Many Different Worlds in Jozi

In the midst of a strike being carried out by 1.3 million people across South Africa, including nurses and teachers, I find it extraordinary that my day-to-day existence is not at all affected. Such is the reality of a divided society where those in the private sector economy of northern Johannesburg lead a sheltered existence. Meanwhile over 50 premature babies have been abandoned by nurses; several mothers have lost their babies in childbirth, or simply been turned away from hospitals; and funeral businesses have brought work to a halt because Home Affairs workers are simply not around to issue death certificates.

Photo credit: News24

Meanwhile regular South African pastimes such as rugby matches continue. Thousands of free tickets to last weekend’s match against New Zealand were given away in high-density historically-black areas such as Soweto, in the hope of drawing more blacks to the matches. But apparently many of the recipients simply sold the tickets instead. At the same time, parts of Soweto defy outsider assumptions. A colleague who watched the game on Vilakazi St in Orlando West was a bit disappointed that he hadn’t really felt the ‘township vibe’, commenting that he could have been anywhere in Sandton.

Not so for a recent Saturday that I spent in Soweto, not forgetting that Soweto is basically a city in itself, with significant socio-economic stratification. A friend of mine is writing a doctorate on the political economy of waste dumps; her research assistant is from Mofolo, and between them they know a lot about the wider area. Along with a visiting architecture academic, we travelled to the far south-western corner of Soweto, to the informal settlement of Protea South. To give you a sense of the scale of greater Johannesburg, Protea South is 50 kilometres from where I live on the northern border of the city. There is some running water in Protea South, but no sanitation. Some of the porter toilets are communal, but many households have their own which they clean themselves. Hand-shaped charcoal bricks lie in the sun to bake – it’s the first time I’ve seen this kind of fuel. In Protea South, one can buy a shack for 1500 rand (200 dollars). Consider the extraordinary contrast with parts of Sandton (Sandhurst, for example), where one can buy a mansion for upwards of 20 million rand (2.75m dollars). I’ve even seen some advertised for 50 million.



Yes, Johannesburg is many different worlds. I am regularly humbled by people that I meet, or stories that I hear, for example, about the Zimbabweans who are putting themselves through university on waitressing wages. Leaving Sandton at about 11pm the other evening, I stopped to give a woman a lift. There was something about her that seemed quite desperate. She was trying to get to the northern township Diepsloot. In the absence of a decent public transport system, travelling by minibus taxi costs to and from Sandton for work are 50 rand (7 dollars) a day. Even on my salary I would consider that a high transport spend – and it is no doubt a ridiculously high proportion of her monthly wage. The possibility of her ever accumulating enough funds for basic economic security is virtually non-existent. She will continue to live hand-to-mouth.

So my day-to-day life is full of contrast, wherever I choose to be open to it. This evening I sit in Cape Town with a Czech colleague and his Sri Lankan friends. We have such different life stories. I listen to how he grew up under communism in an 800-year old Czech town that was razed to the ground in the interest of coal mining, and how the snow used to turn grey within a day. And I tell him about growing up in a national park in Zimbabwe with pythons and lions in the back garden. Meanwhile, our Sri Lankan dinner partner tells us about arriving as a migrant worker in Hillbrow, Johannesburg: he was robbed 8 times in his first month, and early one morning came across a half-headless body in the street on his way to work ….at which point he decided to move to Sandton.

Culinary Delights

At first I dismissed the Bryanston Organic Market for being too all-sorts-of-things for me. I looked down my anthropological-exotica nose and thought: too middle class, too orderly, too controlled, too…boring. But that was before I was converted to eating dosa and uttapam every Saturday lunchtime – possibly my favourite Indian food - cooked by a guy from Bangalore who works for an ayurvedic medicine company during the week, and is a chef on Saturdays. So nowadays I show up at the market almost religiously.

