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Pop Culture
Jul 25, 2008, 11:47AM

Breaking Bread, Breaking Manners

An Englishman is taught to always have impeccable manners. So what happens when a lad finds himself in a South African prison and his TB-infected messmate offers him a utensil? Read on to appreciate one of the more personal tests of cultural exchange you'll ever see.

I suppose I should have been concerned for my safety but, being English, my main preoccupation during the week I spent in Westville was not committing a faux pas. If a ranking captain in the 28s, a notorious prison gang that specialises in sodomy, refuses to relinquish your hand after you have just been introduced, should you pull it away or allow him to caress it indefinitely?

I was sitting down to breakfast in the juvenile wing, staring apprehensively at a large bowl of white goo, when I discovered I had forgotten to get myself a spoon. ‘Here, have mine,’ said my neighbour, a charming young man convicted of aggravated robbery. He then licked it clean — something he considered a courtesy, no doubt — and handed it to me.

‘It looks too disgusting,’ I said, hoping he would think that was my reason for not eating it. He wasn’t fooled. He nodded and then looked away, trying to conceal his hurt feelings. He knew that I considered him an untouchable. I felt shame coursing through my body. I was acutely aware that my father — a better man than me — would not have hesitated to break bread with this boy. In retrospect, I wish I had had the strength to do the right thing.

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