ART APPRECIATION: A boozy young crowd wowed by the artwork on display. Photo: Lwandile Fikeni
An unlikely crowd of art-goers filled the foyer of the Wits Art Museum (WAM) during the opening of Overtime: representations, values and imagined futures of classical African art on Tuesday, February 21.
They were young, black, hip and carried themselves around the space with absolute abandon as they clinked glasses of wine and shared a cigarette or two outside the venue.
This was not by accident, said the exhibition’s curators, Tetanda Magaisa and Katlego Shoro. In fact, it was the intention of the curators when they invited young artists, thinkers and intellectuals to engage with the African art collection held by the museum.
“The majority of the material in the collection belongs to various language groups across the continent, but what happens is that only a particular kind of people tend to handle that material,” said Magaisa.
This fact led the duo to consider new ways of re-imagining how the collection is seen, talked about and interpreted. Central to their curatorial considerations was the question of access.
“People regard this African art as something that young people do not appreciate,” said Magaisa.
“It’s like ‘oh, ja, they are millennials; they’ve completely and actively removed themselves from these cultures’, which is entirely untrue,” she added.
The exhibition was inspired by the responses and conversations that arose from the From The Heart: Personal Perspectives of the WAMCollection exhibition that took place last June.
“You have these conversations that have happened about accessibility and the kind of voices that can curatorially participate in exhibiting something like classical art,” said Shoro.
“And then you have young black people, young artists and young intellectuals who work at the museum. What are their experiences with the museum besides the job that they do?” she asked.
The answer lay in giving space to people who have different experiences within the museum, with the cultural material, with art, and with imagining how exhibitions can be curated and how a museum can be engaged, Shoro said.
The multiple contributors hold the exhibition together through highlighting the humanness invested in each piece on display.
“The contributors highlight not only their experiences with the museum, with the collection and with art but they also highlight that there’s humanness that should be considered when one looks at art and when one engages with the museum space,” said Shoro.
“How these objects are presented is very important,” she added.
Speaking of the novelty of having young black people at a WAM opening, Magaisa said, “What happened, inevitably, is that having young people participate in the show brought in a young audience and increased the engagement with the exhibition.”
Overtime: representations, values and imagined futures of classical African art will run until April 23.
ON STAGE: Mamela Nyamza presents her latest piece De-Apart-Hate at this year’s Dance Umbrella photo: Supplied
The 29th edition of the annual Dance Umbrella festival has launched at the Wits Theatre Complex and will run until Sunday, March 5.
The festival is showcasing over 50 new works, 13 commissioned works, six Johannesburg South African premieres and a Master Class programme conducted by prominent choreographers.
“It’s hard to say which shows visitors should see,” said Artistic Director Georgina Thomson about the shows to be presented during the 10 day festival.
“I think people should just have an adventure and see what they fancy,” she said. And there is quite a lot to fancy in this year’s festival.
On Friday, February 24 and Saturday 25 at 19:00, Moeketsi Koena and Gaby Saranouffi present Corps at the Wits Downstairs Theatre. Corps explores the transporting links that connect the real and the unreal through photography and dance and creates a link between today’s world and the past through the ancestral history of South Africa, Madagascar and France.
At the Wits Amphitheatre, on the same days, but at 21:00, Cape Town-born director, choreographer and activist, Mamela Nyamza, presents her acclaimed De-Apart-Hate The work deals with the struggles of post-apartheid South Africa as a nation, but doesn’t dwell on race.
Also worth looking out for is choreographer Rudi van der Merwe’s installation work, Trophée, on Saturday and Sunday, February 25 and 26 at 15:00 at the National School of the Arts (NSA) in Braamfontein. This show is an outdoor performance with emphasis on visual and land art. The title alludes to references about the submission of women – as trophy wives – and the submission of nature –hunting trophies – as part of tools of war throughout history.
On Tuesday, February 28 and Wednesday, March 1 the Wits Theatre will showcase a triple bill featuring the work of Oscar Buthelezi, Sonny Boy Motau and Lulu Mlangeni. Buthelezi’s Stuck Souls reflects on the world today being lost in waste and it asks the question: “How do we stop this?” Motau’s I am Not speaks to self-discovery and venturing into new and unknown spaces within ourselves: both body and mind. Vuyani Dance Theatre’s Lulu Mlangeni will premiere her new work, Shift.
A series of master classes will take place from Saturday, February 25 until March 4 at the Dance Space in Newtown.
