To the shebeen queen…

Perched on upturned beer crates, the revelers at this Colesberg shebeen (a kasi speakeasy) are nearly a dozen quarts into what is unravelling to be something of a bender. It’s around 10am; eyes are drooping, speeches slurred, and the landlady – a heavy-set woman with a screeching voice – is, in language best not repeated here, intent on scooting them off. 

So as not to sully an otherwise upstanding reputation we’ll call her Madlamini, a moniker given national acclaim by enduring pop starlet Yvonne Chaka Chaka to those neck-deep in this “backdoor” trade. Cognosenti will no doubt recall that immortal chorus; “hee Madlamin’ uph’ umqombothi” (Madlamini where is my sorghum beer) belted out by a backup of men in gruff baritones, which, way back when, always got the party started.

Not unlike her colleagues; hard-line proprietors of these furtive establishments, Madlamini’s story follows a familiar theme of circumstance, personal woe and tough economic times. A quintessential leitmotif of those who know what it’s like to sleep under the kitchen table inside a house with no electricity.

It begins over two decades ago and a vivacious Madlamini is toiling for minimum wage at a local butchery. She mops the floors, cuts up the carcasses and gets on cordially with her boss. The hours are reasonable, the pay, not so much, and her family is expanding quickly. 

In her matchbox house at Bongweni Location are nine mouths to feed and the then-R100 or so monthly child income grant along with her wage packet do not get anybody very far. Her hair is graying fast, the joints are getting stiff and she is edging begrudgingly closer to the day when she will no longer be able to be up on her feet all day. 

When she knocks-off, she is turning over the idea of starting a business. But what ventures are available to an ex block-woman who’s never been to varsity? The shebeen, despite the previous regime’s repressive leanings, has been a long time coming in the township. It has raised, schooled and shipped off to college untold generations of Black youths. Snazzily-garbed township tycoons in two-toned shoes and shimmering Brentwood trousers have emerged on the back of this informal sector. 

With the influx of economic migrants post-1994, however, the informal economy has gradually slipped into outside hands. Less than 5% of the total spazas throughout the Colesberg area are run by locals. These immigrants offer competitive prices, often outdoing even the more established chain stores. Evidently it is too late for anybody to come to the rescue and leaders are only left to surrender by conceding that perhaps these migrants know more than a thing or two about running a business.

But such distant bigwig admitions don’t take stock of Madlamini’s more pressing circumstances. Her troubles for basic necessities and new school uniforms are constantly at her doorstep. “All these kids,” she says gesturing towards her grandchildren “are all being raised on beer money. If anybody says this is illegal, how about they give me a job?” 

She has never owned a vehicle, effectively ruling out a possible taxi endeavor. Still, the odds notwithstanding, this enterprising, tenacious woman has proved to be made of sterner stuff. Trying her luck, she decided to buy a few cases of beer, a kan (5litres) of hanepoot, some yeast for the brewing of homemade ginger beer and just like that, she was in business. 

The hanepoot she now peddles by the 750ml bottle, R25 a serving. A quart of beer goes for the same amount and ginger beer is R5 for a tub roughly the size of a jam jar. The profit margins are nothing to write home about – scarcely 35% – but nobody in her home is going to bed hungry. And there are always new clothes around Christmas. Oh ja…and she is also, in those moments when the hair is getting frosty and she feels like she’s getting a little too old for her liking, able to call on *Janice an equally enterprising Zimbabwean hairdresser, to sow a weave on her mop and just like that, Madlamini looks ten years younger again.

From both a legal and moral perspective, shebeens present society with inevitable consternation. For one, the lay of the land, as it were, paints a grim picture in regard to alcohol and substance abuse in the greater Pixley kaSeme district. As late as 2002, research had found that one in ten children in the nearby de Aar community suffered from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. The Northern Cape social development department has its hands full with cases of stunted growth and mental health problems amongst the youth as a result of the scurge. 

Also, owing to the underground nature of shebeens, they tend to fly stealthily below the radar of regulation and law enforcement. Naturally, this often means non-compliance to industry laws like closing time and issues around safety. Not so long ago the country woke up to the harrowing news of 22 youngsters who had died at an East London tavern. A grim, shocking incident that we are still reeling from and which has cast a spotlight on issues around underage drinking and regulation.

Be that as it may, this is South Africa – world’s most unequal society – and, according to the latest StatsSA quarterly labour force survey has an unemployment figure of 35.3% in the last quarter of 2021, a figure that has been on a steady incline. At a staggering 65.5% unemployment rate, the youth bear the brunt of the bloodbath.

Moreover, although, – at least in theory – government policy appears to be small-business-friendly, the liquor trade, even to those with significant start-up capital, is tough terrain to penetrate. The beaurocrats may talk a good game but licensing is said to be a dragging process, not to mention being exceedingly beyond the financial means of many an upstart. Homebrewing, a potential coup de grace, is only legally permitted for personal use. 

For people like Madlamini, without the finances or the benefit of time, crossing that line into illegal trading invariably means choosing between being a law-abiding citizen or starvation – a barbaric choice by any estimates. And so begins the cat and mouse that most other South Africans first experienced around the hard lockdown of March 2020. When during that period booze and cigarettes were banned as government’s heavy-handed response to the Covid-19 pandemic, shrewd shop owners and liquor traders simply took these products “under the counter.” 

Liquor items were soon sold out of cagey backrooms and dark alleyways at exorbitant prices. Overnight, a R1 loosie shot up to as much as R5. It is now common cause that during the hard lockdown liquor and spaza traders were not unlike the underground hoodlums of the storied 1920s Prohibition in America. They were laughing all the way to the bank and a law unto themselves. And if there’s a lesson to be learned from this, it’s that perhaps stringent regulation might be a far more effective tool than outright criminalization.

One cannot see these poverty-stricken entrepreneurs simply closing up shop only because they are afraid of stock being confiscated or being slapped with a fine. To them, these businesses literally mean the salvaging lifeline between survival and abject poverty. And prison is hardly a deterrent to those who can’t put food on the table as free men.

And so as the cat and mouse plays itself out, with police planning their next sting operation, Madlamini is countering by stashing her stock in an undisclosed location and sleeping with one eye open. She knows they’re coming, it’s only a matter of when. She wishes it wasn’t so,  that there were sustainable lifelines accessible to people like her – those in the forlorn dregs of the socio-economic barrel. Though she may be seen as an outlaw, in her estimation she is but a victim of circumstance and a hardworking mother to her children. And after another day’s hustle, when the last drunken reveler has scampered off, she uncaps a cold one, tops the glass and drinks one to herself. 

Oh ja…in case you’re wondering, “kasi” is only slang for “township.”

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