Building a New South Africa (excerpt)
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Transcript of Building a New South Africa (excerpt)
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Contents
Map of Sophiatown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ix
Introduction to the US Edition
David Thelen and Karie L. Morgan . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Chapter 1: Getting Acquainted with
Neighbours on the Block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Block Group Meeting – Good and Gold
Streets – 7 June 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Block Group Meeting – Bertha Street –
24 June 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Chapter 2: Visualising a Shared Place
and Making a Shared Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Good and Gold Streets – Photovoice
Discussion – 28 June and 15 July 2009 . . . . . . . 23
Bertha Street – Photovoice Discussion –
19 July 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Chapter 3: Making Family around Mealtimes . . . . . 57
Remembering Family Mealtimes:
A Conversation among Sophiatown
Cooking Club Members –
15 October 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Glimpses of Cooking in Sophiatown . . . . . . . . .65
Comment – Challenges of Modern
Mealtimes: Reflections by René
Lombardi – 11 October 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Comment – Making Food and Heritage:
Reflections by Tshepo Letsoalo –
13 September 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Chapter 4: Becoming Neighbours and
Creating Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Raising a Family with Neighbours: A Workshop – 23 May 2012. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
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Comment – Getting to Know Neighbours
and Choosing a Neighbourhood:
Reflections by Sebastian van Rayne –
25 November 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Comment – Overcoming Barriers to
Become Better Neighbours: Reflections
by Noeriena Hendricks –24 November 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Keeping your Family Safe: A Workshop
– 19 May 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Encountering and Helping People in
Distress: A Conversation among Young
People – 9 October 2010 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Comment – Growing Up and Helping
Others: A Conversation between TwoSisters – 8 November 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Comment – Making a Difference in your
Community: Reflections by Noeriena
Hendricks – 18 November 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Comment – Helping South Africans in Need:
Reflections by Charles Kwasi Asare –
9 November 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Chapter 5: Experiencing Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Living over Half a Century in a Changing
Sophiatown: A Conversation with Long-time
Residents – 8 November 2011 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Struggling with Memories of Triomf and
Sophiatown: A Conversation between a
Mother and Daughter – 3 August 2009 . . . . . . 136
Comparing Sophiatown and Westbury:
A Conversation across Generations –
27 October 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
New Choices and Responsibilities in the
New South Africa: Conversations among
Toby Street Residents – 27 June and
4 August 2009 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Encountering and Overcoming Shifting
Barriers through the South African
Transition – Reflections by Erica Moumakwa –
29 October 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Exploring New Ways of Relating in theNew South Africa: A Conversation with
a Couple from the Old South Africa –
10 May 2012 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Contemplating Ways toward a
New South African Future: A Visit to
a Mysterious Room – 4 October 2012 . . . . . . . 160
Epilogue Pastor Desmond Sheik . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
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Getting Acquainted with
Neighbours on the Block
On a Sunday afternoon, 7 June 2009, 13 residents
of the southern end of Good and Gold streets
came together in a park that joined their two streets
to discuss how they could get to know each other bet-
ter and how together they might build a community
on their streets that could better meet their needs.
Seventeen days later, on the evening of 24 June 2009,
13 residents of Bertha Street convened at the nearby
NG Kerk to discuss the same concerns.
The two meetings were the first fruits of a collabora-
tion between University of Johannesburg organisers
and Sophiatown residents. The initial meeting was or-
ganised by Judi Bennett and Clement Baai, residents
of Good Street, and Dave Thelen and Tom Chapman,
then coordinators of field work for the UJ Sophiatown
Project. Judi and Clement distributed fliers inviting
their neighbours to the Good and Gold streets meet-
ing. Tom and Dave approached residents of BerthaStreet as they arrived home from work in the evenings
and invited them to the Bertha Street meeting. The
organisers told residents that the conversations would
centre on what people liked and disliked about life i
Sophiatown, how they wanted to reshape that life an
how they could get to know their neighbours better.
When the conversations began, few of the participan
knew each other. Some had lived for decades in Soph
atown. Others had moved there quite recently. Wit
Dave facilitating, the conversations revolved aroun
concerns about getting to know neighbours bette
and making a difference in shaping the community
future. Residents took the conversations in several di
ferent directions. Some spoke of their intimate hope
and fears about staying here. Others referred to ho
personal experiences in the nation and Sophiatow
had shaped their perspectives on life here. The
brought up experiences and perspectives they share
as well as those they disagreed about. But by the en
of both two-hour meetings, most participants said tha
they felt that the conversations had brought themcloser together and they looked forward to carryin
this further at future meetings.
