South Africa

A REFLECTION

The exhausting, distressing daily struggle of a street vendor — one disappointment at a time

The exhausting, distressing daily struggle of a street vendor — one disappointment at a time
ARCHIVE PHOTO: A street trader looks out from his store in Masiphumelele, Cape Town, South Africa 19 June 2012. EPA/NIC BOTHMA

There is something irreversibly broken with our politics. Do any of the political parties that seek our vote show real concern about the long-term ramifications that broken political promises have on people’s lives? Hearts are shattered, over and over again, when the new hope fails them, just like all the other times.

In 1993, when South Africa was on the cusp of democracy, Mama Grace* started her business as a street vendor. She says she was the first to get a spot on the pavement of De Villiers Street, just at the entrance of Park Station, uniquely chosen to embrace the oncoming traffic of pedestrians, who were rushing to catch the Metrorail train or a bus to work, or for a long-awaited trip back home.

Back then she would welcome these commuters early in the morning, as they walked past her at first light, hurriedly, purposefully, at a time where there used to be some jobs — although mostly for the educated. In the late afternoon, she would bid them farewell when their exhausted shells would drag them past her again, still shuffling, tiredly, to their shacks or apartments. After meticulously tucking away her merchandise — a variety of fruit and vegetables and home-cooked food — into old, worn-out boxes, she too would drag her tired frame home.

Twenty-three years later, she still does the same thing — every day. Except these days there are no jobs for the educated as well. Her children sit at home with their degrees. After hoping for so long that they would be her respite, she must still do the dragging and tucking. But she is not the only one at her street any more, and because of her age, nor is she the first one to get there.

Now a plethora of smallanyana “tuck-shops” — small tables made of cardboard boxes, crates, buckets and old school benches, to fit as little space as possible, to accommodate the next person — have sprung up around her.

Mama Grace’s 16-year only daughter helps her to set up her table, sell the goods and drag things home later on. “This one was born here, in a tuckshop” gesturing to her daughter and making it clear that her pain is in the fact that her children were born and have grown up while their mother is still a street vendor — still selling measly things to make some sort of a living.

The first time I spoke to Mama Grace I wanted to know who she was going to vote for. This was for my article for Daily Maverick on how those on the margins of society are approaching the 2019 elections. I was interested in what an elderly woman selling things on the street thinks of our politics. And what choice she would make on May 8.

But Mama Grace will not vote in the 2019 election. As a journalist, I have become aware that for the elderly, this level of despondency comes from a disappointment with the ruling government. But surely there are other choices you can consider, I suggested to her.

They are all the same. During elections, they all say choose me and I will do better, choose me, choose me,” she said.

Mama Grace has been courted countless times, by political parties, NGOs, journalists and even pollsters — all wanting her story and all disappearing after the fact.

And I am left here on this spot,” she said.

Mama Grace refused to talk to me on the record. Since I spoke to her in Xitsonga, the only other language I know well, and only because the two other women I spoke to before her were also Tsonga, she trusted me. But she did not want to be in any more articles and certainly did not want her picture taken.

She has seen too much happen on that street, especially for those who talk too much and complain. She recalls how a week before, and on the next street, an old man was shot and fell on another woman’s pot while she was cooking her food to sell.

JMPD come to harass me instead of catching criminals,” she said, adding, “You can’t walk in these streets at night.”

She told me how she has too much to lose — for her to talk and appear in the news would draw the attention of some municipal official who would brand her as a complaining troublemaker. And then the harassment would start. She can’t afford to lose the only living she has — such as it is.

Working on the sidewalk has its dangers, as the police — empowered by the City of Johannesburg Municipal Planning ByLaws (2016) — often evict street vendors or confiscate their goods. Some time back, the city decided to put new cement on the sidewalk where Mama Grace works. She was asked to move for the construction to start and was promised a new stall for her business when the job was done.

Instead, she came back to the same spot, next to the same people, selling the same things, but without a new stall.

The only difference was the concrete under her feet and a new line demarcating how far her table should go, so as to not impede pedestrians. And now, instead of having the space to cook the meals she sells, she is in a constant battle with the police when she encroaches over the designated line. It’s a proxy battle for her survival.

My attempts to draw from her some wisdom of her age and a new perspective on our body politic failed. Not because she was not aware of the ongoing news cycle about the Guptas, VBS or the De Lille breakaway. But because she has so many things to worry about that these mainstream debates about State Capture, although important, are a preoccupation she cannot afford.

In this country, there are some people, more than we know, and certainly more people than the middle class and the well off, who are so consumed by their daily struggles to survive, that the seemingly urgent and all-important items in the news cycle are a distraction from real life.

Food, rent, school, job and survival. All of which we all think of, but not with the same anxious daily fret.

There is something irreversibly broken with our politics, especially when the mayor of Joburg runs a campaign for the “forgotten” people only as a PR stunt, while evicting the poor and vulnerable from high-rise buildings. Our politics lack compassion and empathy. It is all self-service in the guise of high-spirited slogans that have no real impact on the people that matter.

There is something irreversibly broken with our politics. Do any of the political parties that seek our vote show real concern about the long-term ramifications that broken political promises have on people’s lives? Hearts are shattered, over and over again when the new hope fails them, just like all the other times.

Something honestly has to give. I was born in 1992. And for as long as I have been alive, and through the dawn of democracy, Mama Grace has been a street vendor. When many things were moving around her, just like the crowds passing her by, and as the country was moving on, her life has stayed the same.

Hunger under apartheid and hunger during democracy is still the same. One might argue it is worse during democracy, because it comes with a bitter disappointment when everyone around says you are free and that things are better, but you have nothing to show for it. At least under apartheid you could rationalise the suffering by the collective oppression all around.

How does one make sense of the suffering in 2019? DM

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