Gershwin Wanneburg
FROM sleeping in kennels while hooked on drugs to helping build his community one burnt-down shack at a time, a Cape man is on a quest to show there is life after addiction.
When he was in grade 5, Calvin Coetzee won just about every academic prize possible: Afrikaans, English, Maths, Biology, Geography, Business Economics, Technology, and top student title of the year. The youngster hoped that his achievements would prompt his parents to mend their relationship.
“It was a really tough, that time … I remember seeing that joy in their eyes,” said the 34-year-old father of three, as he recalled how his almost idyllic childhood was turned upside down when he was 12.
That was when his father was retrenched from his steady job as a refrigerator technician and the family relocated from Dennemere, an up-and-coming suburb on the outskirts of the Cape Flats, to live with relatives in Saron, a rural town 130km outside the city.
The family never fully recovered. Not even a return to the Cape a few years later, could reverse their fortunes. This time the family moved to a suburb called Stratford, close to his beloved Dennemere.
Amid the turmoil, Calvin met friends who were experimenting with drugs – first marijuana, then tik – and he decided to join them. What started out as curious youthful exploration, at the age of 16, turned into half a decade of addiction, run-ins with the law, skirmishes with death, multiple failed rehabilitations and his own mother ejecting him from home.
One of his lowest moments came when he was forced to sleep in a kennel with his only goal being to score his next fix, finding refuge only with friends who used drugs with him.
It’s hard to imagine that this is the same man who today is a good Samaritan in his community in Kleinvlei, Eersterivier, a place riven by poverty, unemployment, and gangs.
He and his wife, Gaynor, Coetzee run a soup kitchen from their home, which feeds hundreds of people each month. His full-time job is as a builder at The Shackbuilder, an NGO that builds homes for those in need, often people who lost their homes due to fire and other disasters.
The soup kitchen which began as an initiative of Shackbuilder founder Quinton Adams in June 2020, became a lifeline for many households when the Covid-19 pandemic struck and robbed them of their livelihoods.
“It’s my way of giving back…and maybe providing a meal for those that need a meal, (and) a word of encouragement with that meal,” Coetzee said earnestly.
He estimates that he must have lived in 30 homes over the years. At one point, he washed up to 15 cars a day to fund his drug habit.
Still, that was an improvement on stealing anything he could get his hands on, including from his parents, friends, and stripping public facilities of copper cables.
Despite the agonising journey through addiction, he bubbles over with excitement as he shares his story in the front yard of his council flat, with rowdy children playing in the background and neighbours blasting music while keeping a close eye from the other side of the fence.
Coetzee’s life is a cautionary tale of how one twist of fate can send a young life in a frightening direction. It is also a story of hope. Many were not as fortunate as he was. Most of those who used drugs with Calvin, are still addicts, ten years after he kicked the habit, he says.
He admits that it took a fair bit of faith, and a good number of guardian angels, to triumph over his addiction. The birth of his first child in 2010 was also a turning point. By then his drug use had tapered off, after repeated pleas from his friends, parents, and community elders, including Patricia Blows, a woman he calls the Mother Teresa of Dennemere.
Blows said: “I am truly so proud of Calvin, he brings hope to many in his endeavours. He can be a shop manager (if he chooses) but he loves rebuilding peoples lives and I adore him for that. His wife and children completes his family and he is a real good dad and husband. I just smile when I see him so secured in himself.”
Coetzee’s message to those struggling with addiction is simple. “You need to get a support structure. Think (about) who those people are that stick with you. I know most people’s families probably turn their backs, and you will have to earn their respect again and earn their trust again. I think the Lord also plays a big role in this, or whoever they believe in.”
Asked what she makes of Calvin’s transformation, his wife Gaynor replies: “I’m very proud of the man he has become.”
Weekend Argus