The Wisteria Lane Frontier

At the intersection of Sandton Drive and William Nicol last night was a man displaying a handwritten cardboard sign, not an unusual mode of begging here, except that this one said something along the lines of: ‘My donkey ate Robert Mugabe’s chicken soup and now I’m in trouble so please help me out’. If he’d been anywhere near my car, he certainly would have won a donation for creativity, though I’m ever so curious to know about the inspiration for the sign. There are plenty of Zimbabweans about, and many of them very bitter about what’s happened…but I won’t go into that just yet.

I forget that it’s October and that October means hot in southern Africa. It’s been pretty hot during the daytimes, with enormous cloud formations building up in the late afternoon. The mauve jacarandas are coming out in full bloom, and the mornings and evenings on the Wisteria Lane Frontier are filled with the raucous cries of a bird whose name I can’t remember… but basically they sound like something out of the Jurassic period.

The Wisteria Lane Frontier is what I’ve renamed my little part of Lonehill. It is affluent, artificial, high-walled, and filled with mostly whites and young professionals of all races. There is nothing organic or unplanned about its geography or architecture at all. The only redeeming factor, as I’ve mentioned before, is the view over the undulating landscape of the northern frontier of the city. The Lonehill kopje reminds me a lot of Zim. The colours in the early mornings and late afternoons are just beautiful, and as long as I don’t look too close to where I stand (!), then I have a strong sense of being in an African landscape, which you wouldn’t find in other parts of the city. There’s also loads of space in my apartment, which feels like heaven after London. It’s theoretically one of the safest parts of Jo’burg, but even so, on Friday night I heard my first gunshots in the distance, closely followed by a barrage of police sirens. Anyway, I’ll be on the Wisteria Lane Frontier for a few months and then re-assess the situation. It's not all bad...just takes some getting used to!

I am now the not-so-proud owner of a car. I slightly resent having to spend my hard- earned savings on a car which, to the frustration of some of my male friends, I see as nothing more than functional. I also feel like a sell-out on the environmental front. I have been commuting across town quite a bit for social stuff. Excluding the time taken when I get lost, which is often, it’s about thirty minutes for me to travel to the older part of the city (Parkhurst/Melrose/Rosebank/Saxonwold). I cannot believe that the government here has not been more interventionist or top-down in terms of vehicle usage and traffic congestion. In the mornings the highways are crammed with 1-person-per-car. Maybe someone can explain to me how it got this bad. In order for my journey to work to take seven minutes, I either have to leave at 6.15am or 8.45am…otherwise it can easily take 45 minutes. Can’t wait to get a bicycle. In the meanwhile I seriously need to work on my parking skills.

I went to the Bryanston Organic Market on Saturday morning. Like other parts of this part of Jo’burg, very little about the market felt spontaneous. With the well-heeled clientele, it felt a bit like Kings Road in Chelsea, minus the high street brand names. Nevertheless, there were a few interesting characters around, including a seventy-something French-speaking Portuguese beekeeper and honey purveyor who read my palm and flirted outrageously. And a South African potter t who told me about the floods of Zimbabweans trying to get a job at his studio. And then there was the gluten-and-lactose-free stall (*obviously*, it’s the Joburg equivalent of Chelsea) with the man who proudly told me he also sold bottled water imported from Italy. I didn’t hold back on giving him a piece of my mind about that.

Saturday also included a visit to some second-hand furniture shops on Bram Fischer in Randburg. That was much more real and much more interesting. People were bemused by a white girl wearing an African-java-print skirt (as they probably were at the organic market) and did a few double-takes. I didn’t have much luck on the furniture front, but I did come away with contact details for a dressmaker, some hilarious LP covers from the ‘70s, and a plan to buy an antique milk pail.

I think I have a navigation curse on me, which is unfortunate, given that even to start with, I seem to be missing the DNA for geographic orientation. My TomTom GPS thingy keeps seizing up on me at the wrong times. And I still haven’t bought myself a map book which is silly. The biggest drama was on Wednesday morning when I ended up having to take friends to the airport for their London flight because the taxi didn’t arrive on time. We got stuck in hideous traffic, but we made it in good time in the end. Then on leaving the airport I managed to take a wrong turning and ended up going into Bedfordview and then all the way south, via Yeoville and Houghton on my way back to Bryanston. For those who don’t know Jo’burg, that would be like going from Canary Wharf to Marble Arch via Kew Gardens. Except that the Kew Gardens wouldn’t be Kew Gardens, it would be more like a dodgy part of Brixton. Yeah, so I was in the car for FOUR HOURS that morning, and not a happy bunny.

What else? I finally have some crockery and cutlery, two folding chairs and, as of today, a coffee table bought on Gumtree. The sellers delivered it to me, and extended an invitation to be my surrogate parents if I ever needed any support. So cute – and only in southern Africa! It feels like it’s going to take forever to furnish my place but I guess I just need to stop being so impatient, and instead be grateful (and sometimes amused) to be in a place where people are so open, friendly, and casual-familiar. Did I mention the mattress man, who I’ve only spoken to once or twice over the phone? “Oh yah hi Jules…oh yes your mattress. You know what, Jules, it won’t be delivered today. No yah, sorry Jules. Nothing I can do, my angel, nothing I can do. Ok angel….Take care.”

