Suburban South Africans make the worst neighbours

Suburban living is a whole new experience to me. Having grown up mainly in rural and peri-urban areas across the country (with the notable exception of eMalahleni / Witbank), “big city” living (if one can call Tshwane that) was foreign to me.

At least I was eased into it by spending the first two years in student accommodation, but as I embark on my third year in suburbia I begin to understand why anti-establishment Afrikaner author and musician Koos Kombuis detests the entire concept.

Everything about the mass of urban sprawl stretching for kilometres in the northern corner of Gauteng is appallingly conformist and average — the concrete and electric fenced refuge of the average, workaday man (and woman), 2.2 children, a dog and cat, or two, and a post-agrarian, post-industrial, post-television (and internet) agoraphobia.

It is agoraphobic (not so much the strict DSM-IV definition though) because these victims of modernisation have become confined to their homes, experiencing difficulty travelling from this “safe place” unless necessity and shopping sprees require it.

This differs remarkably from my experiences beyond the concrete jungle, experiences in a world where neighbours know one another, exchange in actual conversation (in real life, I might add) and children engage in innocent mischief in the great outdoors. Neighbours who borrow cups of sugar from one another and wave as they overtake on the dirt road (even occasionally stopping for chit-chat).

Perhaps my venting and indictment against suburban neighbours is rooted in a nostalgic longing for days long lost. It might be true that I feel robbed of something, denied simple childhood experiences, but suburban neighbours don’t even make an effort. I don’t know the seven households that — in some way or the other — surround the property, and have, except for rare occasions (when necessity on their part), never exchanged words with these complete strangers. I don’t know what they do for a living, they don’t wave when we pass in the street, to be honest, I don’t even know their names.

Maybe that’s unfair, I mean, we did have that one eccentric household next door where the “neighbour lady” did manage to interact with us (or at least venture outdoors) with great comic effect. One couldn’t help but feel a sense of familiarity as one regularly observed her in the most peculiar outfits. She became famous for doing gardening in a cocktail dress (or digging up plants in our garden in similar fashion). There was also her unforgettable afternoon escapade down the street in an evening gown rattling a tin can, which was probably more endearing than her faux leopard fur overcoat finished off with a neck brace accessory. (The family has since, unfortunately, been replaced by a strikingly normal ex-expatriate).

Sure, suburban living makes for interesting observation — the stuff of Desperate Housewives do really play out off-screen. Like neighbours accusing the live-in help next door of running a brothel in the absence of her employer. Riveting stuff at 9 o’clock as ADT and numerous puzzled spectators gather in front of the house in question.

But I digress. I still don’t know these people and it has dawned on me that I might be just as complicit in perpetuating this mundanity. To some extent I understand the lack of social interaction between those souls who have unfortunately ended up living next to one another. There is that thing called a job, which keeps most people busy from nine to five. There is household duties and responsibilities, children, dogs and cats, Facebook and countless reruns on television. I understand.

Thus, to me, suburban South Africans make the worst neighbours. I’m not referring to the disruptive actions of certain noisy neighbours — Julius Malema rumoured to be a case in point. My lamentation, rather, is about their exhibition of anti-social behaviour unthinkable beyond the city. But, I have very limited experience with suburban living beyond our little haven here on the tip of the African continent, so I can’t authoritatively comment on its workings elsewhere. If it can be assumed that modernisation takes the same toll across the world, I’m sure the conclusions won’t be radically different.

Although I don’t think social niceties and pleasantries could be too much to ask, I admit, as newby in the tribe, I am too intimidated by their work-hardened faces to make the first move, again. Maybe I should obtain their names and look them up on Facebook for a chat. At least in this manner none of us have to leave the comfort of our personal refuge, nobody has to make tea, and nobody has to endure awkward moments of silence and attempt to decipher cryptic body language. Just insert the “lols” in the right places and pretend to be taking a call when the conversation gets too boring, works very well.