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Block Group Meeting
Good and Gold Streets
7 June 2009*
* This conversation happened in the park where Good and Gold streets join. Participants included: Dave Thelen, Tom Chapman, Judi
Bennett, Sarel van der Berg, Mrs van der Berg, Earl, Elise, Clement Baai, Mervyn Naidoo, Bashni Naidoo, Bettie Pretorius, Pieter Blignaut,
Malie Moodliar and Renate van Gruenen.
Dave Thelen: You’ve been talking with each other in
small groups. Can you report now what you discussedin your group about what struck you as important
when you were thinking about moving or leaving here,
what you like about life here, what is less attractive?
Judi Bennett: Sarel, you and I have just about had the
entire discussion without the microphone so we will
have to start over again.
Sarel van der Berg: We moved in here about 1973. It’s
a beautiful place to stay in. You could go to the shops
and leave your door open. We did leave it open andnothing happened. Triomf was Telkom’s area. Most of
First meeting of Good and Gold streets block group
Elise and Clement in smallgroup conversation
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the blokes in Telkom stayed in Triomf. Other owners
were the police and bus drivers.
Elise: Clement and I spoke about how long we both
have lived here and what we would like to see in the
area, like a community centre – a recreation place for
kids, adults, a library, that type of thing – where you
don’t have to go out of the area to other areas to en-
joy those facilities, but you can actually have it in the
area.
Dave: And were there things you specifically liked
here?
Clement Baai: We came from different areas. I said to
Elise that my reasons for moving here were number
one, affordability, number two, the place is very cen-
tral. It’s quite safe. Look, there are some incidents, we
heard about a few incidents, but it’s quite safe. And
then also the history of this place.
Dave: What do you mean by that?
Clement: Look, we know how Sophiatown happened.
We know it was Sophiatown first, Triomf, then again
Sophiatown. We know about the Miriam Makebas,
the Desmond Tutus. We know that this was the area
where all the races lived together. And I just found
out a few years ago that my house was a photo stu-
dio. We never knew, you understand. I was saying that
you guys are walking on holy ground here. We know
that Meadowlands people are coming from here. A
certain part of Westbury and Newclare was born out
of Triomf/Sophiatown. So I was saying to Bashni that
a gathering like this is good in a sense that one of my
daughters is in her son’s class. We’ve never formally
introduced each other. Today we’ve met, you under-
stand. And then through this gathering, our children
are going to benefit. When I’m not here, if Auntie Be
tie sees someone standing here in front of my gate
she should say, “Heya, what are you doing here? Clem
ent is not here. Who are you?” I just found out the lad
at the corner house passed away a month ago. I onl
found out a week after. When I went to go sympathise
the man said, “I didn’t know who to tell in the street
Which is so sad.
Dave: Does that sound familiar to others?
Mervyn Naidoo: As Clement said we feel the same way
We’ve got kids in the same class and the same schoo
but we don’t know each other. There is no commun
cation. Nobody wants to take the time to get to know
your neighbour. We are four years in this area. Wha
we found is that a lot of the white folks in the are
are unfriendly. When we greet them they don’t gree
back. It’s sad.
Judi: Well, Sarel and Bettie were talking about the ol
days when this park was a place their children played
with the little cars and etc. and what I noticed here you don’t see that any longer. Inherently we are ver
similar and we would like to live our lives as they lived i
Triomf and the areas I lived in. We have similar thing
in common. It seems that because we lived in differen
areas we have not found the common ground we have
I would also like to see the children play safely. I woul
like to see the children play in the street; and in th
same way, I would like to see what Sarel saw in the pas
happen all over again, irrespective of the colour of th
child. It just has to be the community that you want tsee, the way you remember it.
Dave: How do you remember it? The same way?
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Bettie Pretorius: The same way as it was. We lived here
now 28 years in this house. To me it’s still the same
except the children can’t play outside. And now they
can’t play rugby in the field.
Mervyn: The kids are scared of the hooligans. I
wouldn’t allow our kids out of the gates if I’m not
here. They play with the bikes on the road and it’ssafe, but if we see the hooligans on the road we take
them back in.
