Jo Higg’s Blog Part 2

Day 2: Tuesday

“Tuesday started early with a trip to Elandskop, outside the city.  Here, as the landscape becomes more rural, we found Somiso’s house; a simple structure of concrete bricks on the side of the hill overlooking the valley. We met Somiso the day before at the workshop and listened to his story.  Somiso is 35 and has an intellectual disability.  He lives with his mother and his brother in the rural house we were now seeing.  We learnt as we filmed him preparing his own breakfast that he is a quiet, but independent guy who cooks and cleans for himself and then travels alone to the Buxton Workshop.  As we watched him clean his room we noticed how meticulously neat he is.  He also told us about his favourite soccer team – the Orlando Pirates.  Later on he mentioned that his best international team is Brazil.  He then fed the chickens with great tenderness and brushed his teeth at the outside tap while his relative washed clothes in a plastic bucket.

Because he was a little overwhelmed by the camera and was taking some strain, we decided to interview his little brother, Simphiwe, his mother and his social worker, S’ne.  They told us the story of how sometimes he is teased and even hurt by other people for his disability but that his brother protects him.  His mother explains what it was like when they first realised that he was different to the other kids.

His brother speaks very fondly of him and says that the only thing they worry about is that he sometimes forgets things – like leaving the stove on!  They talk about how they use his social grant (very title money) for the whole family to survive off – which is very representative of how grant money is used in South Africa.  They talk about his dreams to raise Lobola (the dowry for his future wife), to get married and to live independently. We then travelled with Somiso in the taxi along the winding roads all the way into town to the workshop.  Here we got footage of him working with his friends at Buxton.  In his sit-down interview he did quite well.  He told us he was quiet because sometimes if people speak they are made to be fools. He told us about working at Buxton, being disabled and his girlfriend, Nosipho, who sits next to him at the workshop.  He told us why he likes her. And he told us she could be worth between 4 and 4000 cows for her dowry.  He told us about his dream to marry her!  We then filmed the two of them eating their lunch out of a shared lunch box, which was quite beautiful because they were so awkward.  We also got footage of them working together later in the afternoon.  Nosipho’s interview followed.  She was very shy and had very little confidence but we managed to ease her into talking about her feelings for Somiso, that she was worth 4000 cows and that she did in fact want to marry him!

We then had time in the afternoon to shoot an extremely heartfelt interview with Philippa who did amazingly – covering the work done by the PMB Mental Health Society and the plans moving forward with Climb Any Mountain.

We then shot four more short interviewees with more members from the Buxton Workshop. They were all extraordinary; some were more able to communicate than others, but all were wonderful.

We finished this action packed day with a visit to The Palms where we got some coverage of some of the workshop members relaxing at home and some wide shots of The Palms.

We then followed Philippa in the golden light to the intended site for the Transitional Living Centre (TLC) building and spoke to her about it there before taking some shots of the site, the view and the fading light over the mountains.”