On the 2nd June I was invited by a friend to a bri (pronounced br-I) in Tembisa a township just north of Johannesburg.

Jeff, my friend, had been a couple of times before but chose a bad turn and we got lost. We were lost for about an hour. I knew how to get out of the township and back to a main road but Jeff was sure he could work out where the house was, so we kept drifting. After a while Jeff, who is from Soweto, started getting scared which worried me. I was on edge constantly looking for hi-jackers or any other potential threats. We didn't get accosted though, just stared at.

Driving around a township was not as easy as one might expect. If you go into the side roads then there tends not to be very many cars. This means that people feel quite happy to stand chatting in the middle of the road or use it as a thoroughfare. Not the greatest problem, except when you are worried that some of them might have guns and want to hi-jack you. I'm white, that makes me an obvious target. Then when you are on one of the major roads you have to deal with taxis. Taxis in South Africa are mini-vans that you can hail from the side of the road and are really only used by black people. Taxi drivers are extremely aggressive and the only way to navigate roads dominated by them is to be as aggressive as they are. I was constantly forced to place my car in their path so that I could merge onto a road. It's no wonder there were 700,000 car accidents last year.

Eventually during one of our sweeps through the neighbourhood Jeff recognised a car and we pulled them over. They lent us a couple of passengers as guides and we made it to the party without further incident.

The house was interesting. I only saw the front room but it was a rectangle about 4 meters across and double that long. the house was made of bricks and looked quite old and decrepit. the toilet was out back (an outhouse), made of brick and didn't have a light, it did flush though.

When we arrived, Jeff and I found chairs and sat near Salas, the host, who was busy cooking. An extremely popular person he spent more time making people welcome than actually cooking it seemed. This left Jeff and me to talk amongst ourselves as none of the others seemed willing to approach us. They all watched me surruptitiously though. The only person who didn't try to pretend there was nothing unusual about me was a boy of about 4 years. Every 15 minutes or so, would wander up and stand directly in front of me watching with big eyes and a serious face. He wouldn't respond to my hello's or any other attempts at communication, just stood there slightly out of reach and after a while would wander off again.

After a while Jeff and I got up and were chatting when I decided that it was time for me to meet some of the locals. Just near us was a girl whose friends had wandered off. I went over and having introduced myself, her name was Queen, asked questions about the area. Naming here does not follow western conventions. In many cases parents will name their children based on the environment at the time. This means that many children that were born in the appartheid era were named things like 'Sorrow' and 'Rubbish'. I personally know two girls called Princess and Jeffs' girlfriend is called Patience.

Discussing the local area with Queen was very instructive. It turns out that much of peoples lifestlye is still influenced by appartheid era legacies. For instance, scattered through Tembisa there are flood lights. They turn on automatically at night and date from the appartheid era. At the time police wanted to be able to see easily if there were black people fleeing from them.

By the time Queens friends returned we were talking quite happily and everyone joined in. It is normal to speak a mixture of English and Sutu in Johannesburg townships. I very quickly lost track of what everyone was talking about. This gave me an opportunity to watch the crowd while paying minimal attention to the conversation. It was interesting, just near Salas' house was another house made of corrugated iron, his was brick. In spite of this the very few people who had cars had good quality, well maintained cars (Salas drives a Mercedes). Everyone was dressed very smartly, many of them in designer clothes a couple of guys turned up in suits. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt which made me far away the worst dressed person there. Keep in mind that in this country I am technically part of the rich elite.

The whole time I had been at the bri music was playing. There were reasonably large speakers (big enough for a pub concert) sitting just outside the front door of Salas house. The music became more upbeat and so my group started dancing.