Clement: I was just saying to Elise about three weeks
ago I came past here and there was a group of 15
school children sitting here. Boys and girls and they
were drinking. I chased them away. The thing is they
are not even from this area. So our children can’t
come and play here. And then they have the audacity
to say to me, “It’s my money. I bought the liquor with
my money.” But the thing is, they won’t be allowed to
go and buy. They get someone else to buy it for them.
I believe that it is the car guards. These are the type
of things that we must come up against. We can’t allow
people to come and sit here. Look at this thing. Some-
one was sitting there and drinking.
Mervyn: We see it all the time. My neighbour, the pas-
tor, gets his boy and comes and cleans up and it’s not
right.
Judi: Whose responsibility is that in a sense? Firstly it’s
against the law to drink in public, so we could have
called the police. We could have had people make
sure this is a no-go area. This is a park and this is what
is allowed in a park. I think sometimes we tend to see
things but don’t take responsibility. I want to stress
the aspect, until we got to know each other, we didn’t
know who was going to do it. Now that we do know
each other we need to take responsibility for our own
area, be a bit more proactive. These things don’t need
to happen. I believe if those children know there is an
area that those aunties and uncles are going to give
you a hard time, they are going to avoid it. We take
ownership of it. As adults we shouldn’t neglect our re-
sponsibility to teach children that what you are doing
is wrong. Whether they accept it or not we still have
to try.
Mervyn: I have actually tried to do that once when
they abused the swings and they told me, “It’s not
yours, go away.” You don’t want a confrontation be-
cause the parents can shoot you.
Judi: Now you mention something about someone go-
ing to take out a gun and shoot you; and we carry on
living in this particular mindset. We also pass that on
to our children. We become more and more drawn
in, blocked in, and we are always afraid. Besides, if
the guy came with a gun, ons moer and bliksem and
donner. Take the gun away.
Sarel and his wife, Malie Moodliar and Judi in small groupconversation
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Mervyn: At the same time the neighbour doesn’t want
to take a chance either.
Judi: That’s why we need to get to know each other. It’s
not a matter of you just getting to know your neigh-
bour. It’s sometimes a matter of seeing another per-
son in the same way that you would see yourself and
treat each other in the same way that you would want
to be treated. And you find the old fashioned cliché,
respect breeds respect. By knowing each other, we get
to understand each other. Let’s go a little further.
Elise: It’s safer not to get involved but then you are
going to let things happen.
Judi: But if you teach that to your child we’re going
to eventually live in communities where everything is
bricked in. We are going to have to press our fingers to
open the gate. We will be bricked in. You might as well
close down the park area and we’re not going to do
anything about it because we’re not getting involved.
Mervyn: But the thing is we can’t do it alone.
Judi: No, I agree, and that is why we have to do it as
a forum. He spoke about so many things that we’re
not aware of. We didn’t know there was a committee
in this area. So basically what those people are doing
is absolutely nothing. We live in this particular area.
We can try to do something because they can’t. We
can try.
Judi: Yes, we can. If that’s what it takes we can.
Bettie: They closed that one alleyway there and it’s saf-
er when it’s closed.
Bashni Naidoo: So we can stop at least half of the traf-
fic from Westbury.
Judi: Okay, we will probably choose to do that as
community at another meeting and see what we ca
do with that.
Dave: So, what other things did you talk about in you
groups?
Sarel: Sophiatown has the Helen Joseph Hospita
That was a number one hospital. The first angiogram
I had was there, R45 and they kept me there for
week.
Bettie: Die was a skoon hospitaal gewees. (It was
clean hospital.)
Sarel: It was the heart transplant place, the best.
Judi: Incidentally, has the clinic finally opened?
Sarel: There seems to be a new building.
Judi: So it has.
Bashni: We also talked about the schools in the area
There is an Afrikaans school here and I think that’s i
Judi: That school has only recently introduced English instruction. They started at Grade 0. They’v
now reached I think Grade 4 with English but the res
is Afrikaans.
Sarel: One of the best things they ever had in thos
years was a dual medium. I never knew Afrikaans.
