Nazreen Schoor is having the final braids added to her elaborate hairdo. It has taken the local hairdresser hours to smooth the 17-year-old’s hair into a lace-like cascade. “But it has been worth it,” the schoolgirl says happily. In a few hours she will step into a dress bought by her parents for R3,000 (£236), and go out on an evening that cost the equivalent of a few months’ wages for an average worker in her area. “The dress would have cost more,” she says, “but my sister and I matriculated in the same year and we got two dresses for the price of one.”
Every year, students at South African schools celebrate their graduation with a matriculation (or matric) ball. In apartheid years, it was an exclusively white affair: white students in white tie. But after Mandela became President in 1994, every student of the Rainbow Nation embraced it. In the informal settlements in which 7.7 million people live – an urban sprawl in which many are without sanitation, electricity or plumbing in their basic, often tin-shack homes – the dance has taken on a special significance: a symbol of the freedom they fought so long for.
The evening is of particular importance to those children who are the first in their family to matriculate. In the shanty towns around Cape Town, an entire community has sometimes chipped in to ensure the teens look the part; dresses, shoes, cars and accessories are hired, bought or borrowed, and loans taken out. Hire shops do brisk trade, the most desired dress being the “Cinderella” with its fur-lined hood. Co-ordination is vital, and couples attending will get together months before to discuss outfits.
The boys are equally as involved as the girls in playing out their fantasies. One admits he was thrilled to find a pair of white gloves his father had used in a catering job for his white-tie look. Others emulate hip-hop heroes or film characters (a few wear grey contact lenses, which give their eyes a killer intensity). Keenan Booysens, rather unexpectedly, cites his look as “Prince Charles” (a top hat and cane worn with a far-from-royal cream suit, dollar-sign diamant? earrings, gold clip-on teeth and Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses).
It’s the dressing up that is particularly special to these teens: Cape Town townships have some of the highest murder and rape rates in the world, and many of the girls have never dared leave their houses in anything but jeans and shirts – never mind skimpy looks mimicking Britney Spears and Beyonc? – for fear of provoking an attack. For students such as Zenobia and Candice, for instance, this dance is the first opportunity they have ever had to wear a dress. For Nazreen, it’s the first time her Muslim family have allowed her to show her shoulders. Randy, wearing hotpants based on a Britney Spears video, has to be hustled into the car before her father sees her.
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How the revellers get to the venue is almost as important: often, a limo is hired, or a heavily chromed Valiant or a borrowed Hummer. (One girl insisted on sitting on a pile of cushions in her hired Hummer, so her head could stick out of the sunroof.) When the couple are eventually ready to leave, the area lights up and everyone from the tenement blocks comes out to see them. In some places, the rush by parents to video offspring alighting at the venue produces such a crush that the crowds are controlled by barriers.
Most families admit that the cost of the evening is much higher than they can afford, but they say the dance is an important part of their child’s education. Sixteen-year-old Bernadine-Lee Rossouw, for instance, didn’t know until the last minute whether she would be able to go. Her mother, Cheraldyne, says, “I didn’t tell her about the dress because I wasn’t sure I could get the money. She looked like a princess and said, ‘Mommy, this is the best night of my life’.” (Tragically, just five months later, Bernadine-Lee died, as a result of a long, drawn-out illness.)
The photographs have pride of place in the homes of all these children, and are often as valued as the actual event; for some, a reminder of the most glamorous night they’ll ever have. As Crystal Erasmus, from the gangster-ridden area of Manenberg, says: “I have waited for this for 12 years and I am going to remember it for ever.”
Candice Hermanus
Candice lives in the tough, rundown Rooi Flats tenement blocks in Cape Town. “I didn’t have enough money to buy a dress, so it had to be hired. I added a hoop, and that just made it. My hair took nine hours to be done, and then we sprinkled it with pink and white pearls and little flowers and my auntie had the absolute perfect pearl clutch bag.” Normally, she says, she dresses in jeans and a hoodie, so as not to attract attention to herself in this dangerous area. “But this was one night I could really feel like a girl.”
