Opportunity
JOBURG CITY, where all the worst and best of human traits are found, where it is rare to get a virtual white tulip of love or a decent chat without entering the spoiler territory of upsetting people.
You hardly finish a sentence before you re unjustly pilloried.
’ It s all serviceable hatred and
’ perfunctory greetings, suspicion and paranoia. Everyone finds solace in their own tribes.
The city peaked in 1990s as a metropolitan, to become seedy and dangerous in the millennium.
Have you seen Jozi lately walked the inner city, checked its deadly crevices and ventured downtown to see the mess, the rough edges?
Joburg City, like Sophiatown, brings tears to old eyes.
We took off to find out what it means to be in Jozi in its visual chaos and multiculturalism.
Noord Street Taxi Rank is still a patriarchal space. It never changes. It is as vile as it was in the 1990s, with mob justice applied almost every day.
They had a guy the other night whipped lekker with sjamboks for stealing from a store.
Another man was beaten up that night and bounced off a wall by hangers-on after he beat up his wife on Goud Street.
Jerry Mofokeng (not related to the actor and playwright) calls it Emzini we Zinsizwa.
It s only here that you can “’ learn to respect culture, its people and, more importantly, to respect women. Just touch a woman and see what will happen to you. They take abuse of women “seriously, he says. Just the other
” “day a guy klapped his woman in full glare of the taxi drivers. The next thing we knew they “were on him like a pack of lions. You can t do anything wrong and
’ not be reproached by taxi drivers. Even littering is a serious crime.”
You will have to be an observer to decode or figure out Joburg s
’ physiognomy, we are told.
The city keeps changing and spawning its own brand of criminals, con artists, mobsters and clever dicks. Nothing is static.
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Nothing is given. Everyone has some self-referential humorous and sad stories about this city. And it s still a honey pot for
’ douche bags. You get hustled for everything thy brother comes with
–“subtlety to take away thy blessing ”. Unless you re dragged in by
’ some morbid curiosity, Joburg will remain a mystery, a story you read on newspaper front pages.
For some it can be stifling.
Gloria Khan is a young woman who does hair on Kerk Street. I work for these guys who “make lots of money and pay me close to nothing,” she says. For every head I touch I get “R5 commission, depending on the style and the time it takes me. When I ask for an increase “they threaten to fire me.”
Jeppe, Pritchard and Von Wielligh streets are a haven for Ethiopi- ans, Senegalese, Nigerian and Bangladeshi traders.
Right on the corner of Jeppe and Von Wielligh is Lancet Hall, a high rise building, a time bomb waiting to explode.
It is owned by Ethiopians. It is hazardous, filthy and if it were to collapse no one would survive.
Inside this 12-storey building is a mall. Everything wearable and eatable can be found here.
Salem, a tall young man, sells jeans, shirts and shoes, like everyone in this mall. He pays R7 000 rent a month for his 3 X 2m stall. The rent depends on which “floor your business is,” he says. On the 5th floor the rent “ranges from R3 400 to R5 000, depending on the space. The ground floor is the most expensive because it is easily reachable.
Life is good. I cant complain. “We make our money. The only problem I have about Joburg is the cops. I can t stand the prejudice."
’ You can take a chance on the 7th floor and visit Mandi Café, an Ethiopian restaurant that serves the best food in town, according to