Tuesday, November 11, 2008

1. What is a “Street Kid”?

“Street kid”.

These words have become generic in this day and age. These are words that spark up all types of emotions in all types of people. Some feel angry, some feel guilty, some feel sad, and some just plain don’t care.
What is a street kid? Or should I say, who are these street kids?
Because you can find them in many different countries all over the world, there is definitely no one concrete definition. Though some factors might be the same from place to place, each country, even city, has its own factors that contribute to forming this social phenomenon that we like to label as a “street kid”.
In Angola you might find that the “street kids” are orphans because their parents were killed in the war. In Brazil you might find that the “street kids” are just a product of their poor economical environment who saw the streets as the only option for themselves. In England you might just see the “street kids” as rebellious “punks” that have chosen an alternative lifestyle. In the same way, the situation in Cape Town is just as unique.
A street culture has been formed from many different factors and it has given birth to these children we like to call “street kids”.
Within the first few minutes of coming into Cape Town, a new street kid will be introduced to some kind of drug. This may allow them to take their minds off whatever they have run away from, and also the harsh reality they have run into. They are also introduced into a whole new world, a subculture of other kids who have managed to make it out of similar situations.
There are all sorts of dangerous factors on the streets but the excitement usually outweighs the danger, and the kid is sucked into the street life.
The new street kid will eventually join a group of other ‘veteran’ street kids. Maybe he knows a few of them from his community, or maybe they are new acquaintances. Whichever way, they become his family. They count on each other for money, food, protection, and whatever else they need.
The new street kid finds a place where he belongs. Something he may never have experienced at home.
The kids come to town for many reasons. Though all of the stories have similarities and start to sound the same after a while, each one is just as unique as the kid that is telling it.
The kids come from communities that are torn apart from family breakdown, alcohol and drug abuse, poverty and gangsterism. The gangsters run many of these communities, and the people live in constant fear of them. The gangsters are involved in all types of crime and it is a common occurrence for two rival gangs to engage in a gun battle, right in the middle of a neighborhood, with no care or concern for innocent bystanders.
The education system in these communities is also seriously lacking because of the disadvantages branching out of the Apartheid system. The schools are overcrowded, the teachers are burnt-out and underpaid, most of the schools are in bad physical condition, some of the schools in these areas are run by gangsters and there is little to no truancy officers to follow up on the kids that are skipping school.
All of these factors put together make for a weak and unstable structure for the kids.
The trouble for the street kid usually begins in the community where they start roaming around because they have been kicked out of school, or have just decided not to go anymore.
Sometimes the kid is sent into town by his family to beg for money and there he is exposed to the street life. Sometimes the kid goes with a brother or a friend and is introduced into this new world. Sometimes the kid just finds his way into town in search of this myth of a place he has heard about.
When you ask some of the kids why they came into town you will most of the time hear, “My mom drinks too much.” Usually following that sentence you will also hear that she beats him.
But, the majority of the kids in downtown Cape Town are runaways contrary to the romantic Oliver Twist view that they are all orphans. The majority of the kids do have a family to go back to. The family may provide horrible living conditions, but it is their family all the same.
In Cape Town, there are different classifications of kids on the streets. The first are the actual “street kids”, or strollers, as they are called in Cape Town. These are the kids that have run away from home and live, sleep, and survive on the streets.
The second group is known as the daytime strollers. These are the kids that come into town for the day to make money and then go back home to their communities at night. They will do anything from begging, to parking cars for money, to any odd jobs they can find. Some of them are also involved in crime, such as robbing people and breaking into cars.
The third group of kids that you will commonly find on the street is those that are living with their families on the street. These kids tend to be more sheltered than the street kids and the parents usually try to keep them out of trouble and away from the kids that are doing drugs.
The parents do however often use them to beg for money, usually to support their drug or alcohol habits. Children living with their parents on the street can live in that situation for only so long before they begin to explore and wander away from their parents. These children eventually also get sucked into the street life as they get older.
There are also other classifications like the older street adults and gangsters. These adults sometimes look after groups of the younger children and offer them protection in return for money. They also abuse and take advantage of the kids on a regular basis.
There are also girls on the streets but not nearly as many as the number of boys for several reasons. In the communities the kids come from, the girls are usually kept busy around the house. Culturally, they have to help cook, clean and look after younger siblings, which keeps them occupied and away from trouble.
Life on the streets is also much more taxing for girls. Their sole purpose is sex, either through prostitution or just to meet the sexual needs and desires of the boys that live on the streets.
Many of the girls will meet up with one of the older boys and become his girlfriend. The majority of these relationships turn into abusive relationships, with the boyfriend physically, verbally and sexually abusing the girl on a regular basis. For these reasons street life is much harder for them than it is for the boys.
The main thing that attracts the kids and holds them captive is the freedom and the money. Not just the money by itself, but mostly what it can get for them. There is much more money and more opportunities to make money in downtown Cape Town than there is in the surrounding communities.
The kids make money in many different ways. Some of them get into crime by breaking into cars and robbing people. Some of the boys resort to prostitution and some do odd jobs, but one of the most common ways of making money is to simply beg for it.
The majority of the money that the strollers make from begging, odd jobs or crime is spent on drugs. There is quite a wide variety of drugs on the streets. The most common drugs used by street kids are glue and thinners.
The glue is usually huffed out of a plastic bag or plastic drink container that the kids call a piney. The benzene paint thinners are huffed from a rag that the boys call a lappie (Afrikaans for ‘rag’).
One of the boys holds the bottle of thinners and the others splash the liquid onto their lappie. They hold the lappie in their fists in front of their mouths and breathe the vapors in and out.
The next most common drug is marijuana, otherwise known as ganja or dagga. The boys will usually roll it up in newspaper and make what they call a slowboat or they will smoke it out of a broken bottleneck, which they call a groenpyp (Afrikaans for ‘green pipe’).
The next step up is a drug called mandrax, otherwise known as buttons. Mandrax is a pill that used to be a prescription-sleeping tablet, but was outlawed. It is crushed up and smoked over ganja or tobacco or in a mixture of both, in what is known as a witpyp (Afrikaans for ‘white pipe’). It is common but more expensive than the other drugs.
The highest up on the chain and most addictive and expensive drug that some of the kids use is crack, otherwise known as rocks. Because of its addictive qualities and high price, the kids that smoke it have to do whatever they can to make money.
All of these mentioned above are the main drugs that the kids use, along with the daily smoking of cigarettes. These addictions contribute to the holding power the street life has on the kids.
It is easy to forget they are kids. They have been robbed of their innocence and their childhood has been ripped way. They are children taking on adult roles on a daily basis. It is easy for people to see these little dirty kids with outstretched hands and judge them. It is easy to walk right by them and ignore them.
Some people give them money just to get the kids to leave them alone, or to ease their consciences. It is easy to look at someone’s situation and judge them without trying to understand what brought them to that point. At the end of the day, each and every street kid is simply a child, deep down inside.
They are children in need of love, attention, care, affection, hope, and a place to belong. These are the very things they are truly looking for on the streets of Cape Town.

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