Posh villagers
I went for a drive on the weekend — a few kilometers across three suburbs and into a seaside and holiday hotspot on the Kwa-Zulu Natal north coast. One that people consider quite posh and therefore likely to be populated with people with access to money or at least home-loans to be able to afford the scarily expensive apartments.
These same people must therefore hold down rather well paying jobs to satisfy the banks that they are deserving of being lent large sums to buy the soul-less cookie cutter apartments and townhouses that litter the outskirts of the actual seaside village. The well-paying jobs mean that these same people must therefore have a tertiary education — at least a first degree from some university. So what society considers to be educated people.
Of course, they could just have inherited the moolah or their kind and well-off parents lent them the few hundred thousands or so needed to cover the deposit and other costs associated with buying property here. In either case, they still need to have a decent education to bag the jobs that allow them to meet the mortgage payments, levies, municipal bills and pay for the obligatory small or medium SUV that is parked in almost every allocated shaded parking.
So, we’ve settled then that they are educated. Moving along towards the (old) town centre itself I was struck by how these educated people seem to have forgotten that the holy land is in fact, still in a Corona virus prompted lockdown. For starters, just over half the people I see are wearing face masks. Of the masked people, a fair portion obviously battle to get the mask to cover their noses and mouths — so they wear their masks over their mouths only. Then there is another whole bunch amongst the masked people who appear to have developed slack-jaw and have taken to using their masks slung under their chins to hold their faces together — their natural jaw muscles obviously having failed during stages 5 and 4 of lockdown (probably from complaining about lockdown). So, from every ten humans with masks, probably only three are actually using them to cover their noses and mouths.
And this is in a village where entry level property is well over a bar. If ever we needed to be reminded that money does not equate to anything other than the presence of money, the residents of and visitors to this posh village make this abundantly clear.
Which is only slightly worrying because we have known that people are unlikely to take health warnings seriously, well before Covid-19 entered our everyday language. We saw this with HIV infections and the refusal by many men to use condoms to safeguard their partners; we continue to see it everyday with people infected with tuberculosis and their scant regard for the safety of others around them. We see it reflected in the ongoing legal battles (and now protests) by South Africans to have the sales of cigarettes and tobacco products allowed. Although to be honest — I’ve not seen or heard a single smoker I know complain about the lack of availability of cigarettes — I see smokers smoking like it’s the most normal thing ever. I see the neighbour puff her clouds of smoke daily; the people working at the little store I occasionally visit to get basic supplies, still huddle together in the parking lot at the back for a smoke. I almost expect to see a policeman furtively puffing away behind some shrubs any day now.
On a personal level, the initial hard lockdown in March caught me off-guard and my rolling tobacco and associated paraphernalia ran out two-weeks into lockdown. I took that as an opportunity to ditch a habit that lost its allure a long time ago (and let’s not even get into how it was mildly affecting my morning jog.) But I do appear to be in the minority, although the end of smoking has brought on an actual majority in my weight.
In case you didn’t notice, the Covid-19 infection rate is climbing rather quickly in the holy land. Just as we are reaching the point of fatigue and cabin fever from being in lockdown since March. I’ve spent part of the weekend trying to work out if self treatment is better than exposing myself to so much more risk by going out into what looks like the annual December holiday season out there, if this weekend’s trip is anything to go by.
People have been holding weddings, family gatherings, prayers, birthday parties and all sorts of other group events on the low, in their gardens and garages for weeks now. Of course, I was the last to find out about this — and after finding out I’m not even properly surprised. In truth, did I even expect that people in the holy land would take the lockdown seriously? That they would be considerate towards themselves and others less fortunate than themselves?
Of course not — to think such a thing would be to delude myself that we have passed the point of selfishness that is a direct consequence of the rabid capitalism that defines the very nature of our being, worth and existence. It has become inherent in the makeup of society. We are constantly reminded that a good education is the pathway out of poverty. What we are not told is that pathway is designed to lead directly to an empty consumerist existence, pursuant to the fabled eternal GDP growth and other such fairy tales told by overly (mis)educated economists. And their minions — our erstwhile politicians and not just here in the holy land but pretty much the world over.
In the posh seaside village, I snag a precious parking spot less than fifty metres from the pharmacy (which is the closest to my current lockdown billet and with all the stuff I need to self-heal). I hobble in and attend to the list with the ever so helpful staff and start to make my way back to the car. I pause as much to enjoy the view as to rest the injured leg. I am at the sea after all and it’s a warm and sunny day. I get a little closer to the promenade railings — to get a better view of a stunningly calm sea and inhale deeply of the salty air. I close my eyes and luxuriate in the moment. Satisfied; I open my eyes and look down to the beach. I see right there in front of me the real cost of our consumerist existence floating gently towards the shore.
The ubiquitous plastic bag.
The consumerist existence comes with costs to the natural environment that are no longer hidden. Even in posh seaside villages. The cost is in plain sight. At some point in the future, when your children (or if we’re very lucky — grandchildren) ask about the climate catastrophe; don’t say you did not know.
