Introduction to Saying Goodbye

Growing up between an orphan home and foster care, twenty-year-old Sipho doesn't take much for granted -- certainly not the support and nurturing of a loving home. He’s a survivor, who manages to create family wherever he goes, while staying singularly focused on his goals. This year, Sipho had hoped to take the next step toward a professional rugby career; Covid-19 disrupted both his plans and his precious stability. Flirting with living on the streets, he discovered how easily one can slide off course, and tested the depth of his own resilience.

Elsabe is an artist and a mother of four young kids, two roles which make her especially adept at using whatever happens to be on-hand for creative inspiration or progressive motion. Covid-19 is no exception. But it would be a mistake to think that because she’s managed to ride the crosswinds of change, she has nothing to say about losing and letting go. In fact, Elsabe is something of an expert on the art of loss.

Working steadily for the past decade as a local dancer and theatre performer, Jenna Child has become a master of the in-between. Artists and performers know a lot about living in limbo – the space between gigs can be as brutal a test of the spirit and mind as it is of the piggybank – but this Covid reality is challenging an already super-human equipoise. We chat about Jenna’s dream-come-true career and its unseen realities; we wonder about the future of Cape Town’s fabulous Fugard Theatre, and Jenna tries to answer the question: How do we wait?

Losing a year is especially tough when so much of your life has been building toward it – and so much is said to hinge upon it. Ally, a Cape Town matric student, describes the ways the pandemic has disrupted her life, but also put her in touch with a greater landscape of inequality and loss. She tells us what she’s had to let go of and what she's still holding out for, hanging on to hope amidst a future full of uncertainty.

In May this year, when Karen Dudley announced she would be closing The Kitchen, her beloved deli-style eatery in Woodstock, the heartbreak was palpable: no more mosaic salad plates, no more Love Sandwiches, no more flirty winks from Karen from across the deli case. For many, the idea of emerging from lockdown to a Cape Town without The Kitchen, seems a bland prospect. With her tell-tale charm, wisdom and humour, Karen says goodbye to her restaurant, muses about her favourite memories and meals, and offers up some essential ingredients for the future.

Saying Goodbye collects conversations with the ordinary and extraordinary folks of Cape Town, South Africa who have lost something as a result to Covid-19. You'll hear the voices of our founding participants, and the story of how and why this podcast came to be.