A new sport is catching on in the townships and it’s
endangering the lives of many of the teenagers who take
part in it. It’s called train surfing and surfers
perform dangerous routines on top of or underneath
moving trains, ducking bridges and high-voltage cables
as they dice with death.
During the recent security guard strike, three boys died
and many more were injured. Trains were left unguarded,
so surfers saw the gap and upped their game. It
is
extremely difficult to film the boys in action, but
Special Assignment
has managed to acquire exclusive footage of
some of the “stars” of the sport in action. As far as we
know this is the first time the excitement and danger of
train surfing has been captured like this on video.
So what drives these kids and why do they risk life and
limb to partake? We meet up with Prince and
Lefa at
Merafe Station as they await the arrival of train
9323 . They target this train
because every morning it’s packed to capacity as it
winds its way from Dube and
Khwezi to New Canada
Station. This gives the “cheeseboys”
who ride it the opportunity they’re looking for:
overstretched security guards are too busy keeping order
to worry about their antics on top.
The so-called cheeseboys
ride for the thrill of it – they’re the ‘soul surfers’
of this sport. But there’s another kind of surfer. The
so-called mvonqas surf in
order to rob people - after all, what better place to
hide after picking pockets than on top of a moving
train? Alcohol is very much a part of the surfers’ daily
routine, with school barely getting a look-in. Many head
straight for the bars and pool clubs of Joubert Park,
after their early-morning surf across Soweto.
Despite
their bravado, there are surfers who are desperate to
change their lives. Of the three we got to know, all had
lost their fathers at an early age and have been brought
up by their mothers. They seem to looking for love and
acceptance, and are desperate not to join the ranks of
the unemployed.
Soweto Surfing
questions whether these surfers will be able to turn
their lives around. They all say that they need some
reason to change, something to motivate them. Will they
manage this? Will the death of a close friend killed in
front of them on a moving train, be the incentive they
have been waiting for?
Soweto Surfing
is produced by Sara Blecher and Dima
Raphoto, who is also
responsible for some of the astounding footage.