Last weekend the dosa chef invited me to the India Day celebrations in Randburg, patronized almost entirely by the Indian expatriate community. Apparently there's a big divide between the Indian expats and the South African Indians. The crowd was substantial, even late in the day, and there was much singing, dancing and freshly cooked cuisine. The white faces in the crowed were few, though needless to say I met more random internationals, this time an Italian and a Korean who both work for the UN. Social life continues to be varied and interesting, and good food seems to be at the heart of it. I recently attended my first vegan-rawfood dinner party in Oaklands, catered by an American (who also pursues her culinary passions part-time) whom I met at a talk by Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. The food was outstanding and you would never have guessed it was all raw.

I’ve been back to Narina Trogon restaurant in downtown Braamfontein for a birthday-cum-salsa party, for which I caught a lift with a Japanese man and a Guyanan woman who live round the corner from me. Who would have guessed Wisteria Lane housed such diversity? I’ve also been downtown to Arts on Main a number of times now, where the canteen offers a tasty well-priced brunch in close proximity to William Kentridge originals. More importantly I’ve discovered that the nearby Malva Café has the best brownies in Jo’burg, followed closely by those at Moema’s in Parktown North. Perfect for break-up blues.

Nor should I forget the dinners that I’ve been treated to by Piers of Daisy Street, who is a straight-talking general rockstar with the ability to throw together a wonderful meal at short notice. He’s a particular fan of organic ostrich, and has persuaded me to step out from underneath my mostly-vegetarian umbrella on one or two occasions. In fact he even managed to entice me to eat slow-baked lamb at a dinner party hosted in old-money Dunkeld with a lawyer-artist couple in a spectacular dining room decked out in black-and-white tiles, stripes and mirrors. Twas delicious.

One last culinary mention: I went walking and basking by waterfalls in the Mountain Sanctuary Park in Magaliesburg, for which Mel provided trail mix. Mel is Canadian, so obviously she was responsible for the trail mix, but this mix had a magic ingredient which southern African trail-mixers have thus far overlooked: M&Ms. Those who’ve known me a while know that nothing featuring M&Ms will be overlooked by this particular foodie.

Namibian Roads are Good to Think With

Uncharacteristically I nearly missed my flight but, thanks to my trusty taxi driver jumping a few red lights (only feasible very early on a Sunday morning), I made it to the boarding gate just in time. Friends in Windhoek laid on a wonderful relaxed brunch, tucked against the hillside in Eros, and the next morning I caught a bus to Swakopmund.

Swakopmund is a little difficult to put one's finger on. Its postcolonial essence is perhaps captured in a shop sign painted on the entrance of an old German building that caught my attention when I first visited a few years ago. It proclaims: “Where N$1 is still worth R1”. I always found this a little bizarre, given that the Namibian dollar is pegged to the South African rand…so surely there would never be any doubt about this particular equation. My anthro-historical interpretation of the sign is something about colonialism's continuity, I suppose, and a hankering after certain (non-monetary) values. Anyway, one of Swakopmund’s selling points is its quietness. Not a lot happens there. Walking the beach was liberating, and my friend Angela has two fabulous golden labradors which kept me company most times.

We enjoyed sundowners in the Swakop river dunes one evening – a quite extraordinary moonscape of scenery. Namibia is home to a strong circle of women friends who are all leading unconventional lives and doing interesting things. It was really good to be away from the city, not to have to care about my appearance, or whether my clothes matched.


Where else in the world can you hire a car for $45 a day with unlimited mileage? Clearly I was so impressed by this little nugget that I was already half-way from Swakopmund to Henties Bay on the Skeleton Coast when I realised that I didn’t have my driver’s licence. Oh well. It clearly wasn’t that important to the rental company either! And at the turn off to Uis, where the road is barely differentiated from the surrounding desert, flanked by miles of flatness, I figured I was unlikely to encounter any roadblocks. Uis is a really a dorp. I think it only has about 20 buildings. Nevertheless, I’m lucky enough to have friends in most dorps, regardless of country, so had a guided tour of the area with my friend Victor that afternoon. Namibian roads are good to think with – they are long, wide and empty.