Oh Egoli: First Week in Johannesburg

It’s the end of my first week in Jo’burg, and I am struck by this contented sense of relief to be back in southern Africa. The size of the city and all its highways are a tad intimidating, but my relocation agent has been drumming the geography into me consistently since day one, so I pretty much know where most suburbs are now. Everyone has been incredibly helpful and welcoming here, ranging from the kitchen lady at the office (who gave me an enormous bear hug the day I arrived) to relatives and friends of friends, and, less surprisingly, the car salesman. I’m staying with an ex-Oxford friend in Sandton in a modest complex with a lovely big garden. It’s sunny, the air is filled with blossom scent, and there are lots of birds – shrikes, parrots, robins, babblers, barbets, wood hoopoes, and more.

I’ve seen loads of accommodation options, and think I probably perplexed the Google-assigned property agent with my non-corporate leanings. Despite my wannabe-Bohemian tendencies, in the end it came down to the convenience and proximity of Lonehill up in the north near the office, albeit with its artificial ‘Wisteria Lane kitsch’ feel versus the older and more atmospheric Parkhurst with its streetside restaurants and cafes, which are quite unusual for Jo’burg and its shopping mall culture. I’ve opted for Lonehill in the short term, for the loft space and the upstairs terrace view, which will be awesome after the claustrophobia of London. Let’s see how it goes. My neighbours probably wouldn’t appreciate chickens and a beehive, but I should be able to do veggies and a solar oven on the terrace at least! I am looking forward to my crate arriving so that I can start decorating.

There’s been a lot of admin alongside just staying on top of the day job, but I have been out and about one or twice. Last weekend I spent Sunday afternoon on Freedom Square in Soweto, with a political analyst friend, listening to new candidates for the Constitutional Court being interviewed by the Judicial Services Committee. It was fascinating, and all the 'heavies' were there, including the Chief Justice, the Justice Minister, MP Patricia de Lille, and more. Although it was open to the public, there were surprisingly few people watching (40-50) and apparently virtually no security at all. I was struck by the relative informality of it. I was also struck by how the questioning was still weighed down by race -- I would have expected that ten years ago, but curious to find it still so prevalent.

This weekend I went out with friends in mixed and cosmopolitan Melville. It turned out to be a really entertaining evening, including a brief bar encounter with a group who only spoke sign language. The evening concluded with driving to a club up north with some buff Nigerians, with the Jai Ho soundtrack blaring loud and on repeat. Unexpected yet fun. The latest good news is that I'm finally going solo to and from work, in a hired car. I only know two routes... but, as I like to say, a girl's gotta grow up sooner or later.

Departing the Metropole

After almost exactly a decade based in England, I have decided to return to southern Africa. Packing up is a pretty momentous time, and a chance to reflect on what has passed, or at least some of it. I sift through papers, find fragments of notes taken during my Zimbabwe travels -- fragments of chaos and desperation. I find photographs of my other world in Namibia, a Khwe woman weaving in the late afternoon shade of Mashambo, and satellite images of Caprivi and the ever-stretching sandveld. I find frantic to-do lists from the office -- yet again an other world, one of ambition and self-betterment and money. Cards from my mother on the southern oceans. A ribbon from Liz, 10 years ago in India just before we left, now fallen behind a bookshelf and retrieved, covered in dust. I have been using it to tie one of my scrapbooks. This time I tuck it into my hand luggage, because I can't bring myself to let it go. The "Cash Caviar and Champagne" dress is dug up from underneath the bed, no doubt ready for its Jozi debut.

I paste things rather frantically into my scrapbooks. It's hard to slow down. I vacuum, and again. I gather all my fieldnotes, those special and wordy rite-de-passage collections, and add them to the 'special box' pile, which includes photographs, my childhood stamp collection (yup, don’t laugh), my diaries. All my files from university are going too, including my first year anthro lecture notes, carefully dictated in green and purple ink. It’s debatable whether I should really be taking those, admittedly. My cello is de-bridged and de-sound-posted. We pack him up carefully and then into a coffin-like crate which is loaded into a cavernous van during an uncharacteristically heavy downpour. It’s really happening, this move.

I retrace the steps of my last day or two in London. Alice helps me clean the flat, vacuuming in her pencil skirt and heels. Even that she manages to do stylishly. I finally meet the proprietor of the coffee shop downstairs. I think he's Jamaican. I ask him for a bin bag, as I've run out. He gives me two, saying I might need more. I go to the gym on my final morning, and sit on the bike listening to Kaleen’s old playlists. God, I will be relieved not to go back to those gyms in the winter. I go to the British Library to renew my card. I’m not sure why. I suppose I have a small hope that I’ll want to come and absorb and reflect on knowledge again sometime. I remind some girl that she can’t go into the reading rooms carrying a cup of coffee, which she seems to find surprising, and then I go for bhel puri at the Indian restaurant on Drummond St where Ed and I used to eat.

Mary comes to pick me up. I heave those heavy cumbersome bags into her car and off we go to Heathrow. I tell her about Mishek's death last week, and how I had hoped one day we would sit together round the fire in Murehwa -- where I've never been because of my skin colour -- free of fear and the dark shadows of the past, him an old man, and me still listening. She tells me about one of her African clients who has been beaten in detention in the UK. I dispatch several copies of Chikwava’s ‘Harare North’ to friends. At the airport I am ever so tired. There is endless possibility now, and I don't know where to begin.