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Bronwyn Payle and Giovanni Aartman
Elsie’s River, where Bronwyn and Giovanni live, is a very deprived area near Cape Town, where more than half the adult population is unemployed. Bronwyn got the idea for her dress from a picture she’d seen of Beyonc?, and had it made locally. Giovanni hired his outfit: a white suit worn with big square diamant? earrings, chunky rings on a chain round his neck and Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses, which he kept on all night. “The absolute best were his Buffalo Boots,” says Bronwyn. “Everyone was talking about them.”
Bernadine-Lee Rossouw
Bernadine-Lee didn’t think she would be able to afford to go to the dance, but members of the community chipped in, and an uncle donated his car. Her mother, Cheraldyne, her father and three brothers live in a wooden shack, with a carpet as protection against the wet ground. “We lived on bread for a week to save up for the dress. She looked like an angel,” Cheraldyne says of her daughter, who died a few months after the dance. “There were hundreds of people at her funeral, and we put a picture of her in her dress on the coffin. Everyone will remember her in that dress, so it was worth it.”
Namhla Galada
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Namhla, from Luhlaza High, wanted an African-queen look for her matric. Older sisters often play a key part in making sure their younger siblings have the best outfit money can buy, and Namhla’s sister, who works in fashion in Durban, made her dress as a surprise. “I can even remember the date it arrived,” she says. “I had a week to wait before the dance and I kept opening the cupboard to look at it.”
Roxanne van Wyk
Roxanne designed her outfit herself. Her father is a freelance minibus taxi driver, and he put in extra hours to help pay for the evening. She and her mother conspired with the dressmaker to make a sexy dress, and just showed her father a vague sketch in case he was shocked and prevented her from going. On the night of the dance she left for the ball at the last minute so her father couldn’t stop her. “The best surprise,” she says, “was the black Hummer my father organised as a surprise.”
Nazreen Schoor
Nazreen studied at Cathkin High, where in the past, parents had spent the money saved for school tuition fees on hiring cars and buying fabulous dresses for the matric. This year, the only way the school was able to collect the fees was by threatening to cancel the dance. Nazreen, from a Muslim family, didn’t think her father would let her have the dress “because it had bare arms and was very expensive. He gave in because he said this was the one night my sister and I could have anything we wanted. We also got two dresses for the price of one. Everyone said we looked like twin angels.”
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Lee-Anne Mohamed
The tough, gang-ruled Manenberg area is home to Lee-Anne, who lives in a two-room flat with four of her relatives. “I knew I wanted a cerise dress, so I went with my auntie, and we bought taffeta and chiffon. The whole thing came to about R500 (£39). A friend did my hair for nothing. We had a party before; about 150 people came to see us, but the flat is so tiny that most had to stand outside. But they all saw how beautiful I looked and that brought pride to our family.”
Shereen Mohamed
Shereen, who lives in a converted garage in her grandparents’ back garden, designed her dress herself and “thought about it for the whole year. I wanted something Bollywood, but a bit different. It cost R700 (£55) – more than we live on for a month. My parents are dead, so we have very little. We went in my sister’s boss’s white Mercedes and listened to classical music to make the mood extra romantic. I kept curlers in my hair for two days and even slept in them. Some people cried when they saw how beautiful I looked.”
Keenan Booysens and Yusrah Adams
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Keenan and Yusrah posed outside the flats in which Keenan lives with his mother and older sister. “I went for the Prince Charles look. Yusrah wanted to look like someone out of My Fair Lady. My favourite thing was the top hat – I’m hoping to work in a hotel, where I can wear a top hat all the time. The best part was everyone looking at us outside the flats; I felt like a millionaire. My mummy works so hard for us and it made me feel so proud. I still sometimes get that feeling when I think back on it.”
Linda Faxi
Linda, who has a baby, Akona, wore a dress inspired by one worn by the singer Rihanna. It cost her R800 (£63) to have made. “My mummy bought me everything because she was so proud I had managed to have the baby and pass my exams, and even get a bursary to do tourism and travel next year. The past 12 months have been very hard, but I made it. Going to this dance was the cherry on the top.”
Vuyo Ndima
Vuyo shares a small room with her mother and sister in Khayelitsha shanty town. “When I didn’t have the money to get a dress, I cried from shame,” she says. “Then my teacher offered to pay for the ticket. I was so excited I didn’t eat for a week. My family and I decided to use my college registration fees for the dress, which cost R1,000 (£79) because it felt more important than college; I got it from a local designer, Nontsomi. I might still be able to go to college, because I am now working as a waitress.”