The festival closes on March 5 at 14:30 at the Wits Theatre, with Cape Town choreographer Kirvan Fortuin’s When they Leave, a technical and high-pitched show that explores the narrative of race between white and coloured people.
Tickets range from R20 to R120 and are available at www.computicket.com. For the full Dance Umbrella 2017 programme, updates on the Master Classes and Face to Face interviews please visit www.danceforumsouthafrica.co.za.
A twitter storm brewed last weekend after a number of Wits students alleged that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) had withdrawn funding offers with scant explanation for its actions.
They addressed their heated allegations to Wits SRC Treasurer General Thando Mntambo, who immediately took up their grievances and included @myNSFAS in the twitter conversation.
“We have so far received numerous emails from students confirming that this is indeed happening,” said Mntambo when contacted by Wits Vuvuzela.
“We first have to understand the issue before tackling it, so the first thing being done is the collection of the database to scope the immensity of the problem while in the interim we are pursuing the channels available to us to try and get answers to this question, after which we will do what is necessary to solve the problem,” Mntambo said.
Sharon Ndlovu, a second year BA Law student, was one of the students who approached the SRC via twitter.
“I applied last year through Wits and in January I got a notification that my application was received,” Ndlovu wrote.
Ndlovu said that her application status was changed to “financial eligibility evaluated” but then last Friday, February 17, she got an SMS informing her that her application was unsuccessful due to the institution she chose. The correspondence, which has been seen by Wits Vuvuzela, advised her to apply to a TVET college and “your application may be reconsidered”.
When Ndlovu called NSFAS to query this they sang a different tune.
“They said they are short of funds,” Ndlovu said.
NSFAS Spokesperson, Kagisho Mamabolo, clarified the confusion to Wits Vuvuzela: “All returning students who received NSFAS in 2016 were advised not to apply online because they were going to be funded automatically should they pass 50% of their modules.”
He said that those who didn’t follow the guidelines and applied online had created duplication of their details on the system as NSFAS had made advanced arrangements with universities to enrol them without having to apply.
“Therefore the system automatically rejected their application because they are already funded and are in class,” said Mamabolo.
“They shouldn’t panic and should proceed to study as normal,” he said.
However, all returning students who did not have NSFAS in the previous years (including 2016) and had applied for 2017, and were unsuccessful, are advised to appeal, not enrol in a TVET College, he said.
Sharon Ndlovu is a new applicant, and since the clarification by NSFAS, has appealed the rejection of her application.
Students have until February 28 to appeal their declined applications for funding.
Drama For Life (DFL), the independent academic, research and community engagement programme based at the Wits School of Arts, is looking for book donations for its resources centre.
DFL’s work is rooted in human rights and social justice and its staff and practitioners need access to information and knowledge, said Zanele Madiba, DFL’s media, communications and events officer.
“We are looking for books in the fields of Applied Drama, Drama Therapy and Arts Education and related disciplines including psychology, social work, public health, anthropology, cultural and diversity studies, etc.,” she said.
The need for books arose because Applied Drama and Drama Therapy are fairly new fields of study in the South African and African context, said Madiba.
“Emerging from this reality was the need to establish a collection of published and unpublished resources for the purpose of driving scholarship in the disciplines.”
Owing to the emergence of these fields, the majority of the literature available is located and published within international contexts, making access to this knowledge expensive and unfeasible for many scholars, Madiba said.
DFL doesn’t have a set target nor a cut-off date for the donation drive.
“We would love to get as many books as possible,” said Madiba.
All book donations should be brought to Drama For Life on the 17th fl oor of University Corner between 9am and 5pm.
SEX SPORTS: Wits students trying to fit condoms into the wooden condom demonstrators on the library lawns during International Condom Day Photo: Lwandile Fikeni
Wits University students got to grips with dildos and condoms yesterday as part of the first Sex Sports on the library lawns. The event was held in commemoration of World Condom Day celebrated annually on February 13.
Wits Drama For Life (DFL) in partnership with AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) hosted the
event which saw participants engage in some rather risqué, amusing but educational tasks. Drunk Goggles required participants to put on glasses which blurred their vision while they attempted to put a condom onto a makeshift penis. In another game students were asked if they knew what a condom was made of or if they knew where to find the expiry date on a condom packet.
DFL Project manager Leonie Ogle said the event went beyond sex sports and included HIV Aids testing, high blood sugar, sexual health awareness and education.
Statistics on the AHF website claim that South Africa has an HIV/AIDS rate lingering near 18% of the population, with public knowledge of HIV transmission and prevention factors dropping to 26.8% in 2012 from 30.30% four years earlier.