Judi: The West Rand Primary, the English medium
school, is a Seventh Day Adventist private school. No
you see a lot of people may not want their children t
go to West Rand because it’s a Seventh Day Adventisschool and they have chapel. It’s a different thing de
pending on your religion. We did let my nephew an
niece go there because we had no affiliation with an
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6 | B U I L D I N G A N E W S O U T H A F R I C A
church and we thought this would serve both purpos-
es. They could go to chapel and school. But once that
was finished then we had to take them to other high
schools.
Bashni: As you said, it wouldn’t work for our family
because of cultural differences.
Mervyn: Another annoying thing is the quad bikes in
that park. They abuse the place, make a loud noise
and damage the grass. You can’t believe it: you look at
the TV but you don’t hear what is on the TV because
of the guy on the stop street and his music. That’s ter-
rible really.
Judi: And you’re right on the corner and you get it
on both sides. My mother told me wherever you go
you don’t want a house on the corner. She told me
straight.
Dave: So did other things come up when you thought
about coming here, or when you think about leaving
here? What do you find attractive or what did you find
unattractive about this earlier place?
Bettie: It’s central. Plenty of schools.
Sarel: It’s peaceful.
Mervyn: It’s home, in the sense of family, the commu-
nity and I think security as well.
Mervyn: What I would like to see is for a lot of the
neighbours to come together. Have a picnic in the
park. Get together and get to know each other. We
don’t know each other. We’ve got a lot of older folk. Anything can go wrong with them or me for that mat-
ter. And no one wants to take the time to help. Which
is sad. We are building a community.
Judi: I was speaking to your mother-in-law because I
know the kind of community you come from. I was
talking to her and asking her just how lonely you must
be, because in your community you tend to live a lot as
a family unit. You are gregarious, you talk constantly
to each other and live together as a family and eat
together so she must be feeling exceptionally lonely.
Mervyn: Not only for her but us as well in the sense we
don’t know our neighbours. Some of the neighbours
don’t take the time to greet, yet we greet them. We
don’t even know if we see someone loitering who weshould communicate with.
Judi: Even if we did think there was something odd
about what we see someone doing, we don’t want to get
involved. That’s our problem. We don’t get involved.
Mervyn: You are creating your own home and you are
comfortable living there. There is too much invested
now. Even if we win the lotto, we will still stay there.
Clement: When we told our friends that we are goingto move here, some said, “Ja, you are moving into an
old, poor-white area.” Some of them were saying that
and I told them, “Look, number one, it’s my money
that I’m going to pay. I don’t care what you guys think,”
but I tell you three months after moving in some of my
friends came and visited and the very same ones that
had these comments asked us to look for houses for
them. They wanted to move into this area. But if you
look at it, it’s central. You may hear about odd inci-
dents, but it’s not like in the North Rand, Randburg, where you hear about hijackings, break-ins every day.
It’s really a place where your children can grow up
and you can get old.
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Bettie: Dis ’n lekker area. (This is a nice area.)
Judi: One thing that we talked about when we moved
here is that this area is close to the hospital. We need-
ed to be in a central area. We also didn’t want to be
too far away from where we came from. So we didn’t
mind that we were a street away from Westbury. We
lived in the Western area for ages, so we were just a
street away. When you talk of crime we’ve got a lot
of petty crime here that might escalate. But I think
the first thing that I noticed when I moved here was
that there was only one bottle store at the centre. Inareas where I lived before there were shebeens on
every street and a bottle store next to every church.
There were usually more bottle stores than church-
es. Sophiatown I noticed had a lot of churches and
one bottle store. The crime here is all petty crime.
It’s got a lot to do with school children. This is not a
major crime area. As you say there are areas where
they break into the cars and some people have been
shot, but in the areas where I come from, gangsterism
was common but there was a rule: you didn’t go out of your territory. You didn’t even mess in your territory
and based on the way people always live, other people
stay out. It depends on how you handle your territory
and if our young children grew up in this area and
became proud and took ownership of this area, and
we allowed them out in the street, to sit in their own
park and become comfortable, it would become theirs
as well. We are never going to get rid of my territo-
ry, your territory but at least we would have a couple
of youngsters to defend us. You need all aspects of acommunity.
Dave: So can we go around the room and each per-
son give one or two words that describe Sophiatown
to you. When you think Sophiatown, what one or tw
words do you think of?
Clement: I think Sophiatown is based on famil
values.
Elise: I think still a degree of security here.
Judi: I see Sophiatown as the future. My future. This
where I’m going to stay.
