#20laps – The Bez Valley Swimming Pool (Hofland Park Recreation Centre)
“Some white people come here, especially on a Sunday. But I don’t know where they are today,” says Thando. His faded, red board shorts have a large rip on the right leg, as if a sabre-tooth tiger got hold of them. He holds a plastic Power Rangers mask in one hand; its thin elastic bounces between his index and middle fingers. When he talks, his gold front tooth glints in the sun. Lots of small black children are at the Bez Valley Pool; Thando, the lifeguard, is one of the few adults. A group of teenage boys play soccer, a man with a Rasta hat sits on a bench under a tree and strums a guitar, while a guy in an incongruous Angkor Wat T-shirt stands with arms folded, looking at the kids splashing in the pool, wistfully (I wonder: where did he get the T-shirt from? Was it given to him? Has he been to Cambodia?).