Sunday in Joberg

The skyline of Johannesburg was to my left as I walked down the median of the expressway, only a foot away from speeding freeway traffic.  Leading us (me and my new Aussie friend from Philly), like a metro transit Moses, was a legendary pastor from Soweto.  As our hastily assembled trinity carefully tiptoed through traffic, I was I was trying to stay as close to the guardrail (which was taking up 2/3 of the four foot wide raised curb area separating three lanes of traffic on each side) as I could.  I thought to my self, “How exactly did I get here?”  The specific cause was a burst radiator hose that had overheated the car we were riding in, but the day was far more complex than that. 

The day had started like each of the days I had spent in South Africa so far with a nice breakfast in the hotel reception area.  After a brief walk, I met up with a friend to drive from Pretoria to Johannesburg to visit a family that is “practicing neighborliness” through intentional living in the core of Joberg in the Hillbrow neighborhood. (1)  When we arrived in Hillbrow neighborhood was bustling, even for a Sunday morning.  The city center of Pretoria, where I have been staying, has energy, but the energy in Hillbrow was megawatt!

We were met in the lobby and led up to the flat by the son of our friends.  Once inside we talked while enjoying coffee and tea while making a plan for the day.  That plan was to tour Joberg and then head out to Soweto later in the day.  Soon we were on the porch learning about the broken buildings that surround their flat.  One building is oozing sewage into the street because the owner is mixing storm water and swage in order to avoid fixing the system.  A couple of days before I had learned about the inhuman living conditions, even more inhuman eviction practices, and high rents of these apartments which are packed with black South Africans as well as immigrants and refugees from across Africa.

In the car we took a tour of the city center of Johannesburg and eventually arrived at the Jetha’s Laundry.  The owner is a blind Zimbabwean man (2) who had begged in the streets for eight years before he, along with some help, started this laundry.  In a past life he held a Masters Degree in Education but was forced to flee his homeland as an economic refugee.  He invited us to his home, just a few blocks away so we could meet his children and sister-in-law who watches them children since he lost his wife to cancer last year. 

Back in the car we drove the couple blocks to a building the locals call “super quick” after the giant advertising sign mounted to the front of it.  The real name of the building is The City Hives.  We run into Jetha’s sister-in-law out front of the building pushing a cart full of sodas headed to the second floor.  The sodas are loaded into the car trunk and we enter the building.  The building appears to be an old factory.  The layout is three vast open floors built like a parking ramp.  My Philly friend described the situation inside the building as “dystopian future meets horror film.”  The landlord has erected on the second and third floors a series of rooms that rent out for around 6200 rand ($450 US dollars) a month.  The rooms are hastily constructed with thin drywall walls, cardboard ceilings with electric lights dropped through holes with wires exposed.  The rooms have no water or sanitation both of which are available in common rooms on each level.  As we carry in that sodas and bring them to a steel barred door.  I, at first, think we are bringing them to a storeroom before quickly realizing that this was their shop and home.  People live in these half-built rooms!  We are invited in to see their home.

The space has recently been expanded to two rooms and houses two small children, one teen and one adult.  The total space was twelve or fourteen feet long and six feet wide with the store alone being a six by six foot space that was the families home before the recent renovation - which was simply a crude door cut through the wall into the adjacent room.  The sleeping room was simple with a mattress on the concrete floor, a TV in the corner with a Christian book on top, and the rest of their earthly possessions.  The shop held two refrigerators, one of which was recently acquired (a clear source of pride), and shelves floor to ceiling loaded with staple items like rice, cooking oil, matches, and other necessities.  On a shelf near the door was a small orange machine that was another new addition.  That machine is used to sell airtime for mobile phones and does a brisk business.  Standing in this closet sized store we chat about school, how well the store is doing, and passport issues.  Then we are offered a snack.  A bottle of Lemon-Twist is pulled from the refrigerator and poured into foam cups. A package of lemon biscuits is taken from the shelf as the teenage daughter exclaims with pride and a huge smile on her face, “They're from Zim!” (3)  As we stand in a circle holding our foam cups and biscuit I am happy that I have skipped the communion service earlier in the morning with others from the conference to be a part of this communion.

Once we leave The City Hives we continue our tour of Joberg and arrive back at our friends flat in Hillbrow after a stop at the super market to grab supplies for lunch.  Once back in the apartment our host expressed “no one should have to live like that.”  He is right.  “super quick” is as inhuman as it was scary. 

Following lunch we leave to meet up with a local pastor to tour Soweto.  In Soweto the strange day continues.  After the pervasive poverty that we had witnessed all day we drive by a huge soccer stadium built for the 2010 World Cup on the way to Nelson Mandela’s house.  The street on which Mandela’s house is found is the most tourist focused place I have been in South Africa.  While the commercialization of this revered space is weird, it is not nearly as unsettling as the fact that Vilikazi street (4) was chocked with cars, many of which were very high-end.  The tourist busyness, commercialism and the upper class black community that now lives in that section of Soweto created an conflicted experience considering the struggle that Mandela’s House seeks to bear witness to.

Back in the car we are taking our Soweto tour guide pastor to his appointment across town.  As we drive on the express way the car begins to overheat.  Soon we are standing overlooking the city of Joberg on a highway overpass as cars wiz by and trucks shake the bridge violently as they pass.  My Philly friend looks at me and says, “Well this is a fitting end to this day.”  Soon we will be headed out into the traffic…on foot. 

Joel K

(1)   These folks are doing amazing work living in an area many a fearful to go into. 

(2)   A large group of blind from Zimbabwe who have made there way to South Africa.    

       The "super quick" building has a number of blind residents.

(3)   The residents of “super quick,” estimated at 2,000 or more people, are nearly all 

        economic refugees from Zimbabwe.
(4)   This street also is home to Bishop Tutu’s home.  It’s the only street in the world that  

        can boast that it has had two Nobel Prize winners.