The Journey Of The Doritos Bag

 

December 20th marked my 100th day in South Africa,  and it was one of my best days yet. Lucy and I met up with a friend, Busisiwe (aka Busi), from the Teddy Bear Clinic, in Johannesburg’s CBD (aka ‘town’). Busi brought a bag of Doritos to snack on as we went on an adventure, but we never ate them, the bag just traveled with us. Town is beautiful from afar...from the highway you can see the Nelson Mandela Bridge and the Telecom Tower, and it looks lovely. In a small section of town there’s Maboneng, aka Arts on Main (a really artsy part of town with restaurants, art galleries). It is a really chill area that has a lot of security (so it is populated by all races, not just black people). In South Africa areas with more security tend to be more diverse ethnically, and socioeconomically. Once you are inside town, and outside Maboneng, its image becomes blurred. There are beautiful old buildings with flawless architecture, but they are being destroyed because the people that live in them never do any maintenance or work on refurbishing them, so the buildings fall apart. As you walk through town, you go through an array of smells. You smell fish and chips, meat and corn cooking on small grills, all mixed with the smell of hardship and human feces.

The Well Traveled Doritos Bag

Busisiwe Means Blessing (which she is!) 

Town is very congested. It is filled with black people from all countries in Africa; there is the occasional Indian man selling a ‘gold’ watch or ‘designer’ bag, and you might run into a white person but the only one we saw was on drugs. My host mom, Lucy, stuck out like a sore thumb (she’s a very fair skinned Hispanic woman). She was a high focal point in the crowd.

We went into a mall to meet up with Busi and it was PACKED. It took us at least 10 minutes to get up each escalator. We assumed that everyone was Christmas shopping, but I didn’t see a lot of bags. Malls are also used as a quicker passage to get from one street to another because they are very large and cover several blocks. When we left the mall to grab some Chickin Licken we saw a guy in handcuffs surrounded by people. Busi told us that he stole a grocery bag from a lady and that he was getting punished. She said he would likely be beaten to death by the community. Lucy stated that if he had stole something else it would’ve been his fault, but the fact that he stole food means that it is the communities fault. I believe that is true in some cases, but if everyone in the community is struggling for food, it becomes less black and white. Fighting for survival, and struggling to meet the most basic needs, can make a person do desperate things; the thought is quite heartbreaking. 

Joburg CBD google.co.za

What I really appreciate about town is that everyone there is hustling. You can buy anything in town for the ‘low’. Lucy and I got the cutest wooden earrings for 15 Rand (about $1.50). People in Town have perfected the art of hustling: from Take 5’s (flavored ice) to ‘Converse’, they sell it all. I admire their consistent grind. 

Me: Can I take your picture?
(that's a Take 5 it cost R2)

We walked for about 30 minutes with our Chicken Licken and the Doritos bag until we finally reached the MTN (phone company that bought the lot) Taxi Bank, which is a really large place where most taxis gather. The banks usually smell really bad because people live in and around them. There are several different types of taxis: Quantum, Super 16, ikharakhara, and ikhumbi, are most commonly known. The differences I see are some have white with a yellow line across them, which I think are owned by one company, and others are just like normal vans but in many different colors. I have seen pink, yellow, red, and blue taxis. As we waited for the right taxi, the taxi ‘coordinator’ (a guy who has 2 phones and knows when each taxi will arrive and which one is going where) talked to Lucy in Zulu. At first he said “Sawubona, Unjani?” (hello, how are you?) she replied “good, you?” He jokingly continued to speak in Zulu, and then Busi translated for us. He asked where she was from and was very fascinated by her because of her whitish skin. Busi said people will refer to Lucy as Umulungu because of her skin and me as Americanah, once they find out where I’m from. Once we got into the taxi, we noticed it had a really decked out stereo system, but didn’t have a back window. This was actually nice because it was a 90 degree day (32 degrees celsius) and we were in a full taxi (16 people), traveling 45 minutes to a township called Kathlehong in Mailula. The taxi driver played really lively music that I jammed to during the entire ride.

Lucy And Her Take 5

 We passed people holding live chickens, people selling live goats and sheep, and women getting their hair braided on the side of the street. When we got to the township we visited a couple of Busi’s friends. I have only seen outhouses at camp grounds in America, but in the township they were behind, or in front of, almost every home. We walked about a mile and half (2.4 km) on the red dirt roads with no street signs until we got to Busi’s friend's house, where we sat and finally ate our Chicken Licken. The cutest kids ran around chasing each other and speaking Zulu. I could only communicate with one, because the others were just starting to learn English. When I first got there, the kids were eating pap. I haven’t had it in such a long time I kind of wanted to ask for some but I ate my chicken and chips (fries) instead. The Doritos bag looked like it was suffering in the heat. The bag that was once perfectly straight was crinkled and sweating. There was a baby (couldn’t have been more than a year old) drinking water out of a normal cup like a grown man. I feel like at that age if it wasn’t a bottle or sippy cup I would not have been able to function, but he handled it like a champ, and I was highly impressed. 

Coolest Kids In Kathlehong

Busi's friend was braiding her friend's hair right outside of her house, so we sat with them and had an enlightening conversation. Busi and her friend were discussing how they are frustrated because they both went to University and neither of them can find jobs. Busi’s friend said that she went to school to work in public relations but now she needs a PR license, which she doesn’t have money for right now. So she wants to find a job (even if she is overly qualified for it) just to afford to get her license, with hopes that she will find a job in PR. I find this to be really sad and unfortunate, because I see it weighing on their hope. There are no corporate jobs in a township, so they would have to travel at least 45 minutes into town, to work. A lot of jobs wouldn’t be worth the trip because of the low pay and the transportation costs. They both were volunteers at The Teddy Bear Clinic and they think that NGOs (Non governmental organizations or nonprofits) are dying in SA because of the lack of funds/funding from the government. I think that NGOs should be a bigger priority to the government, as they serve the communities directly. We also discussed the lack of dreamers in townships. Busi said that people in townships can’t dream big, by force. I understand what she means, because most townships are far from the cities and some people don’t have the money for petrol or taxi fare. It makes it hard to see yourself living in a way, or achieving anything more than what exists in the township. Her friend said that everyone has a dream, and Busi thinks their dreams are limited because they live in a township. Busi feels their situation limits their potential. Lucy added that it is generally easier to be negative during a dark moment in life. It is harder to try to be positive when all you’ve known is the negative. You become comfortable with that lifestyle. 

When we left, we walked through a big field with a red dirt plain that is most likely used to play soccer. People were constantly trying to get Lucy’s attention. They would yell out things like “I love you” and “you make the world brighter," in Zulu. People even asked if they could walk with us. One guy shouted “yellow bone”, referring to me. Most of the older people were really fascinated by Lucy, but little kids would run from her. They are not around white people while they are little, so they were more afraid. They go to school and go home in 100% black communities. 

I Feel Like The Sky Here Is Bigger 

I loved how chill Kathlehong was…there wasn’t a lot of noise, I felt safe, and it made me feel even more grateful for my journey in the motherland.