Everyone felt that I needed to learn how to dance like a local. I was taught how to "shake your bum" and ended up dancing with a circle of people. This is a tradition where everyone is expected to step into the middle and do a solo dance in turn. As it went around the circle and everyone, except for me, was always eager to show their stuff. I was unable to fade into the background however as everyone was very eager to see me dance. There was general surprise that I can hold a beat. It turns out that crouching down really low while dancing is considered impressive, and that is something I can actually do. On my first try the girls went wild. It was amazing. I was halfway down before they realised what was going on. By the time I was down as far as I can go they were literally screaming. Of course I was full on blushing at the time as everyone wanted to see what the noise was about.

Once I joined in with this the people that had been watching seemed to decide that I must be friendly. I later confirmed this view with Jeff, everyone thought that I would be shy and have trouble fitting in. Once they got over that shock they were virtually queueing up to meet me. I got to meet some strange and interesting people.

A very large guy decided to greet me. He was about 6'2" with very broad shoulders and loomed over me. Assuming that I was a white South African, he came up and started talking to me in Afrikaans. I was shocked. After all the things that have happened in the past with appartheid and so forth this man was talking to me in a very friendly fashion. One of the people with me later translated what he had been saying apparently is that he was happy to meet me and very excited that I had come to his township. Later on he came back completely drunk and started telling me happy things again (still in Afrikaans) and spraying his words. I was a little concerned this time because, although he still sounded friendly he was poking me in the chest quite hard with his finger and his face was not overly far from mine. I had several friends around me by that stage, so I figured they would look after me. I was still worried that he would work himself up to something unpleasant though. I couldn't back away as lots of people in the periphery were watching and it wouldn't do to send a message of fear or lack of acceptance. He turned to talk to someone else then turned back and started poking me in the chest again. I grabbed his hand and held it so that I might calm him down a bit. The way I was holding it was also slightly incapacitating so that if he did become violent I had control. After a while he realised that I was holding him. Still friendly he withdrew his hand and stumbled off. It was a relief because I had thought he was working himself up to something and was scared that it would come down to a fight. That would be fine in that I have every confidence I could take a big drunk guy. But the last thing I wanted was a fight, especially in the middle of a township.

Another person to come and meet me seemed to be the head of a gang. He introduced himself and his 'brother' and was quite happy to chat with me for a while. His name is apparently Trouble, but he calls himself after a local hip-hop singer Sisco. He was wearing clothes that were cut like stereotypical prison clothes and were coloured white with dragons on them. He told me that his group called themselves 'The Rising Dragons'. Later someone tried to convince me that they were dressed like that in a fashion trend. The bandannas pretty much clinched my opinion though.

Later on in the evening a couple of local boys drifted in. They hadn't been invited but at a township party you don't really invite people. the exception being if they are very close friends or live far enough away that they won't hear the party. Whoever turns up is welcome so long as they don't cause trouble. These boys cornered me while I was sitting down. The leader of the two put his face really close to mine and introduced himself. He then started telling me how he had never seen a white boy in his area before. I was being friendly but it was very disconcerting to have this guy right in my face and he wouldn't back off. He told me how when he went home he wasn't going to sleep straight away. Instead he was going to call his mother to tell her what had happened. This was fine but after that he didn't back off. He just stayed there watching me from very close quaters and saying similar things for about 10 minutes. The girls I had been dancing with earlier eventually noticed and came to drag me off to dance. This was a relief and I thanked them for saving me. Later on I was talking with Jeff and the boys saw that I wasn't dancing anymore so they came over to talk to me again. They had just started telling me how white people don't trust black people when Queenie came back, placed herself between me and them and yelled at the main guy to "shut your mouth". She then lapsed into Sutu and I was told later had abused them for being racist. She told them that talking about racial stuff was making me uncomfortable and if they couldn't talk about the party they shouldn't talk to me at all. She got even more worked up after saying such things and ended up telling them to leave the party. She was very forceful about it. I had been talking to her during the evening and she had seemed quite gentle but this was extraordinary. I was moderately embarrassed and kept my eyes fixed firmly on the ground throughout the diatribe. I was also not making eye contact because I didn't want anything and didn't know what was happening. The guys walked away thoroughly cowed by this slip of a girl and left pretty much straight away.