Rage walking (22 Oct)

Walking for wellness 

Walk Day 22

By Sedica Davids, feminist-Muslim, movement and social justice activist, cold water swimmer and writer, Afrofuturist and truth-sayer, who walks for life and thrives on the Blocktober-Steps for Saartjie vibration.

Movement heals, movement connects and movement empowers survivors of trauma.

She was born in D6 and forcefully removed to Kensington, a dry patch next to lowlying marshlands, where the new inhabitants displaced the black Africans who lived in the area that was called Windermere before. It was 1980. She was a teenager with creative ideas. She was strong and sporty but no one understood her in her family. She was curious, studious and adventurous and needed to explore her world but the Capitalist-Apartheid system kept her in place, and with parents that were strict Muslims, that was not so easy. The only thing she could do was visit the neighbours or friends further up in the area.  Her parents never asked about her exact location, as long as she was home by Maghrib, the sunset prayer.

One day, her parents made her very angry. She was being told what to do, what not to do, how to be, how not to be and her head felt like it might explode.

She went to her shared room and found a pair of brown, patent leather shoes with a small wedge and double buckles. Back then, the sandshoe was the closest thing to a takkie, but with parents that were struggling to make ends meet with three children, a grandmother and her brother in one house, a sandshoe was a far-off desire. There was no need to say where she was going, cos she could be at the neighbours immediately behind their house, or all the way in 4^th street at Fadia’s or at Begum’s shop, Sunshine Cafe.

She set off, walking to Voortrekker Road, all the way past 18^th Avenue, then to the N7 intersection. She crossed the road and walked with purpose, a 15-year old girl, walking, no bag, no money no water bottle, just rage walking, passing the Liberty Building, always on the left-hand side of the road (a rule for climbing stairs at school also), and then entered through the Boerewors Curtain. At least she was familiar with this stretch of road, as she had started working at a dental surgery the year before. The dentist was a friend of her Dad’s, as he had done some renovations at his surgery and they had become friends. He fetched her in his Mercedes on a Saturday morning before 8am to work in his surgery in Halt Road, Elsies River. She would go on working holidays and weekends till she was in her first year at UCT.

She experienced no interference of any sort and she continued, intentional and angry.

The railway line was to the right and she crossed a large intersection that led to the northern suburbs, to her left. She passed hardware stores, pubs, hotels and small food shops as well as fruit and vegetable hawkers on the pavement. Bakkies lined the parking strip. No one spoke to her. She got to the Elsies River turnoff to the right with its large railway siding at the corner. She crossed, focussed and kept briskly moving forward up Voortrekker Road, towards the Hottentots Holland range and as far from her parents as possible. As she reached Parow, she would soon arrive at the border of Bellville, the large business centre of the northern suburbs. At this point, she did a quick mental check. How long to get back so she could make the Maghrib cutoff time? She realised it was time to loop back. 

Her mental anguish and frustration had been walked off. She breathed out and set off the way she had come. There were no smart phones to measure steps for a reward at a local gym. There was just the wherewithal and courage of a young girl to move her body to calm her mind.

Years later, her curiosity did take her across the Hottentots Holland range to places and people that she always longed to see.

Since my youth I have continued to walk, I even ran and cycled and swam. Walking is the best way to remain in touch with the body, no matter what age the body is.  Movement heals, movement connects and movement empowers survivors of trauma. This is one of the reasons why I joined the Blocktober walks in support of the survivors of gender-based violence and the Saartjie Baartman Centre. 

Come join us.

Quick links

• Please donate today - to make the target in October, Saartjie (SBC) needs donations of R11 000 per day! (You can set the tip at R0.)
• Read other blogs in the series
• More about donations, including tax info and barometer
• Future walks 
• Record your walk, run, cycle or swim in support of Blocktober on Strava
  

Next walk in Cape Town: Steps for Saartjie 

• Date: 23 October 6am
• Difficulty: Moderate
• Duration: 2hrs, 7.5km
• Jeep Track Route: From Vredehoek (mountain end of Chelmsford Rd), to Blockhouse and back. Click this PIN for starting point.