HOW SA COULD ROCK

Vilakazi Street was buzzing even though it was in the middle of the week. If only its entrepreneurial spirit could be replicated all over the country

When I first met Tim Harper during a sojourn in the US in 2011 he vowed (like many Americans I met back then) to give me a tinkle the moment he landed in Johannesburg — “Because Africa is definitely on my bucket list, brother, you can take that to the bank.”

In the ensuing years I have hosted three families I met during that time. When these friends announced themselves on landing in Johannesburg, I was not surprised — the level of intimacy was deep, cultivated over a year in which we were all on the same academic programme at Harvard.

With Tim it was different. I met him at a pub. Plastered out of his mind, he insisted on buying me two doublewhisky sodas. Though I was grateful for the drinks (booze is expensive in the US) — I was not sure I wanted to be friends with him.

A blue-collar fellow from the Irish part of Boston, he punctuates every sentence with a four-letter word. The scars on his face tell a thousand tales. We bumped into each other again a week later, at a jazz show. This time I bought him a drink. He repeated what he’d said: “Africa is on my bucket list so you better be ready to receive me sooner rather than later.” I gave him my SA mobile number, convinced he’d never use it.

Imagine my surprise when Tim’s voice, which I recognised immediately, boomed in my ear last week. He’d already been in Cape Town, indulging in the cornucopia of the winelands — “Fred, why didn’t yer ever tell me about your beautiful winelands, you useless **** ?” After Cape Town, he’d gone to the Kruger Park, to view the Big Five. “Now, take me to Sowaydo. Can’t go back home without laying my eyes on Mandela’s ’hood, now can I?”

I fetched him from his Sandton hotel. To rattle him a bit, I took him to Alexandra where we spent an hour at a shebeen. “Sheeit, my friend, 25 years after liberation and your people still live like this? This is the kinda stuff that can cause revolutions in some countries. I haven’t seen a single white beggar since I got here. Something wrong with this picture.”

When we got to Soweto I took him to Diepkloof Extension, where some houses are more beautiful than many in Sandton. Tim was a bit confused. “This is the ghetto?” I took him to the Hector Pieterson Museum and then, finally, Vilakazi Street. First to Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s house then Mandela’s house, which is now a museum. Exhausted, we sat down for dinner at Sakhumzi.

The place was buzzing even though it was the middle of the week. We settled down at the buffet, loading our plates with samp, ting (sour porridge favoured by the Batswana), vegetables, tripe, chicken feet, boerewors, lamb stew — the works. Tim stuttered with incredulity: “All this for R150? Are you kidding me?”

He couldn’t get enough of our local beer. At one sitting, he had five Castles. I was heartened that the Vilakazi Street precinct, which I hadn’t visited in a year, is still rocking — even in mid-week.

If only the entrepreneurial spirit of Vilakazi Street could be replicated all over the country. People who work at the various establishments in the street earn lots of money and, in turn, feed thousands of dependants. And it’s a damn good place to be.

Tripe, chicken feet, boerewors, lamb stew — we had the works. Tim stuttered with incredulity: ‘All this for R150? Are you kidding me?’

Sakhumzi

★★★★

6980 Vilakazi Street, Soweto, Johannesburg Tel: 011–536-1379

★★★★★ Cyril Ramaphosa

★★★★ Bheki Cele

★★★ Adriaan Nieuwoudt

★★ Eskom

★ Rapster Mampintsha