Monica: In my opinion, I’m just a few months here
well, it’s a nice place.
Sarel: When I was working, before becoming a pro
fessional loafer, this was really a central area for me
I worked in Randburg. From here it was 20 minute
each way to get to work. It was very central for me an
it was cheap. I only paid R1350, which was a lot o
money. It was half my salary in those years.
Bettie: Vir my is dit huis. Dis veilig. Ek is tuis. Ek i
geanker. (For me this is home. It’s safe. I feel at home
I’m anchored.)
Bashni: Despite the quad bikes now and then there
peace and quiet here.
Earl: Central, peace and quiet.
Mervyn: Home and security.
Renate: I would say change. We would all get to know
each other so there should be a lot of challenges.
Judi: That is one thing that people say. I forgot tha
there are not many parties in this area. It really
quiet.
Clement: At the same time you’ve got to accommo
date people.
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Judi: The unwritten rule in this area is that music
ends at 12:00.
Clement: The respect is there.
Judi: So, guess what’s going to happen. All the neigh-
bours are going to get to know each other, all the
neighbours are going to be invited to the party and
then we can party until 5:00 am the next morning be-
cause there’s nobody to complain.
Mervyn: That’s the nice thing around the festive time;
it’s nice if everybody gets together to have a party in
the park.
Bashni: You don’t even see anyone to wish them Hap-
py New Year.
Judi: I agree. We used to make a point of walking out
at midnight to greet everyone irrespective of who you
were.
Mervyn: We’ve got the facility right here. We need to
take the initiative.
Judi: We need to. And a lot of people have the most
beautiful Christmas decorations in this area. Some of
them are stunning.
Clement: I think we should have a five-a-side soccer,
some fun.
Mervyn: The kids need to have fun. We had fun as
kids.
Judi: From what I gather the ages of the children fit.
I’ve a nephew of 16, you’ve got 16 and 14, and then
you’ve got 14 and 11. The age groups fit very well.
Bashni: All they do now is just confined to the TV.
Bettie: Hulle het al square eyes. Hulle is te bang om
uit te kom. (They all have square eyes. They are too
afraid to come out.)
Judi: We also don’t let them out.
Renate: But if we have a fun day…
Mervyn: To socialise. That would be nice if the com-
munity would get together to socialise.
Bashni: I think having a sports day would be fun. We
could have a three-legged race.
Judi: Egg and spoon.
Bashni: Thread and needle.
Judi: You know what will happen on sports day, right?
The adults will have more fun and the kids will amuse
themselves at us.
Dave: Would there be interest in thinking about me-
morialising places in Sophiatown or commemorating?
Judi: Yes I think there would be as we want the chil-
dren to know, but also as you’ve discovered we know
very little of the history ourselves. We know very little
too.
Sarel: It’s true.
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Block Group Meeting
Bertha Street
24 June 2009*
Dave Thelen: Let’s begin by introducing ourselves.
I’m Dave Thelen, a history professor at UJ who’s coor-
dinating this project with another UJ researcher here,
Tom Chapman. You met us in the street when we invit-
ed you to this meeting.
Carol Grieve: Okay. My name is Carol. I moved into
Sophiatown probably about four years ago and, yes,
I’ve been part of this community for a while. I’ve got
two kids. And I’m married to Mark.
Mark Grieve: My name is Mark. I am from Australia
originally. I’ve been here for seven years in total and
we planted a church in Sophiatown at the Sparrow
School. So that’s been going for eight months now.
Desmond Sheik: My name is Desmond Sheik. I’v
lived in Sophiatown for 11 years now and have a wif
and two kids.
Louis Ngwenya: My name is Mr Louis Ngwenya. I’v
been living here I think about three or four years
This is my wife Sylvia. We’ve got seven children. Bu
they’re not children any more.
Sylvia Ngwenya: I’m Sylvia Ngwenya. I stay in Berth
Street, four years. I love it. It’s a very nice place to live
Riva: I will just do the talking for both of us. M
name is Riva and this is my husband, Braam. I wa
born here. Braam has only been here for about tw
* This meeting happened at the NG Kerk in Sophiatown. Participants included: Dave Thelen, Tom Chapman, Carol Grieve, Mark Grieve,
Desmond Sheik, Louis Ngwenya, Sylvia Ngwenya, Riva, Braam, Thea Ouwenkamp, Nazeem Heuvel, Willie van der Sandt, Peterson
Matorwa, Leminah Matorwa and Robert Mupanga.
