Collecting rubbish suits bag-man David
Smile a day keeps the hunger at bay
THE BAG MAN IN A SUIT
FOR A LONG time now, I’ve been irritated by a chap who dresses in a suit, tie and blindingly white shirt, who often appears on the corner of Bryanston Drive and Main Road at my car window, carrying a plastic refuse bag.
He is better dressed than the Minister of Finance Malusi Gigaba and just as cool. As he moves down the row of cars, he does an absurd little jig, while with a huge smile pointing at you as if encountering an old friend, and looking as though, given the chance, he would high-five you if you just threw some rubbish into his bag.
I am not sure what it is, but the more a street person annoys me, (the Juggler springs to mind), the more I want to find out what makes them tick. So, despite my vexed reaction to his cabaret, and telling people he is one person I will never interview, I stop and chat to him.
“Hi, my name is David,” I say by way of getting the ball rolling. He gives me a smile and says: “Me too.” Weird.
It turns out David Nkopane, 33, is from Lesotho. His motive in coming to South Africa was, predictably, to find a job. When he first got here he worked on a building site. After the job finished he worked in the security industry. “Putting in alarm systems and electric fences.
“After four years all the jobs finished and I came to the robots.”
This was in 2005. “How did you choose rubbish collecting as something to do?” I ask him.
“I was struggling – I don’t have a parent here or someone to help me, so I must do what I can to survive. But I can’t just ask for money; so I take people’s car rubbish to do something for them.”
I ask how he felt when he first started.
He laughs and says, “I was scared…when I looked at the people I just wanted to get away.
“But little by little, it got better. And also I found when I took rubbish and they said they don’t have change and I used to say ‘no problem’, the next time they would give me money.”
“What do you do with the rubbish?”
“I put it in the bin and when it is full, Pikitup come and collect it,” he says.
I then ask him about my pet peeve. “When did you start doing your little dance as you walk down the cars?”
He smiles at me, obviously assuming I am a fan.
“Not long time now. But I think people see I am clean and smart and I am friendly, so a lot of them smile at me and give me money. Often they say, ‘You so happy’ and they give me food and even sometimes clothes and money.” Then he laughs and says, “Ay, but some of them say, ‘Why you want money? You too smart’ or they tell me ‘F. . . off ’.”
He seems to think this is a perfectly acceptable reaction. I ask him if it bothers him.
“No,” he says, “I am always smiling and happy. I don’t know what happens in their lives, so I just smile and move on.”
He does seem cheerful by nature; every now and then while chatting to him he laughs and rarely stops grinning.
Maybe he thinks I’m not convinced, so he adds, “Even when I’m together with my wife at home, I like to smile. It is the way God built me. The people in our township say I’m always smart and happy.”
David lives with his wife in a room in Diepsloot, for which he pays R350 a month. It costs him R30 a day for transport and on a good day he can earn anything from R250 to R400. But he emphasises that is on a good day.
I also suspect he is exaggerating, because as we chatted he hadn’t ear ned anything. It seems, although he mostly gets by, there are times he can’t afford the rent.
“Then what do you do?” I ask.
“Sometimes I go and talk to the people and they help me.”
I gather this means they give him an extension.
He has identical twin boys, Thabo and Thabang, who are five years old and stay with their mother in KwaZulu-Natal.
“When you see them,” David says, “you know they are my boys – they are like me.”
I ask him how he gets on with their mother who is not his wife. “No, she is good. When I phone her and she is near to them, she always makes them talk to me.”
He says he would like to see more of them, but it depends on money. However, he talks to them every day. Although they are identical, apparently they are different in nature.
“The one is like me and the other one is like my younger brother,” he says.
I then ask about a typical day for him.
He wakes at 5am and puts water on to boil, then goes back to sleep until it does. At that point he gets up and washes and sometimes eats; but often doesn’t, as he says he isn’t usually hungry then. Around 7am he heads off to catch a taxi to get to Bryanston Drive.
“What do you do about eating during the day?” I ask.
“Some people give me food,” he says. “Sometimes a pie or a sandwich or fruit. But other times, if I have money I buy something at the garage like bread or chips. And there is a guy from Mount Street who always brings me an apple and some water. If we are short of food at home I keep it to share with my wife. I don’t have friends – she is my friend. At night if we have food, she cooks for me.”
He is quite philosophical and even though he tells me life in Diepsloot is not easy, and if one is not careful it can be dangerous; he is remarkably phlegmatic about his lot. He doesn’t complain about anything.
It has often crossed my mind while waiting in my car for the lights to change at his corner, he could do better than spend his meagre earnings on smart clothes. As if reading my mind, he volunteers that they have all been given to him. He has four suits. Originally none of which fitted him, but the tailors of Diepsloot altered them.
The suits are dry-cleaned (in Diepsloot) at R80 a time whenever he can afford to. His wife washes and irons his shirts.
I return to his motive for dressing so smartly to collect rubbish. “If I am to get a job, I must look clean and smart. If you are dirty and badly dressed no-one will employ you,” is his simple rationale.
David’s biggest wish is to get a permanent job as a gardener. For the first time since we had begun talking, he stopped smiling and said quietly: “A fulltime job would be life-changing for me; and I love gardening.”