Hou jou bêk: the AFRI – KAAPs representation of young girls and women lived experiences of sexual and gender-based violence on the Cape Flats, Western Cape Province.
Hou jou bêk is an artwork and an ongoing poetry project to unpack the gendered approach of sexual and gender-based violence on the Cape Flats. The use of Afri – Kaaps is an analytical tool to deconstruct the taken for granted assumptions and heteronormative views of the social determinants of health in the lived experiences of young girls and women on the Cape Flats in the Western Cape Province. Stemming from a poem submitted to an online competition, the graduate student reflects on conducting interviews with poets in a pandemic. Hou jou bêk is a three-part biographical poem illustrating the persistent silence concerning SGBV in Coloured communities on the Cape Flats. The poems deconstruct the physical, mental, and societal pressures projected on females and internalised into silence by community members, and themselves. The author illustrates the social narrative as a young woman returning to her parents’ community during lockdown, and the inability to breathe in a community forced to silence.
Hou jou bêk
Ek hoor dit by die huis
Ek hoor dit in die skool banke
Nou hoor ek dit op government tv
Juffie DZ
sê
Ek kry ‘n dubelledoose
Net as ek arm is
Met skole wat my na laat
Het.
Ek twyvyl of ek my bek kan hou
Want toe bek
Stink
mos
Of hoe nou
juffie DZ
wat sê d’jy dan nou?
sê jou sê
Juffie,
maak gou.
Ek raak wys
tydens
#inperking
Of hou sê
Ek dan nou.
Sissa hou haar bek oor
papa
Wie haar by die huis
Aanval.
want almal sê
hou jou bek
dus hou dinge hier ontvou.
