Sardines in Hillbrow?
The Sardine is coming to you this week, right from the epi-centre of Johannesburg. Hillbrow to be exact!
I am here with my mate Jonny, who thought I might like the experience. He and his talented team are building and installing gym sets, for the community here.
The gym sets are really cool. Robust. Neat. Mounted on a cool multi-colored carpet made from recycled tyres. Makes me want to exercise just looking at the outfit.
But here’s the thing. There are more satellite dishes in Hillbrow, than on the whole of the south coast?! Every flat around us, has a dish. And some roofs are completely covered with the white mushrooms producing silver screen action.
“Jonny. How you gonna get these peeps off the couch man?”
Right off the park where we are stationed for the morning, is a long queue of soup kitchen hopefuls. They have been waiting – the queue growing longer, for two hours now. Patiently enough. They were interested enough.
Across the street is the corner. That corner. Strange acting fellows dressed to the nines and full of mannerisms straight out of 2-Pac’s biography. Not too much business for them yet – it is 11am only. But it is a Friday – and somebody got to pay for them DSTV channels! But they too, were having a gander. Semi-interest. “Hmmm, I seen that on TV”.
Then there are some even stranger ones cruising the street – arguing with fairies – as Jonny puts it. He says to me, “Just wait ’til the sun comes over, that’s when things really hot up! Yesterday the cops were here twice.” Ok, they not gonna be takers.
The sun has now come out…
A 30 something white lady, someone you could easily meet at the supermarket, has come out into the sun, and is injecting a clear liquid from a plastic container. Broad daylight. Her friends are all of color, she is the only other beige person here besides me and Jonny – normal to me.
Three 2-Pac types are eagerly smoking a white pipe of sorts now. They have taken crazy lady’s spot right in front of me. I am in a car behind a modern fence luckily.
The cops have made a few drive-bys. More chatty and friendly with the neighbourhood, than police.
A security guard, guarding what, I can’t see, ambled over and asked for something?! A sweet? He accepted so I opened him up to see what is inside. R1800 salary. 12 hour shifts. I asked about his boss. He smiles and says, “Beeeg money”. I try to explain that he is the victim of corruption. He smiles and says “Nooooo.” Shaking his head. I closed the conversation.
There is a lot more traffic. I am trying to type with the laptop on the floor in the footwell ha ha. But gangy looking types are assembling from all over.
Hillbrow.
This don’t look the place for kids, and there were none. But the gyms are going to be rolled out in more and more places, all over the country.
So we did our work, I wrote this story, and we loaded up and rolled out. Onlookers all over.
We turned down towards the highway system, and as we took a corner the reality all set in. An obviously foreign kid, a refugee, was sitting in his makeshift bed just off the pavement, and was simply, crying.
Egoli.
