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.”