I received some curious look from other travellers, surprised to see a blonde gal with shades driving alone around dusty Damaraland in a Walvis-Bay-registered 2x4 sedan car. My wheels may have been modest, if not amusing, but nonetheless it was exhilarating being on the road again. There are long stretches with no mobile network – not that common an occurrence nowadays -- so that too was somewhat liberating. I spent two days in the Brandberg, Namibia’s highest mountains, under an incredibly bright moon, the night-times big and still, and traversed by my old friends, the Scops and Pearlspotted Owls. I had forgotten what it’s like to witness that endless blanket of stars overhead, to be enveloped in that big silence. The landscape is rugged and striking, full of granite and ancient lava flows, and the colours of the mountains change by the minute. The Damara homesteads are dispersed and desolate, and I wondered where they get water.


Food poisoning prevented me from making it to the White Lady rock paintings – sadly I had to turn back when I was already over halfway -- but the guides at the site were wonderful and, seeing that I was on my own, offered to drive me and my car back to the campsite, and walk the 7km back to work. The nearest doctor was only 100km away, they reassured me.

At the next-door lodge, where I had a luxury ready-made tent, the menu was heavy with oryx and not much else: oryx schnitzel (obviously), oryx bolognese, and so on. I passed on those and managed to procure some yoghurt and maize meal porridge. Next to the bar was an empty fishtank, and the conversation went something like this:

Victor: Where’s the snake?
Barman: Oh, it’s gone. It escaped. We think someone helped it.
Me: Oh? What kind of snake?
Barman: A python.
Victor: What happened?
Barman: Yeah, well, we took it out during the Germany-Spain game to show some guests, and we’re not quite sure what happened after that…

From Brandberg I took a long slow gravel-road drive through Khorixas to Twyfelfontein (“doubtful fountain” – altogether an appropriate destination given my love circumstances) to see the ancient rock engravings which are Namibia’s first World Heritage Site. Having the freedom to stop whenever and wherever one pleases is such a privilege. I clambered up rocks and hillsides to see the views, ponder over a never-ending miscellany of curious rocks and stone formations, and breathe in those wide open spaces.




Near Twyfelfontein I camped on the Aba Huab river, neighbouring with a horse safari group and some overlanders. I exchanged some Nam dollars for US dollars with a Belgian traveller who, poor soul, hadn’t realised that there aren’t exactly ATMs at every corner once you get out of Windhoek. En route to Omaruru via Outjo I stopped at the remarkable Vingerklip for more striking landscape.

My trip was rounded off with a visit to another friend who is raising eyebrows in Omaruru by bringing yoga, Ayurvedic medicine, and contemporary sculpture to this conservative marginally-bigger-than-Uis dorp. Altogether very inspiring and refreshing. From there, a short stop in Windhoek to enjoy the culinary delights of the Craft Centre cafe, and now back to life in Jozi ...I'm already into my eleventh month back in southern Africa. Unbelievable.

The World Cup Comes and Goes

I'm not ashamed to say that I let myself get caught up in some of the World Cup fever. It was almost impossible not to! The build-up to the opening game was indeed quite something. Vuvuzelas could be heard from early in the morning for at least a week beforehand, starting from 6am, no less. And on the 11th of June, it seemed that the entire city left work at lunchtime and took to the roads to make their way to see the opening game. The streets were overflowing with yellow-and-green tshirts and South African flags, and everyone was terribly excited. The traffic was so congested going down to Melville that I had plenty of time to practise blowing my vuvuzela out of my car window, which is actually something of an art. The first week of the Cup was blue-skies-but-bitterly-cold. The sun shines, but the average winter morning is about 6 degrees, and we had a few days of 2 degrees as well, which certainly shocked all the European visitors. There's not really anything by way of indoor heating, so it requires something of a different wardrobe approach.It seems there's nothing like a big sports tournament to distract a nation from its chronic problems. It was certainly a unifying experience for South Africans, even if temporary and surface-deep. There were some issues, of course, especially on the transport front but, contrary to all the Afro-pessimist predictions in the European and American press, the stadiums *were* ready, and so was the fabulous new high-speed Gautrain.


