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Not one falling fridge...
01/01/2008 20:08 - (SA)
Melody Brandon and Judy Lelliott
Johannesburg - Being in Johannesburg's notorious Hillbrow suburb on New Year's Eve was a welcome anti-climax for those fearing the worst yet again.
There were no falling fridges, stones or household items being dropped from multi-storey blocks of flats, and the make-shift trauma unit at the Hillbrow police station was quiet for most of the night.
Hillbrow has been quoted as being "the most dangerous place outside a war zone", but failed to make an impact for reporters and photographers this New Year's Eve.
The evening started with a guided tour of Hillbrow, as Nyalas (armoured personnel carriers) chugged through the quiet streets, while residents hung out of the derelict buildings they call home, and waved at policemen.
One Nyala was stopped by a pregnant woman.
"My husband beat me and told me he doesn't love me anymore. I am three months pregnant. He forced me to come here from Zimbabwe, I have no passport," the teary woman said.
Policemen went to the block of flats where the alleged perpetrator had assaulted her.
Between desperation and a last resort
Decrepit, dirty and condemnable, the building, somewhere between desperation and a last resort is home to hundreds.
Lifts that had long ago stopped working serve no purpose. Unable to use the main staircase - as an entire floor of stairs had disintegrated, the police hike up 13 storeys of fire-escape stairs.
Residents who opened their doors seem unmoved by the team of gun wielding policemen charging past them. They close their doors and stay inside.
The stench of human waste, a result of extreme overcrowding, seeps through the walls. It is like being inside a living organism.
No one seems to know where the man is and police advise the woman to open a case of assault at a police station. The police begin their descent to the ground floor.
"I hate heights," says one policeman, his forehead glistening with perspiration as he shines a torch on the rubbish-filled stairs.
On the way back to the police station, another stray is picked up. Wandering down Queen Elizabeth Bridge, a woman, with a weathered face and scantily dressed, tells journalists that a man made her drunk, robbed her and left her in the street.
?I messed up my life?
Rubbing tears from her face into her dirty blonde hair, she says she has to get home to her baby.
"I have nothing on me, can you give me a lift to anywhere, it doesn't matter where," she says. "I messed up my life, I took rocks for the first time last night." No one says anything.
Back at the police station, journalists hanker for some sensation.
Clad in bullet-proof vests and eager, they chase a Nyala down a road -no one seems to know why - but bullets start flying, running around like mad, a journalist notices a headless chicken laying in a gutter, stuffed in a plastic bag; it's legs stick out.
" I think I knelt on that when they started shooting!" the reporter cried.
The shots were apparently fired by police at residents who threw stones at them from a flat.
Police storm into a building chasing their assailants and run straight through a church service.
The faithful do not stop singing their hymns and are not perturbed as a swarm of policemen and journalists run through their sanctuary.
The evening fizzles out with false alarms and chases that lead nowhere.
There are no riots, no massive body counts and for the first time in years, not a single fridge falls from the sky.
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