Walking on Jozi’s wild side

Ilove Joburg. There, I said it. Now say I’m out of touch. I loved it as a child, visiting with my parents, feeling fancy. I loved it when I was a teenager, trailing the Smal Street Mall with my friends, ogling fashion we couldn’t afford before blowing our budget on a shared plate of chips.

I loved it in my clubbing days, when Hillbrow was wild, but not the wild west.

I loved it when The Citizen’s offices were based in a crumbling building in Doornfontein in 1998, and I bought lollipops from the spaza shop.

I loved it when, in 2003, I drove Himself’s Irish mother through the streets on a Saturday afternoon: the crowds, the colour, the wide-eyed lady in the passenger seat clutching her jewellery.

I loved it from above, having high tea at the Westcliff.

I loved it from the side on the sandwich highway, looking into this slice of African Manhattan.

I loved it last year, visiting Ponte for the first time since 1991.

I love it to this day, thrilling as it appears on the horizon on the N12 from the East Rand, seeing the miner statue, still holding his rock high, filled with pain and triumph.

I love how a new generation is reclaiming it, multicoloured, marvellous, drinking gin under crumbling Art Deco edifices on Saturday afternoons.

And then, last Sunday, I loved it in a whole new way: I loved it because I took my lily-white self, together with friends, into Soweto, and there we tapped into the energy that feeds Jozi.

White people reared on apartheid, sheltered, suffocated, thought it was us and them, we had learned through osmosis we had much to fear. We did not. Instead, led by a trendy local, we had a brilliant day. From dusty Kliptown to Madiba’s leafy Vilakazi street, from the cooling towers to the wide pavements, from the rocky koppies to the stretches of green parklands, we loved it.

At worst, we attracted mild curiosity, these four white women stomping the streets.

Mostly, we were hugged, handshaked, sharp-sharped, shosho’ed and sanibonani’ed.

Yes, Joburg has its problems, as any major city in the world.

No, I’m not so blind as to think it’s Utopia, but now, more than ever, I am not so deluded as to believe it’s hell.