I watched my first ever soccer game at Ellis Park (Slovenia-USA) with visiting Croatian friends, preceded by Portuguese lunch at the legendary Troyeville Hotel. The whole experience was really surprisingly enjoyable. Everything was well-organised and professional, and all the facilities operated totally smoothly. Go South Africa! I also went to the Ghana-Uruguay quarter-final which was devastating for Ghana, and for all of us African supporters, but experiencing Soccer City at night with 85 000 spectators was quite something. I did have to wear earplugs, fyi. My favourite game, however, was South Africa-France, which I saw in the Newtown fan park: really an amazing atmosphere. I had plenty of visitors, some of them friends, some sub-letters: Mexicans, Germans, Americans, Croatians, Swazis, and Lesothans, so that also made for quite a lot of fun and quite a lot of linen laundry.

My explorations of downtown Jozi continue. On a public holiday during the tournament, I had a lazy brunch at Narina Trogon in Braamfontein with a collection of internationals and one or two locals. Yeoville was next on the cards, to visit the Hotel Yeoville exhibition at the new public library. Sadly it was closed due to the holiday, but I persuaded the group to acompany me to visit the Congolese artist whom I commissioned to paint a hair dressing sign. I've been wanting one for ages. I think Yeoville's residents were a bit surprised by this group of apparent tourists wandering around their neighbourhood, but we felt no hostility or threat. Needless to say I'm thrilled with my new sign.After Yeoville we went to Arts on Main, after checking out a regenerated block of apartments next door -- all of the spaces are very modern and minimalist, with some fab cityscape views. They are selling for next to nothing, given the relatively 'undesirable' location, but difficult to know what will happen in this area in the long run. Jo'burg has a number of these experimental projects, which is good to see. Main Road is verging on being Brick Lane-ish, albeit on a much smaller scale. There's also a small new independent cinema downstairs, and funky coffee-come-fashion shop. Other recent cultural visits include a Cuban exhibition at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, and sitting in the winter afternoon sun for open-air Senegalese kora music at the Alliance Francaise.
There is no shortage of things to do here. So, the World Cup came and went, after many months of preambular hype and speculation. Many of us started to fade about halfway through, once Bafana was knocked out, and we realised that we'd been burning the candle at both ends for a few too many weeks. But all in all, it was great to be around for it. And although there are now lots of vacant stadiums littered about the place, we do have some nice new roads and some progress on the public transport front!

Fordsburg, Mayfair and a Taste of India

It was Freedom Day yesterday, commemorating the first-ever non-racial democratic elections in South Africa in 1994. So it was fitting that I finally made it to the Apartheid Museum, which was excellent and definitely deserves a second visit. I went via Melville and Observatory first to pick up friends, and after the museum we went to a fabulous and buzzing Gujurati restaurant in Mayfair. So I drove many new streets today, which I’m rather proud of.

The museum helps me to make sense of the many bits of jigsaw that I am collating about South Africa, including a recent visit to the ‘Indian quarter’ of Fordsburg. We were a curious group two Saturdays ago: a Senegalese author; a Botswanan of British-Philipino descent, an Indian South African, an Ethiopian-American, and a white Zimbabwean.

We started on 14th Street, where the ‘oriental’ Fietas market used to be (before it was forcibly closed and moved under the apartheid government Group Areas Act) and where our friend-and-guide used to stand on the corner selling combs as a boy. He showed us where his family’s house once stood, before it was knocked down – although the homes of certain professionals such as lawyers were left alone, as well as religious buildings such as mosques. The stand remains vacant, with only a small plaque recalling what passed there in the 1950s.

Growing up, N. attended to no less than 9 different schools because his family were forcibly relocated so many times. And during the times when they lived in ‘grey’ areas (areas that were being made white, or which were being protected from non-white settlement), he used to wait in the school library until it got dark, because otherwise he would be beaten up on the way home.

From 14th Street we went to Akhalwaya’s Fish and Chips, on the corner of Mint Road, where N. has been a customer for about 20 years. Akhalwaya’s specialises in a unique type of toasted-curry-and-fries sandwich. Strange sounding, yes, but original, suitably fattening, utterly delicious, and enough of a meal to last you most of the day. We then sauntered into at least two Indian sweet shops: they always make me a little weak at the knees until I actually eat the sweets and am reminded of how utterly overpoweringly sweet they really are.

