* Nyaope’s trail of destruction, Nation Nyoka delves into the lives of people using it. This article was first published by New Frame.
The young women who live in a drug house in Ekurhuleni claim that the police do not take them seriously, and low-grade heroin continues to rob the youth of their future.
Bonginkosi, Nokuthula Ndamane’s son, both motivates her to overcome her drug addiction and reflects how much nyaope has completely taken over her life. The five-year-old is raised by Ndamane’s relatives in KwaZulu-Natal, hundreds of kilometers from Ndamane’s home in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng.
“When he’s crying, I wonder who he’s calling out to.” Who is he addressing to, Mother? “I don’t want him to live the life that I was living,” she says. “I have a child. I require assistance. I’d like to have my own child… I haven’t seen him since they kidnapped him last year.”
When Ndamane’s nyaope addiction worsened, her family took Bonginkosi in. She had also dropped out of school by that point. “I don’t want him to grow up with anger and a broken heart because I didn’t raise him, just as I keep wondering why my mother didn’t raise me… Take a look at my hands… I don’t appear to be Bonginkosi’s dependable mother. I’m afraid to see my child in person now that I look like this. He’s not used to me acting like this.
Ndamane was raised by her grandmother in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Her mother lives in a Gauteng hostel and usually discourages Ndamane from visiting because she is afraid she will steal from her or hear negative remarks about her from other hostel residents.
‘The rush of the high’
Ndamane believes her mother has given up on her. She used to buy her methadone, a prescription medication used for heroin recovery, but Ndamane has struggled to quit while still living in the same environment that led her down this path. She had lost the mental battle against the drug and its voracious appetite.
Her boyfriend, Bonginkosi’s father, had already progressed to stealing by the time she was attempting to quit, and the smell of the vapour consumed her when her boyfriend smoked it around her.
“Obviously, I recall the rush of the high; I can’t sit there and not request two pulls.” Obviously, if I quit, I’ll need to find a suitable location and live in an area where I know no one smokes in order to continue my studies or find work… I can’t go to rehab and then sit in the township. “Sitting is what pushes us to smoke because you’re doing nothing when you’re used to hustling,” she says.
“When you kiss it, you marry it,” she says of nyaope’s stranglehold on its users. “Once you taste it, you know you’re in… You will never give up… Never try it because it will ruin your life. It’s simple to enter because you can see the door. But it’s difficult to leave because there are so many doors, all of which lead to the same place.”
Dineo Kitsane, 23, claims that once you start smoking nyaope, everyone loves you and gives you a lot of the drug. “But once you’re hooked, when you’re at a loss for what to do, that’s when you have to learn to hustle for yourself because you have no choice, everyone is on their own path.”
Hustling for what is referred to as a “tie”. Some men steal to get enough money for an R25 tie. Women put their lives and bodies on the line for one. Kitsane claims that they have slept with men in order to make ends meet, but that some have taken advantage of them. “Whether you are satisfied or not has, nothing to do with him as long as his need is met.” “I don’t know how many people have raped me; they’ve forced it [sex] on me,” she says.
Apathy among police officers
When Kitsane attempted to file a charge, the law let her down. “When we go to the police station to report, we are told that we are just nyaopes… No one takes you seriously anywhere you try to report. They regard you as insane because you smoke. You go there and complain about something that happened to you, and they ignore you. ‘She is a nyaope, she was probably trying to steal,’ they say. Kitsane adds that she is frequently accused of things she has never done.
“The police are expected to serve everyone in the community without discrimination,” said Lieutenant Colonel Mavela Masondo, spokesperson for the Gauteng provincial police. “The victims should return to the station and file a formal complaint with the commander.” They can also file complaints with the district commissioner.”
Ndamane claims she simply wants to be treated as a human being. She claims that the police frequently beat them. “How come they don’t just take what they want?” Why do they have to beat us? “We are also humans, it’s not that we aren’t people.”
Ndamane and Kitsane are at a scrapyard, weighing the goods they have spent the day searching for, not only to earn money for food, but also for a tie. Their final stop before heading to the “drug house” is a tuck shop to purchase cigarettes. A man dismissively waves at Kitsane while actively avoiding eye contact. She went to school with him, and he, like the majority of her former classmates, can no longer look at her.
“Even when people give us money, they drop it or leave it on the floor to avoid having to touch our hands,” Kitsane says. “We don’t like looking this dirty,” Ndamane adds, “but we don’t have time to shower because we have to keep working.”
