Papy practises his philosophy

Smelling nice and smiling works wonders for car guard

‘BONJOUR, comment ça va?” I say. A melodious voice replies, “Tres bien, et tu?”

Having exhausted my French, I arrange in English to meet my interview subject for this week who is Papy Kitenga, 37, from Kinshasha in the DRC. He has been introduced to me by Denise, Chris and Stompie’s guardian angel.

Papy arrived in South Africa in 2003. He left his homeland because of the war, but also because his father had died, and he simply couldn’t see a future for himself there.

On arriving in Joburg, he stayed with a cousin and soon managed to secure a job as a car guard, in Alberton.

“It was difficult,” he says in an accent, reminiscent of Peter Sellers’s Inspector Jacques Clouseau, in the Pink Panther movies, “as in the beginning I couldn’t speak any English”.

I ask him how he dealt with that. “Oh, I quickly learnt the important things to say, like Hello Boss or Madam, and Thank you, Boss.” He smiles. “But South Africans are very good,” he adds, “if you mispronounce a word, they help you say it correctly. The French just laugh at you if you make a mistake. Although everyone – and quite often kids – would help me.”

I ask if he ever had any problems with xenophobia. “Never,” he says. “But I think it depends on where you stay and where you hang out; but I have no problems with people because I am from DRC.”

“What did you do if people asked you questions?” I ask. He laughs. “I just used to say, ‘Yes’ to anything I didn’t understand, which was everything. Occasionally it got me into awkward situations.”

Papy is a good-looking young man who never stops smiling. He is well-groomed and, despite his accent, very eloquent, stumbling only occasionally while searching for a word, with the occasional interjection of an “Ow you say?”

He worked in Alberton for a few months and then got “promoted” to work in Malvern. “There I tried to make everyone my friend,” he says, without any conceit. He worked for about two years in Malvern, and then got asked – not sure by whom – to work in Bassonia, at the Comaro View Shopping Centre, where he has been ever since.

“By then I had worked out I had to be clean, dress properly and smell nice…”

I interrupt, “Smell nice?” He roars with laughter, “Yes – sometimes people would hug me.” I was just contemplating how improbable hugging a car guard is in the list of the many unusual things I might do in my life, when almost as if he had scripted it, Papy stood up to greet a passing shopper, who yes, you guessed it, hugged him. Well, I never.

At this point let me note, for the whole time I chatted to the charming Frenchman, almost without exception, every person – black, white, young or old, single or couple – who walked past our table greeted him with obvious delight. At first, he kept introducing me, until I suggested perhaps he shouldn’t, as we would never get finished. Back to our chat.

Papy then tells me how it wasn’t easy when he first got here. “When I came here it was a little difficult. It depends on your aspirations. When you first work, you think R100 is a lot of money.

“But later, when you have a bigger responsibility, then you need to work harder because you need more than that and R100 now looks so small. So, I started to talk to every customer and make them not forget me. I soon learnt people can say yes today, but no tomorrow. However, if you are nice to them, eventually they talk to you.

“Also keep smiling,” and he smiles broadly, “it is something you can’t lose in your life. If you lose smiling in your life, you lose everything,” and he laughed as if he had just made a joke. He really is a genuinely cheerful chap.

“So how did the guards who were already here react to you when you arrived?” I ask.

“The other guards are like us – we are all humans. But there are people who are happy when they see you going up and there are others that are not. They are happy when you are going down. So, I am dealing with them in that way.

“Some said to me never give up; others wouldn’t even talk to me,” he laughs. “If you have the same vision as me we can be close. If not, there is no chance,” and for once he looks serious.

Papy then tells me that the whole time he was car-guarding he was learning to play the guitar. “With my first money in South Africa,” he says, “I bought a guitar. It was R450.” Apparently since he was a child he has sung, but he only learnt to play music once he got to Joburg.

(In the meantime, he had brought his girlfriend down from the DRC and married her. He has three children; two girls and a boy – the eldest is 9 years old.)

“After I had learnt to play the guitar I wanted to make a CD, so I found a studio in Braamfontein. But it took a very long time because now I had to look after a family, and I wasn’t earning too much money. Eventually we got it finished and I started selling them here in the car park, in between directing cars.”

It seems at this stage someone in the centre suggested he bring his guitar and play, rather than car-guard. “I thought about it and I realised if one wants to be successful you must give air to your God-given talent, and mine was music.” Then, with a lop-sided grin, he adds, “not car-guarding.” More laughter.

Papy now busks on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Through his busking he sometimes gets asked to play at weddings or parties. He has assembled a group for these, which he calls the Never Give Up Team. They play mainly gospel music in English and French, and they also play what he quaintly terms, “encouragement music”, in English, which is motivational.

“I would love to hear this music in all the hospitals in the country,” Papy says, “so that people who are sick and unhappy can get the message; even if things are bad now, they

If you have the same vision as me, we can be close. If not, no chance

must never give up, because they have beaten similar things before in their lives.”

I ask him if he ever gets depressed. “Oh, in everybody’s lives there are ups and downs,” he says, not smiling for a change, “but it is like a pregnant woman who feels pain and realises she is giving birth. She knows the pain is worth it because something good is going to come out of the pain. She can’t just give up because it hurts.”

I love his homespun philosophies. The last deep thought he leaves me with is, “In life people should focus. Look at the fish in the sea – they are not disturbed by the noise of the ocean, because they are focusing on the things that are important to them.”