THERE is a semi-detached house on the corner of Loop and Derksen Street so dilapidated that if there were a ghost house in Paarl, that would be it.
It is boarded up, its paint has faded, and rust continues to corrode that which it can. But on the stoep, a clean almost new baby’s vest hangs incongruously out to dry.
The history of that house and the other houses in Loop Street is all but lost, buried in Paarl’s collective memory.
In the late summer of 1962 - Thursday 22 November in fact - blood flowed in Paarl as 250 members of Poqo, armed with pangas and homemade weapons, rioted in Paarl’s Lady Grey Street.
A school girl writing matric and a young man, both residents of Loop Street, were killed that morning, and four of their neighbours severely wounded.
On the other side of the political divide, one Poqo member was killed and fourteen wounded as policemen and residents fired into the dispersing mob, some in panic, others in defence.
Some time ago I found a folder in a filing cabinet at the Drakenstein Heemkring about the riot.
As I leafed through the papers I read the rumours of a corrupt official selling passes to Mbekweni residents, and a letter written by a resident of Mbekweni to the Paarl Post, apologising for the violence of the insurrection, pleading understanding and compassion.
In the 1980s the members of the Drakenstein Heemkring worked on an oral project to collect the personal histories of the town, and Frans Perold - born in 1897 - had presumably been identified as an ideal candidate.
I listened to a tape with growing frustration as the two people interviewed him in his room in Rusoord old age home.
The interviewers doggedly tried to cajole him into describing his childhood in Paarl, and he in turn stubbornly resisted all their attempts.
No, I don’t care what you want me to talk about, I want to talk about the Poqo uprising, he replied. The dance continued until the interviewers gave up trying, and slowly the narrative of his traumatic experience unfolded with chilling detail.
That morning the Poqo members headed for the Paarl police station, then in Lady Grey Street. The police however, had received a tip-off that armed men were heading towards town.
So even though it was just after dawn, they were met with strong police resistance.
Shots were fired, the rioters retaliated, threw stones at businesses and vehicles, and a splinter group ran down Loop Street towards the old jail - today on Berg River Boulevard near the Fire Station.
Panic, fear and mayhem did their worst on both sides; yet, how often the most poignant facts are hidden in the detail.
An old woman hanging onto the handle of her front door, begging her frail husband to get his gun and to shoot before the door gave in.
A young Poqo member hidden in a drum, too panicked and afraid to escape, was found the following morning by residents and arrested by the police.
Mr Perold recalled water flowing in the street, mingling with the blood before it flowed down into the storm water drain.
But it is the halting English of the “Resident of Mbekweni” that haunts me. Not the dignity of his letter, or the humility of his plea for peace, understanding and compassion, but the fact that he found it necessary to write the letter.
How often is it not that we need to see through the eyes of the vulnerable, the marginalised, the children, and the aged, to understand the consequence of bloated corruption and mindless anger.
Maybe it is right that we have incidental places like the house on Loop Street. It is unlikely that the house will remain there for much longer. Redevelopment is inevitable, but as long as it stands, let’s give a thought to our common grief, our common despair, and our shared hope for something more.
