I've come to this space ... and I'll admit it's a tad uncomfortable. It's like visiting a house you once lived in many years before .. where the floor boards now creek a little too loudly for comfort and something scurries off away in the corner. You want to peek around but are concerned about getting dust all over yourself ... So as I bring out a mop and a bucket, let me tell you a tale.
I've moved. From Kenya to S.A. with love. I'm in Johannesburg (can't quite bring myself to call it Jozi ... makes me feel like I'm trying to sound hip!) I've been here for little less than a month, and am quite frankly enjoy it. To be fair, I haven't seen too much of it, but enjoying it, I still am.
The most captivating thing so far about the place must be the people. Every day I meet someone new who tells me something that makes me wonder .. Let me take you through a couple encounters & I'll let you judge for yourself.
LADY 1
I'm at work, seated at my desk, typing away and basically minding my own business. Three workmates come by; 2 guys I know accompanied by a lady I haven't met. They're engaged in animated conversation so I just carry on earning my bread & butter. At some point the lady turns to me, gives me the once over and asks the boys; "Who's this?". She's not what one would describe as soft spoken, so much as the boys turn away, scandalized by the impolite form the query has taken and not sure what to do, I'm also unable to pretend that I haven't heard her. I urn and look t her. When she realizes that she won't get any response from the boys, she turns to me (.. in not too friendly a way, I might add) and asks, "So who are you?".
I laugh. I can't help it but burst into laughter. The hilarity of the scene is more than I can take. And over the next 30 minutes, she and I engage in animated conversation, where the only personal details we leave out about ourselves are our birth certificate numbers! The boys don't get it. We feel them questioning "what just happened here?". That's Johannesburg..
GUY 1
On my very 1st day while still scared of the big-bad-world with its xenophobic fame, I wonder into a take-out store for a meal and am just stumped at the sheer volume of options. It's one of those outlets where you create your own meal by choosing the different ingredients that would go into making it while noting that 3 pieces of beetroot will cost you 2 rand to the power of 2x (and I mean, if I wanted to make my own meal I'd have just done that at home!). A cleaner guy comes out ... all smiles and making no effort to hide the fact that he's flirting with me. He's very polite; abandons his duties to help me figure out what to eat and I thankfully go with his meal suggestion. He then engages me in idle but conversational chit chat until my meal is ready and bids me farewell.Very homly but very friendly. If you wonder why this guy makes it into this piece, just think of the last conversation you had with a cleaner in Kenya and now imagine them trying to dart you. Yeah. Jo'burg.
GROUP 1
Minding my own business while at a shopping mall, I'm in the clothes section trying to pick out something nice for my friend's daughter. I've picked out what must be 13 things that she would probably love and am in the process of returning the excesses (to narrow them down to 2) when I hear what sounds almost like a falsetto war cry .. "MA'AM! MA'AM! It's wet!" Startled out of my reverie, I realize that it's me she's addressing. I take a moment to look around getting my bearings and that's when I see that she's mopping the floor. I was about to step onto a section that she had already cleaned. The only thing more fierce than a black South African woman mopping a floor is a mother Cheetah taking care of her cub. Eish! (as they would say it here). And I've seen it in the office too ... It's like a whole reason, on it's own, to motivate for gun control. That woman wouldn't blink as she shot you for stepping on her pristine floors! Jozi truly!
When all is said & done,
I think I could get used to this place.