Nthabiseng*, a 31-year-old Applied Drama student who took part in the Sex Sports admitted to being unaware of some of the questions posed during the games.
“I didn’t know anything,” Nthabiseng said. “It was my first time playing this game. We were asked questions about HIV and AIDS and how does the disease transmit. Questions like, ‘how do you get HIV? Through blood, through saliva or what?’.”
Nthabiseng tests for HIV regularly. Asked if she was the experience of going for a HIV test on campus she said, “I wasn’t scared because I normally do tests but sex education is still relevant, especially for young people growing up”.
MDUDUZI MANYANDI’S selfpublished is loaded with the kind of f***-boy humour that will make you either hate it or find it extremely entertaining – for all the
wrong reasons I might add. It is in 10 short chapters about “one night stands” (Chapter 3), “hiding cheating evidence” (Chapter 2), “How women speak” (Chapter 7), “Why you should stay hygienically clean” (Chapter 8), and “Revenge” (Chapter 11).
The book off ers tired insights and clichés about “what women want” and “good guys vs bad guys”. Tired, yet dangerous. That said, however, Manyandi has a skill for gutter humour, if not simply by exposing his ignorance. So, instead of attempting to review this book, let me share some of the writer’s wisdoms:
Chapter 1: One night stands “Let’s get to how quickly you can spot that girl you want to pick and take home. This should be an easy task … for example, bet on someone whose behaviour gives off ‘slutty’ vibes … look for girls who seem as if they are saying ‘come get it’.”
Chapter 4: How to end a relationship without being rude to your partner “Some people do dangerous things when they are hurt. Imagine telling someone you have been with for more than five years that you don’t love them anymore. Bang! Just like that. That person can have you bewitched thinking they wasted their time on you for nothing. You must dump your partner is such a way that she must think you are a loser in the whole thing” – the author goes on to suggest some of his strategies – “The last strategy I have for you is what I call Victim- Victor Rule … You will have to cry pretending you are hurt now that she is leaving you, yet deep down you are in celebratory mode.”
Chapter 8: The power of money “Don’t be fooled by the saying that money cannot buy love. Money is power and it plays a crucial role in relationships. I wonder if there are still guys out there who are obsessed with enlarging their penises so they can pleasure women. If such guys still exist, I have this to tell you: you guys are living in [the] dark ages. Large penises do not swipe at News Café. And they certainly do not buy you a German sports car.”
So what happens when a “wife” or “partner” cheats? Manyandi suggests revenge. In Chapter 11, a chapter that the author treats as an aha! moment, we are told that if the unforgivable were to happen the player should “leave her [the cheating spouse] and give her a lifetime of punishment. “It is not easy but this will eat her like a cankerworm,” the author writes. “When you are ready to date again, go for someone half her age, slender and extremely beautiful and watch your ex die a slow death.”
Cheating: The ultimate guide for players reads more like the ultimate guide for wankers but Manyandi must be commended for writing and self-publishing what comes across like a wank-fest at Men’s Res.
I recently deactivated and deleted all my social media accounts. The idea struck me on my drive home to the Eastern Cape for December holidays late last year. I drove down the Smithfield/Rouxville/Aliwal North route. Those who’ve gone down that part of the world will agree that there exists an abundance of land and sky and clean air, a welcome reprieve from the corrosive claustrophobia of the city.
A closer look at those large swathes of land along the N6 reveals barbed fences behind which spacious pastoral homesteads, concealed by clumps of trees, form the core building units from which the fulcrum of small towns like Aliwal North spreads out like a spider’s web.
Mud and corrugated iron townships dart the rims of this web, supplying farms and farm owners with black bodies to command and possess. Wikipedia says Aliwal North was named in tribute to Sir Harry Smith who was the governor of the Cape Colony when he established the town in 1849. According to the same Wiki entry he named the town “Aliwal” in memory of his victory over the Sikhs at the Battle of Aliwal during the First Sikh War in India in 1846. The entry doesn’t mention whether there were people already living in the area when Smith made it his own. Our so-called South African history is a compendium of subtractions and erasures. Our own collective amnesia further compounded by urgency of the politics of now.
This sudden realisation – sudden for I’d been preoccupied with Donald Trump and whatever else passes for a punchline on my social media timeliness – made me think, seriously, about what I choose to subtract from my everyday experience of the world. At that moment I was either going to instagram Umtali Inn (where I spent the evening) or I was going to google it and discover that it was more than 60 years old.