Participants mingle after first Bertha Street meeting
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10 | B U I L D I N G A N E W S O U T H A F R I C A
years now, but ja, I was born where I’m living at the
moment.
Thea Ouwenkamp: I’m Thea. I’m staying 31 years
here. It was first Triomf and now Sophiatown.
Nazeem Heuvel: My name is Nazeem. I’m staying in
Bertha Street for 17 years now. And I came originally
from Cape Town to Joburg in 1976. I’m in the build-
ing industry.
Robert Mupanga: I’m Robert. I’m still new to the area
but I really like the place. I stay with my uncle.
Riva: But I’d like to know what everybody does. I real-
ly want to know.
Thea: I’m working at Mutual & Federal in the Ac-
counts Department, in town.
Willie van der Sandt: I buy steel for a living.
Tom: I’m a researcher and an architect as well.
Louis: I work for a shopping centre. If you come there,
we can sell you cold beer. [Laughter]
Riva: I work for Elliott Relocations. We relocate expats
from overseas back into South Africa. We find them
homes, schools, show them how things work around
here. People coming back or being repatriated by
their companies for a two year or whatever.
Braam: I work for Protea Coin Security. I’m the drop-
off manager at the Edenvale branch.
Sylvia: I work for the golf course.
Nazeem: I’m a builder. I work for myself.
Desmond: I’m a marriage counsellor for about
14 years and I’m a full-time pastor and I have my own
business also that I do.
Mark: I’m also a pastor at a community church at
Sparrow School.
Carol: I’m a pastor’s wife. Let me just think of what
I do, so yes, I’m a full-time mother. Yes, so I work 24
hours a day and I don’t get paid much.
Riva: And you get to sleep with the boss. [Laughter]
Leminah Matorwa: I am a farmer. [Laughter]
Peterson Matorwa: She does the garden at home. I am
an engineer for BP oil company. I’m an asset manager;
I look after a couple of areas in the engineering.
Dave: So, when you think about Sophiatown the way
it is now, what do you like about it? What’s the best
thing about living in Sophiatown? What brought you
to move here, whether you moved here 50 years ago
or two weeks ago?
Peterson: I moved here about two years ago. The main
thing we liked about the place was that it’s quiet. It’s
not a place where you just see people roaming oridling around. You don’t see people playing loud mu-
sic. So it’s a good place to invest in, and also the fact
that it is near the university. We have a kid going to
university and UJ’s, like, within walking distance. It’s
always nice to be close to the university.
Braam: It’s a hop and a skip anywhere; we are near the
highways, the hospital, UJ. It’s very convenient.
Desmond: I think being central, for me, and we have a
history. My granny grew up in this place. I think some-times I would give anything to live in a township. This
is like a walking time bomb sometimes. When I just
moved here I had a terrible experience. What I want
to say is sometimes being central doesn’t necessarily
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G E T T I N G A C Q U A I N T E D W I T H N E I G H B O U R S O N T H E B L O C K |
say anything about the ubuntu spirit. Being a people
that live here, you keep to yourself, you don’t bother
anybody. You keep your dogs in the yard; they keep
their dogs in the yard. The cat is in the house. You
feed your dogs, go to work and come back. That is
the life. That is how I know it. You just do your thing
and klaar. That’s it. That is my experience and I think
the way forward is going to be very exciting. After
they moved us out of the original Sophiatown and
into Westbury they caged us in like animals. But the
spirit that came out of Sophiatown went to the town-
ship where the people went. So that is what is missing
from this community now. Be it race, creed or colour,
that is what they had here and that is what’s missing
now. To me sometimes it’s like people just accommo-
date one another. I’m very interested to see what do
we come up with, to see the way we’re going to go.
Not talk about crime. I’m not here to discuss crime. I
think everybody’s had enough about that. But to talk
about creating a new history, that’s why I’m here. I’d
like to see what we can come up with.
Mark: When we moved to the area, one of the main
reasons was it was multi-racial. Being a mixed couple
it was hard to find another suburb in South Africa
that had such diversity. And it was only a few years lat-
er that we started thinking about planting a church.
