National exchange - Strippers for streetkids

Presented unchanged. for your enjoyment is one of my first Africans stories from May 2005.


With global trade booming like never before, and all sorts of trade links being established with countries that were considered our enemies less than 20 years ago, we should see some sort of benefit of all this for the inhabitants of Cape Town, and South Africa in general. Based on the student exchange program, I've been bouncing some ideas around with friends, and have arrived at the flawless plan of exchanging our homeless children for Russian strippers.

I know there are already many eastern European strippers working in South Africa, so just think how many we could bring over if we ran a government sponsored program! The way I see it, it's also a fantastic opportunity for our glue sniffing little ragamuffins to get out of the gutters, and see some of the world. There must be many Russian factories that could use thousands of tiny hands to service their antiquated machinery and whatnot, and there could be an incentive program for them to see their tasks through to completion, rewarding efficient work with potatoes, and laziness with near fatal thrashings. The factory dorms provided would also seem like a welcome change to sleeping huddled in a doorway, which would be quite impossible in Russia anyway, unless one was planning a one way trip to Deathbyexposureville. I can just imagine the sense of pride and identity a runaway boy might get from being a valued member of the workforce, rather than perpetually hungry substance abusing petty thief who would only draw scorn and general suspicion from the working populace.

It may be a tricky program to get off the ground, initially, as the children we would target for exporting may believe they'd prefer to stay, living wild and free on the sun drenched streets of Cape Town, rather than earning their keep in subzero temperatures, on the other side of the planet. I would think that a first batch may have to be coaxed into going, so we could let their positive feedback persuade others to enter the program, although I would certainly not want to hold any child against their will, and no burly thugs carrying sacks and clubs would be employed to round up children off the streets, or pay desperately poor parents for offspring they couldn't support, and I would under no circumstances whatsoever, even entertain the heinous idea of holding a fair for the underprivileged, giving them soda laced with sleeping pills, and bunging the unconscious into the hold of some ship bound for Russia, giving strict instructions to the Captain that any trouble makers be hurled overboard without question. All these things have never even crossed my mind, and at no point during the conception stages of this entire venture, was I sitting at an elaborate Victorian writing desk, stroking my powdered wig with hands clad in fingerless gloves, and cackling to myself. The whole mental image is quite preposterous.


Once the first batch has been posted, pardon my use of that word, but I come from a long line of people who liked to post things, supervisors would be on site, to mark the progress of our young pioneers, and take down any comments or suggestions they might make. For instance, if the first batch were set to work at a munitions factory, in an environment where accidental amputation of limbs is the norm, their request for styles of false leg, and the type of coffin (cardboard or Styrofoam) would be noted, and considered. The happiness of these children would amongst the fifty most important concerns of the program, and anything that would make their time abroad more enjoyable would certainly be taken down somewhere.

The impression one might get at this point, is that South African children might be exploited by such an initiative, but I must insist that there would be a myriad of opportunities for them, that they would never get, living on our streets. No child is going to learn a trade by panhandling, but there are any number of valuable skills one may learn from shoveling phosphorous, mining salt, burying plague victims, digging mass graves, carrying railway sleepers, or any of the other important professions our kids might undertake. I very much doubt that weeks on end sniffing glue and pick pocketing tourists would teach a youngster the correct way to knot a tourniquet to staunch heavy bloodflow, or to chip away the frostbitten section of a hand to prevent gangrene. When they return (after their 6, 9, or 12 year stint) they will have grown up, and will be able to enter our workforce with pride, and bringing with them the dedication and survival skills that they've learnt. I shouldn't wonder if many of them choose to remain in Russia after their tenure is up, having fallen in love with the place, made lifelong friends there, and of course being unable to afford return passage, but where there is a will, there is a way, and with Russia being one of Earth's developing economies, there is always an extra rubel to be made for that special wagon train ticket.

I've been quite focused on one side of the program, and allow me to put this right by talking a bit about the life I envision for the lucky exotic dancers who make it to our sunny shores. They would be granted work permits, and allowed to pursue their passion of dancing naked for the titillation of overweight, visually displeasing, middle aged men, in a climate where an uncovered nose today, means no nose tomorrow, against the backdrop of natural beauty. They would be welcomed with opened arms at our airports, and an agency could be established to place them in a string of government sponsored strip bars, that would replace the cities' unsightly homeless shelters. There would be multiple benefits, as such establishments would raise the class of an area, go some way to prevent the terrible spate of injuries caused by falling off step ladders whilst standing on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of the neighbour's wife in the shower, and of course provide employment for any remaining streetkids, who could carry trays of drinks, buff table tops, and feed the obligatory python that these sort of acts usually feature.

Should such an initiative be instituted by the state, we would see the results promptly, not only on the cleaner, safer streets, but in the many new and exciting night spots around town, where one might sip a glass of wine and watch a beautiful woman dance, happy in the knowledge that one of the less fortunate members of our society is working 16-20 hours a day to make sure she stays, and is been given a hand up and a bed of straw at the same time.