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Feral urchins, drunks and vagabonds: this is the world of the real-life tsotsi

By Jonathan Clayton

South Africa’s Oscar-winning film Tsotsi has focussed attention on the country’s street children

THE early morning chill has barely left the streets of Hillbrow, one of downtown Johannesburg’s most notorious crime zones. But for Papi, Jan and David — leaders of a tightly knit gang of about 15 street kids — the day is already well advanced.

Like the local stray cats and dogs, they are busy consuming the fruits of the first scavenging of the day — half a loaf of discarded brown bread and a carton of milk. They sit by the kerb and on upturned crates, squabbling noisily over packs of glue from which they inhale deeply.

Passers-by and nearby shopkeepers eye them cautiously. They know that among these young, wide-eyed, innocent-looking faces are the feared tsotsi (slang for thug), for whom violence is just a way of life.

Tsotsi, South Africa’s Oscar-winning drama, which opened at cinemas in London last night, has focused attention on the country’s estimated 250,000 disaffected and marginalised street children who run away from home and turn to crime and violence to survive.

The film chronicles the redemption of one vicious tsotsi who shoots a woman driver in a car-jacking only to find her baby lying on the back seat of the stolen BMW.

The ruthless young gangster, played by Presley Chweneyagae, escaped an abusive, drunken father as his mother lay dying of Aids – a familiar story on the streets of Hillbrow. No one knows for sure how many street children there are in South Africa, but everyone agrees that their numbers are rising rapidly. “Some are runaways, some are orphaned as a result of Aids, others because of family breakdowns, some think there is money and a good life to be had in the city,� said Baldwin Nethomboni, of Twilight Children, an organisation that helps inner-city youth. “The one link is poverty. Poverty brings them all to the streets.�

In the film the children live in unused concrete pipes on the edge of a sprawling township. In reality, such places usually serve as homes to adults — the homeless, drunks and vagabonds. Street children drift to inner cities lured by dreams of money and a better life. Preferring safety in numbers, they form Dickensian-style family units and build homes together in burnt-out and dilapidated buildings.

Papi, now 19, has lived on the streets since he was 11. Eyes hazed, speech slurred from sniffing glue, he explains slowly: “1998, ’99, 2001, ’02, ’03, ’04, ’05, ’06, I live here.� Proudly showing a bullet wound in his leg and knife wounds on his stomach, he invites The Times to “come, see my place�.

He leads the way through a rabbit warren of rundown tenement blocks to a burnt-out building, its entrance marked by a huge pile of rotting rubbish. Inside, charred walls bear magazine pictures of local footballers and pop stars, a large teddy bear and a broken rag doll lie on one bed. A tattered sheet covers the open window.

“We found this place when it was raining, it was raining so hard,� said David Dlamini, who at 26 said that he was the “king� of this group. Pointing at the charred and rotting beams, he said: “Sometimes they fall down and hurt us, but it is better here.� His younger sister shared the tiny damp shelter with him and three friends.

They ran away from an older sister who took over the household after both parents died of Aids and the grandparents, who had cared for them, died of old age. “I hate her, she beats us and burnt me with an iron,� he said, holding up a tattered T-shirt to show the scars.

Outside, the ground is littered with broken glass, cans and other rubbish thrown from the windows of tenement blocks, many occupied by immigrants from neighbouring countries who turn to prostitution and drug peddling to survive. “These street kids exist on the underbelly of society; by day they are OK, but at night many of the older ones are tsotsis; they rob and steal to survive and become the role models for the younger ones. They are not bad, but they are exposed to brutality and can become very bad,� said Walter Phiri, of Twilight Children.

Mr Phiri, 36, tries to make contact with the children and persuade them to come to the shelter run by the organisation, even if it is only for a meal.

“Many will not come, they know we give them tasks to do, they say they want the freedom of the streets. With the breakdown of family support systems they have gone wild. They are feral children,� he said.

First South African film to win an Oscar; won the Best Foreign Language Film award

# Follows life of South African gang leader Tsotsi, the name meaning thug in tsotsi-taal (thugspeak)

# Actors speak tsoti-taal throughout the film, which is subtitled

# Follows story of Tsotsi as he hijacks a car, then decides to care for a baby he finds in the back seat

# Soundtrack is kwaito, urban South African music. Some of it is performed by Zola, who also plays a gangster in the film

# Stars local actors from community theatre groups in Johannesburg. Many, including Presley Chweneyagae, had no formal drama training

# Adapted from a novel by Athol Fugard