Our whole purpose of planting the church, one of our
core values, was to create a multi-racial church. We
actually went to every church in Sophiatown, I think
it was 13, and we either found a black congregation
or a white congregation but very little mixing. When we asked people what sort of church would they like
in this community, a lot said they wanted a multi-ra-
cial church, which we found interesting. I think what
you’re saying is exactly how we feel as well. It would
be great to live in a place where you knew your neigh
bours and had friendships all around on the street
and people generally knew each other regardless o
race and colour.
Riva: I think to be able to move forward we need to g
back. Growing up here, I was born here and it’s bee
40-odd years. It used to be like that. I can remembe
in high school, going to Vorentoe, everybody liter
ally knew everybody else and we would visit acros
and the kids would also be at somebody’s house an
the parents knew where the kids were at any time And they would go out for walks around the bloc
or whatever. People knew one another and greete
one another. I think it’s not a question of who move
into the town or neighbourhood or who moved out.
think it’s a common thing and it’s not just Triomf o
Sophiatown. It’s a culture thing that has sprung u
amongst people who are too busy for one another
They don’t have time. We rush to work, rush home
It takes double the amount of time to go to work an
get back home. So we need to actually go back an
be able to create a new future or history. We need t
go back. Like you said ubuntu, we obviously call i
something else, but we need to go back and get tha
and bring it towards us again going forward.
Peterson: After we arrived here we went to a church
We didn’t know about the names, old name and new
name, of Triomf/Sophiatown. When I stood to intro
duce myself and the family I mentioned the previou
name. I didn’t know what it meant. I was cautione whilst I was standing that, for the sake of my security,
shouldn’t mention that previous name because it wa
like a colonial name or something. So that was the las
day we went to that church. It sort of gave us a little b
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12 | B U I L D I N G A N E W S O U T H A F R I C A
of feeling a bit of out of place, because we didn’t know,
so we just thought names were names. So that didn’t
go well with us. We later came to understand it but at
that time we felt a bit shaken.
Desmond: When I moved in here about 1994, these
guys were jumping over the wall. You think this is not
really acceptable. If you live in a time like this peo-
ple will be very careful to mess around with a black
guy. People feel that the black government is on the
black guy’s side. It’s like pins and needles. You don’t
know if you are here, Arthur or Martha. It’s sad thatit’s like that. You kind of like live most of your life in
two places, one in the township where I grew up when
the family got moved out of here way back and that is
where you have your life. You come back to Sophia-
town at night.
Desmond: One of the nicest things was when one of
my neighbours started to greet us. He is a very nice
guy. It took us five years to greet, but he’s a nice per-
son. [Laughter] We have coffee and breakfast together.
We make jokes. I really appreciate him; he’s a very
nice person. So when he’s gone, I will check his yard,
feed his dogs, open the gate for the lady. We had to
build trust. I think the trust factor has also been lost
in a sense. So one’s got to build up a confidence again
of the people.
Desmond: I taught my kids about the history of this
place. You tell the children about the good things
about it, the now and the way forward. Obviously they
are going to create a new history. We hope that theystay around and start really living together the way
they should. It’s going to be very interesting to see
what they come up with.
Dave: Has anyone had any thoughts or experience
about how to move forward?
Desmond: It’s not my daughter’s business what hap-
pened and who did what. You tell them about now.
But my eldest daughter was invited to a friend’s house
for a sleepover. They were a nice family, but they made
her sleep on the floor. You don’t have to be sleeping
on the floor. You are not the maid or something. With-
in the space of six months we tried to create a good
relationship. Let us go over there and really see if we
can make a better relationship with those people. Can we create that? It’s very difficult, I think.
Mark: I think we could organise things. Get each
other’s numbers and have Sunday lunch or braai at
someone’s place. I’d like to see a Christmas party or
something. Just get on the streets at Christmas time,
have braais and . . .
Riva: I think we just need to get out of our own co-
coons and just get over ourselves and be the first to
walk across the road and say, “Hi, this is me; I liveacross the road.”
Carol: Where you can see each other. Just the walls
kind of make you afraid.
Riva: We used to live in Roodepoort in a very small
street. I think there was about ten houses on each
side, a cul-de-sac, and we used to visit across the road
and would watch each other’s cars when there were
parties going on. There were always people. We inter-
acted. That’s not the case any more. I think that is why we are in the situation we are in now. We run home
and close the door.