day that Lorne had the day off; I could never have faced it on my own. I knew that something untoward had happened the second we pulled up. I could see it by the number of flies that were crawling on the inside of the screen door. It was black with them.
Lorne called Manny Beaumont straight away, and we stayed in the truck while he and his deputy went inside. Sheriff Beaumont said it was obvious it was suicide; Jim had put his shotgun in his mouth and blown his head clean off his shoulders. And he’d left a note addressed to Pastor Len. We didn’t know what it said until Pastor Len read it out at Jim’s funeral. That’s when things really took a turn.
Jim may have committed a sin against God by taking his own life, but me, Stephenie and a few of the other Inner Circle folk agreed to do the flowers for his service. The church was packed to the rafters with Pastor Len’s Lookie-Loos, strangers who’d never even known Jim. Lorne said that Pastor Len was playing up to the TV cameras that were there, no doubt hoping that Dr Lund would see him on the news.
‘Jim is a martyr,’ Pastor Len said. ‘One of the witnesses, like his wife, Pamela. Time is running out. There are still thousands that need to be saved before it is too late. We need more time and Jesus, He ain’t gonna wait forever.’
Lorne says the authorities should have stopped him right then and there. But what could Sheriff Beaumont do? This is America, people have a right to do what they want on their own land, and Pastor Len wasn’t breaking any laws. Not then he wasn’t. He didn’t come right out and say that those children should be killed.
Pastor Len had been my guiding light for the longest time. I’d trusted in his words, heeded his sermons, looked up to him. But what he was saying, about Pamela being a prophet, and that Jim killing himself wasn’t a sin but his way of showing us that the fifth seal had been opened, didn’t sit right with me, and that’s a fact. I believe that Jesus spoke to me and said, Reba, break away. Break away now. For good. So that’s what I did. And I know in my heart that I did the right thing.