Debonair in a gleaming Brentwood trouser and designer golfer, Sipho Sandi, sat at his porch is the archetypal township tavern baron. A sharp dresser with an expansive demeanour even at times when things aren’t always as good as they seem. For starters there’s heavy competition from foreign nationals who’ve infiltrated the liquor trade, driving many of his colleagues out of business. As things stand, he is one of a handful of those local entrepreneurs who are holding out against the onslaught.
There’s ‘Sis Monza’, forthright and effortless at uttering an obscene slur but who is mostly known to have a big heart, operating at the Old Location. Mr Ngxazana also digging in his heels at Drayini. But, in the main, the local liquor trade has been reduced to shebeens, mostly operating out of people’s homes. So many of these that a comprehensive inventory would be impossible as many operate furtively, not wanting to draw the undesirable attention of law enforcement.
Though many would like to legitimize their “spots,” licensing comes at a steep price and the paperwork is a headache to simple folk. Small Medium and Micro enterprises (SMMEs) have been integral to the democratisation of South Africa but, sadly, for many budding entrepreneurs, they have been unable to access government loans and assistance.
Moreover, these are often so riddled with red tape, leaving many would-be beneficiaries discouraged. At last year’s State of the Nation Address – ironically entitled “leave no one behind” – we heard that there were between 2.4 and 3.5 SMMEs in the country. Some R900million loans had been made available to them. Although the Department of Small Business Development last year planned “to introduce a host of new policies designed to help” SMMEs, one cannot say whether these have borne any fruit if what is happening in Kuyasa Township is reliable indicator.
For Bra Mzambiya – as Sandi is known by his clientele – it’s been a solitary hustle for almost as long as he’s been alive. From peddling goods as a school-goer, to a truck driver who ultimately found that the money he earned came at the cost of being away from family for prolonged periods, eventually deciding it wasn’t worth it. With his small savings he opened Sipho’s Tavern, in the early 2000s a racous, happening spot at Masiphakame township.
Then he got sick – thanks to matrimonial matters, he says, and soon the business hit the rocks. Now older, wiser and more determined than ever, he’s giving his dream another chance. However, he says, “the foreign nationals are good at what they do. They have way more capital. Just,” he emphasises, “look at the amount of stock they buy off the bat. It runs in the hundreds of thousands. We are seriously up against it.” His “up against it,” as noted above, looks bleak. But this is the township; hard times have often proven to ignite the entrepreneurial, or survivalist spirit of the communities.
A stroll around Kuyasa will get you up-close and personal with those who know that nothing in this world is freely given to anybody. There are the omniscient shovel sergeants; teams of men young and old wandering around, shovels in hand, ready to weed somebody’s garden or plant a lawn. Their services are often so affordable that the kinder in the community have no qualms adding a little extra.
There are the scrap pickers and wood gatherers. Often comprised of a father and his young sons and daughters rising early and making for the veldt. A few hours later they emerge with parched shins and calloused hands heaving bundles of wood which sells at a price unbeatable by any competition.
There is also at least one ex chef who was forced to leave his job at the coast and returned home uncertain what his next move would be. It became Eyethu Tshisanyama, a small eating joint on the periphery of something that started out as an informal squatter settlement but has gradually been pimped and revamped into someplace that’s growing pleasant on the eye.
Whereas most shisanyamas are often indistinguishable, save maybe for minimalistic differences like the basting or music, under Anele Mphemba’s trained hand, Eyethu offers so much more. There are the unsurprising sticky hot wings and chops in a basting that is a well-kept secret inside his brain. But then he does what is not common practice in these spaces: he bakes. Everything from big platters with samoosas and other hand food.
These individuals could be moping and complaining bitterly about a government that isn’t attending to their needs fast enough but somebody must put food on the table and send the kids to school. With the odds stacked staggeringly against them, they simply don’t have the luxury to waste time taking to social media and bickering. Every second counts. Every gig is an opportunity, however small, to live to see another day.
Though Bra Mzambiya, like most of the locals, is well aware that he faces heavy competition from foreign nationals, he also takes stock of the hurdles he’s had to get over on the journey thus far. As a Xhosa working in Mpumalanga, he often found himself subject to tribal epithets. Yet daily he’d turn up for work and pretend none of it was happening.
Chef Mphemba once used to hang around with the wrong crowd. That association landed him in serious trouble. But here both men are, bent on making something meaningful of the second chances they’ve given themselves. In all the dispiriting realities of poverty and unemployment; the waste pickers, shovel sergeants – in their small acts of self-determination – are an example of the unyielding human spirit.
Kuyasa Township is full of these people. There’s the sangoma who burns incense and hurls bones onto a bamboo mat. The grave diggers who sweat and groan under the cover of night so that the dead may find their last home. The shoe repairmen working out on their stoeps. The seamstress who stitches on a relic Singer machine with the cluck of “hardbody” chickens running around her neighbour’s yard serving as a reminder that everybody is on the hustle. How about the now-massive farming co-ops that started out as a ridiculous idea among a group of friends – some female – that have gotten some of the members out of shacks and into houses with countertops and a cistern.
Hustlers, noble and dignified in their dealings. We look forward to introducing you to them. We just hope that we’ll endear ourselves sufficiently with the sangoma that she will resist casting a spell on us – as she’s vowed – should we write anything mean about her.
This feels like getting closer and closer up front and face to face with features which deserve such insightful focus – and suggest so much more to come in the worlds of adapting stokvel economy…. A refreshing look around town… Regards Maeder Oz.