Joburg, you are beautiful — a love letter from the streets of Sophiatown

There it is. The familiar rumble of thunder in Gauteng. The late-afternoon clouds, grey and looming, pregnant with moisture, are also still the same. Then come the showers and the smell of the wet earth.

It is always a welcome cooling down from the scorching rays of the Gauteng summer sun, which the pedestrians of the historic inner-city suburb of Sophiatown deal with by creating their own shade under umbrellas.

Makes sense – it’s the only way to escape the heat if your mode of transport is on foot. You would think more pale South Africans would provide their own shade this way, but perhaps we are hardwired to only use an umbrella in the rain. Or maybe we don’t walk around the city in the sun enough.

Why this ode to Joburg, a city in the news for all the wrong reasons?

A work visit has landed me back in the province and close to Pretoria, my hometown, about 40 minutes away on the M1. And here I am on the border of Westdene and the legendary Sophiatown.

So, it is a love poem because Sunday morning in Montclair, a working-class suburb bordered by Westbury, Newclare and Claremont, someone like Rozanne Johnson opens up her small bricked-in front yard and garage with its afdak (awning) to offer local children homework classes. She also provides them with a modest meal. Sandwiches.

“God sent you today,” she says as we wave goodbye with a promise to reconnect.

Vibrant history

Three small boys are hanging around a traffic light in the hot sun, leaning against a wall surrounding the Trevor Huddleston CR Memorial Centre situated at 1 Toby Street. Because of this centre, Sophiatown is now decorated by a gorgeous mural.

The centre is next door to the home of Dr Alfred Xuma, ANC president from 1940 to 1949 and chairperson of the Western Areas Anti-Expropriation and Proper Housing Committee. It is one of only two houses to survive the bulldozing of Kofifi, as Sophiatown was also known, in the 1950s.

“Have you been to the museum?”

“What museum?”

“The one behind you.”

“But we don’t have money to go in.”

“It costs nothing.”

“Really?”

Once ushered inside, the wide-eyed boys, pupils of a nearby government primary school, were taken by museum curator Jacob Lebeka through the vibrant history of their own neighbourhood.

Inside is a magnificent collection of photographs documenting the times and the crimes. There is Hugh Masekela getting his first trumpet from Huddleston. There are legendary Drum investigative journalists, writers and photographers, Can Themba, Lewis Nkosi, Henry Nxumalo, Ezekiel Mphahlele, Arthur Maimane, Bob Gosani.

The three young gents were hanging on to Lebeka’s stories by the time I left. Wonder what little seeds might have been sown?

Jodi Lawrence, administrator of the Sophiatown Heritage Centre in Xuma’s former home, has turned the space into a well-cared-for venue that hosts book launches, concerts, art therapy sessions and discussions for the surrounding communities.

Thank me in 20 years

What is heartbreaking, as a Capetonian, is to understand just how much property values have declined in Johannesburg in particular.

In suburbs closer to the city you can pick up a beautifully renovated four-bedroom home, with a garden and a pool, for under R2-million. The same properties go for more than R7-million in Cape Town.

Any young person seeking to become a property owner should consider beginning the journey in Johannesburg. Every city in the world goes through cycles of decay and renewal – even New York.

The gated communities that have sprung up all over the province offer a false sense of security, to say nothing of what value the posse of security guards and booms that block entrances and exits might add.

I walked, at night, to a small corner spaza in Westdene, heavily protected by iron bars, to buy some snacks. To many this is unthinkable, but I was greeted by a small queue of friendly students who live nearby and were out for this and that.

Everyone greeted me as I strode the streets of Sophiatown like a local, now equipped with an umbrella come rain, come shine.

Johannesburg, you are beautiful. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.