The ‘new’ Oriental Plaza is one of Joburg’s most racially mixed shopping malls, offering a huge array of food and wares ranging from a samosa bar with a permanently long queue and stainless steel kitchenware stalls, to West African print fabrics, Chinese shoes and wedding shops.

Wandering along Main Road and its tributaries, we drank fresh coconut juice on the sidewalk, perused Bollywood DVDs, made banter with the stall owners, stared jealously into restaurant windows where masala dosas were being dished out, and I bought some spices and paneer for a Pakistani dish that I’ve been wanting to make for months.

We then swung by Wemmer Pan for some reason only known to S., where there’s a bizarre children’s park with miniature replicas of Johannesburg’s best-known buildings. At the entrance there’s an enormous statue of someone who looks like Jan van Riebeeck and inside…wait for it…there’s a truly enormous statue of Michael Jackson. Yes, in a children’s park. Oh the irony. And oh, the photo opportunities.

Leaving Mayfair yesterday with a very full stomach, I went into a store opposite Shayona’s to buy basmati rice. The Asian managers may have been a bit surprised by our racially mixed trio, but sold their basmati with sincerity and gusto. On hearing that I was a Zimbabwean, they pointed to the black assistants at the back of the shop, saying ‘Ah yes, they ran away from Zimbabwe too…’. At which all of us - assistants included - dissolved into the kind of genuine and binding laughter that only stems from incongruous interactions in unexpected places, mixed in with a measure of southern African humour and an undertone of sadness. One of my favourite kinds...

Harare, Tinotenda

For the first time in years I feel a stillness in me about this tumultuous place. I drive out past Ngomo Kurira with my brother and his friends to another smaller gomo [hill]. Out through the increasingly rural settlements, where things are dusty and poor and organic and potholed and haphazard, where people walk long distances, and the Apostolics are enrobed in white for Easter. The grass is still tall from the rains. The path up the gomo starts at a woman's two-roomed homestead. She wears a shabby Zanu-PF tshirt. My brother speaks politely to her in Shona to ask that we may pass through, and to check where the path begins; she is fine with it. Most of the others in our group walk through with barely a glance, as if they don't notice that anyone lives there.

We push our way up through foliage onto the sprawling orange-earth boulder beyond, and then it is just us and the cascading rock and the sky. I fork away from the group. Dropping below are endless valleys of greens and blues and greys, the tinkle of Mashona cattle bells, and whispers of late-rain streams: this beloved and stunningly beautiful country.


I pass a broken clay pot in one of the clearings. Maybe something from the Apostolics. It is perfectly shaped, smooth, enticing to touch. It nestles the imprint of a cross at its base. (Tutu says: 'When the colonisers arrived, we had the land and they had the Bible. We closed our eyes to pray, and when we opened them, they had the land and we had the Bible'). My first impulse is to take a piece of this exotica, and then I stop myself and ask why. Why do we want to take pieces of things that have nothing to do with us? And so I photograph the broken pot and leave it be. There between the earth and the sky, wind on its back, as it was on mine.

Water is a scarce resource. Our neighbours had their borehole pump stolen, so now my parents feed their hosepipe through a crumbling section of the dividing wall to help them out, despite the fact that for years we've suspected them of running a brothel. My parents laugh about it, and about the firewood business that their gardener has been running ever since they chopped down some huge Jacaranda trees that were threatening to fall on the house.

I see Mugabe’s siren-less motorcade driving down Borrowdale Road in the late afternoon. South Africa's young and highly controversial Julius Malema has been visiting, and the state newspaper says: "Malema Hails Zim's Empowerment Drive". Meanwhile, Gallery Delta has been raided by police for exhibiting photographs of human rights abuses during 2008, and a Bulawayo artist has been arrested for 'inciting violence' with his critical paintings. Veterinarian friends come over for drinks, during which one of them is called away to attend to a poisoned dog.

On Easter Sunday I go for an early morning run. The roads of Highlands are quiet and neglected. The weather is pristine. I savour the silence, so different from Johannesburg. An impeccably shiny, red Morris Minor passes me, carrying a full load of white-robed Apostolics to meet with God: men in the front, women in the back. I smile. At home I lay a competitive Easter egg hunt for my family and some friends.

