Ricki

After almost two years in the wee town of Viljoenskroon, I have started to pick up on some characters.  It's a slow place where most people stick to themselves and avoid outsiders.  It's not a place where you can swoop into the local pub and figure everyone out in 2 seconds flat, simply because so many people are in hiding.  Often you'll find only three people enjoying happy hour on Friday.   It's the type of place where people slowly emerge and their characteristics only become remarkable after witnessing repetitive behaviors, or worse, after hearing the pervading gossip and history shrouding their reputation.

I don't mean to make fun.  Nor do I mean to make nice. I have observed a lot and feel it's time to take some stock in these characters on the page.  What I write in the coming month (or months, depending on how quickly I deplete my small town stock) will derive from my interactions, but not necessarily a deep or thoroughly researched knowledge.  I won't pretend to know someone I don't, but rather engage my inner-voyeur through probing the presenting elements and facts surrounding their "plain view" personality.  These portraits may be short, but altogether they should provide a more complete mural of this Viljoenskroon town and farming area.

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First up is Ricki*.  Rail thin, she works the internet counter.  A bit apologetically Afrikaans, she doesn't fit the mold.  Her 19 year-old peers all seem to be wearing bright flashes of red or turquoise with fingernails to match and well-maintained, over-zealous blonde highlights.  Ricki wears shirts with designer razor slashes and almost exclusively black, white and silver.  Her midriff tends to peer out a lot, suggesting her lean body is too long for most apparel.  With morbidly pale skin, I can't help but wonder if she's trying to look like the wanton medieval victim in the video game ad printed on the side of the hard drive.



The picture of the wanton chick certainly does present some parallels.  Fingers to the teeth, black hair strewn out and pasted in wet streaks upon her forehead, the forlorn environment trapping her figure; it actually begs of a girl desperate to escape.

I know a bit about Ricki.  Not because we're friends.  She laminates student IDs for me and gives me preferential treatment either because I'm nice or because I'm white or because I always pay.  It's difficult to know.  She hails from the larger town of Klerksdorp and wound up in this dinky town because of her boyfriend.  Ricki lives with this oke and his mother, deeply set on a farm 2 doors over from where I stay.  No car and no money, she's completely reliant on her boyfriend's mother to take her to and from work at the Internet cafe each day.  It's painful just to think about.

Ricki's a quiet lass.  The only time I hung out with her socially was at a cell group.  What is a cell group, you may ask?  I thought I was going to get some pizza at a dinner party for young folk, but it was a Christian group that meets weekly to pray.  Ricki didn't know what she was getting into either, but we both were the outsiders and kind of stuck together since no one else spoke really.

Several months ago, a recent high school graduate was pummelled into a coma on the golf course with a hammer.  Some jealous ex-boyfriend didn't like where things were headed between the youngster and an old girlfriend.  That ex-boyfriend happened to be Ricki's boyfriend.  Just so happens, he bashed up this guy while he was dating Ricki.  Not the kind of boyfriend you want to be stuck with on a farm without a car.

Now, Ricki's pregnant.  I thought maybe she was finally eating healthy. Truth is, there's a tiny bun in a little oven. I don't think one could begin to know how horrible her circumstances are or what life background prepared her for this  imprisoning migration into adulthood.

I'm happy to report, she's not at the Internet cafe anymore.  She moved to another small town called Orkney.  She's living with her mother.  She got out.  At least, that's what I hope.