Afterwards dad and I drive our domestic worker back to Mabvuku township, past Chikurubi maximum human-rights-abuse Prison and the cement factory. We visit the cemetery so that I can pay respects to Mishek, who died just before I returned to southern Africa - there was no chance to say goodbye. He is buried in a poor man's grave, thirty one rows down and seven across, marked by a small painted piece of aluminium, already overgrown by a flurry of weeds. The graves are many. We proceed to his wife’s house and greet her all-women family in their two-roomed structure on a tiny plot an the edge of the township. Her seventeen-year old daughter has just given birth to a boy, Tinotenda ('we thank'). Gratefulness and thanks even in these times of hardship. Nine months ago was before Mishek died. I wonder if he knew he was due to be a grandfather. We return home and I resume reading Antjie Krog's Country of my Skull, about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. It’s hard to stomach but I grit my teeth and push on. I'm lying next to a swimming pool, after all.

I buy fifteen kilos of beautiful stone sculpture the next morning on the way to the airport, for next to nothing, and somehow manage to fit it into my hand luggage... along with an avocado, and sprigs of lemongrass and rosemary from the garden. Zim lives on. All the contradictions rest more easily nowadays, for some reason. It’s been a good visit.

The Tap that Waters a Thousand

There's been lots going on. About two weeks ago I went on a Soweto ‘tour’. I thought I had opted for the touristic minibus version, but it turned out to be a bit more personalized, and in a Mercedes no less. Our guide was an hour and a half late collecting me, thanks to major roadworks that he hadn’t anticipated. After we got over the hurdle of his stress and my irritation, all was well. We eventually negotiated our way through the worst of the traffic to pick up the two Germans who were visiting my office.

We started in Kliptown at the Walter Sisulu Square, the site where the freedom charter was adopted in 1955 as a guiding document for the ANC. The Freedom Charter Monument, a tad reminiscent of Great Zimbabwe's architecture, is frequented by a man with a penny whistle playing Nkosi Sikelel'i. I quite like the monument but I'm not the biggest fan of the penny whistle guy.


A guide from the Kliptown Youth Foundation walked us around the dusty informal settlement adjacent to the square which is home to over 45000 people. He works at a soup kitchen and hostel for local children. There is no running water or sanitation here -- instead, a tap that waters a thousand, and the occasional porter-loo that each service a dozen families, if not more. The Germans were quite taken aback at this point. It reminds me of parts of West Caprivi, only on a grand and much more urbanised scale. I bought onions and avocado to take back to Wisteria Lane.



We visited the Regina Mundi church, the largest Catholic church in Soweto, by a smooth-talking guide with an acutely dry sense of humour. The church was a key site in the Soweto student uprisings of 1976. It still bears bullet holes in the ceiling, and the permanent photography exhibition upstairs is quite moving. Time was not really on our side (a 'Soweto tour' would surely be incomplete without some participants having to catch a plane), but we spun by Orlando West, including the houses of Tutu, Mandela and Winnie, before driving back past the freshly finished calabash-inspired Soccer City Stadium. It's looking good.


The next weekend was busy and explorative too. My Ethiopian-American former-war-correspondent friend took me to the Ethiopian quarter of the bustling CBD in downtown Jo’burg...in his car that was stolen and miraculously recovered a year later, with a bullet hole in the back. There are some fifty thousand Ethiopians in this city, apparently. We idled in a few stores before heading into the unnamed restaurant on the third floor of what used to be a key medical practitioners’ building in the city. There at a plastic table in a cosy, clean, wood-panelled room probably once used by an expensive medical consultant, we indulged in fabulous Ethiopian food for the princely sum of R25.

I bought Ethiopian coffee on the way out, and then we tussled with the traffic and the taxis before heading to Sandton for the annual Joburg Art Fair. What a juxtaposition it was after Little Ethiopia: I could have been in London. The young, the artsy and the metrosexuals were all out and about, and the quality of the art was high. I bought a hot chocolate halfway for the same price as my entire Ethiopian lunch, and people-watched from the comfort of a large black sofa, as if I were at Tate Modern...