That in its colourful history people of my skin colour weren’t allowed to shack up in its tastelessly decorated rooms that still reeked of 80s apartheid aesthetic. My companion and I went for a swim in the unlit pool that evening and watched the stars stare back at our scantily privileged black bodies enjoying the exclusive decadence of apartheid in this small town where white men still call a black man ‘boy’.
In my bag I’d packed Paul Beatty’s TheSellout. It was sheer coincidence. In the book the narrator, Bonbon, re-instates segregation in a fictional Los Angeles town of Dickens. And here we were in this softly segregated town, no more segregated than the suburbs from the townships in the city. I wondered if there is much difference between class segregation and other institutional segregations. My thoughts recalled that old Orwellian metaphor about some animals being more equal than others.
I imagined there are books that make sense of post-colonies in current global capitalism and culture. I began to suspect that in these books I’d probably make sense of my place in the current form of the world. A world I have helped create whether by choice, by force, or by necessity. Later, I deactivated Instagram and its carefully curated scenes of happy, interesting lives. I thought of Aliwal North and relics like Rouxville and pondered how they performed non-racial, non-sexist post-apartheid democracy. And so, instead of looking for another world calamity or gossip on Twitter during the holidays I spent time at home reading Mahmood Mamdani’s Citizen and Subjectand argued politics with my uncle over beers. The internet is bloated with free e-books and essays and lectures and good journalism. I’ve been downloading, borrowing from the library and jacking free music online. At times when I’m in the library reading a novel or a short story or a play (Parentheses of Blood by Sony Labou Tansi is worth a look) I wonder what I have been doing with my life these past 3 years.
FEE HEADACHES: Parents and students queue outside Fees Office for fee waiver agreements. Photo: Lwandile Fikeni
The Wits University’s new fee waiver policy has been set up to help students with debt to register, however, some students are finding even this concession does not go far enough.
According to the policy, “all students who owe R10 000 or less will have their debt automatically rolled into their 2017 fees and will be allowed to register. Students who have debt higher than R10 000 will be requested to pay half the outstanding balance and enter into a payment plan for the remainder of the funds, before being allowed to register”.
Lauren Theys, a third year architectural studies student, says the provision is not so helpful to her. She owed the university R 30 000 and had difficulty raising the R15 000 she needed to pay in order to be allowed to register.
Her circumstances are typical for the so-called “missing middle”. Her mother, Hazel Theys, 61, is a retired teacher who supports Lauren and her brother who’s studying at university in the Northern Cape.
“Her [Lauren] father passed away two years ago, I am the one responsible for her fees now and I’m retired. I have her at varsity and my other son in varsity in Kimberly at Sol Plaatje, plus I’m paying off my bond, which takes half of my pension. So it’s very difficult to keep both children at university at this stage.
“I had to get a loan and luckily it was approved,” said Hazel.
The other issue the Theys family raises is what they say is the lack of assistance from the university after Lauren fell ill last July. She was advised by her doctor to stay at home for the rest of the second semester. Despite this, the university still held her liable for the entire second semester fees.
“When I was still sick I contacted and emailed the relevant people, telling them this is my situation in terms of fees,” she said.
“Instead of being told, ‘come to this office, speak to this person, do this or do that,’ I was told that ‘well, you didn’t fill out this form’ and that was the end of the email instead of being given proper guidance.”
Lauren has three courses outstanding on her degree and she will apply for a fee waiver after paying the 50% required although she doesn’t know how she will pay back the remainder of last year’s fees and this year’s tuition.
Wits Vuvuzela contacted the university to ask whether there are other options available to students who, like Lauren, owe more that R 10 000 but cannot afford to pay the 50% to qualify for a ‘fee waiver’, but there was no response to our emails.
We also asked what steps the university will take in the case of a student who fails to pay off the debt after signing the fee waiver agreement, but the fees office had not responded to this question either by the time of going to press.
University can be a daunting experience, especially if you’re a newbie on campus. So to help first years navigate their new environment the Wits Vuvuzela team has put together a list of crucial contacts with which we all need to be familiar. (more…)
THE Wits University’s new fee waiver policy has been set up to help students with debt to register, however, some students are finding even this concession does not go far enough.
“You should see bab’uSithole’s hands; they are like this,” Mam’Sipho says and pauses from plaiting her customer who is sitting on a red plastic chair in the middle of Kerk street, to emphaise the point by curling her fingers.
Bab’uSithole is the Zulu man who started the street hairdressing business on corner Eloff Street and Kerk Street back in 1993. This is where Mam’Sipho does hair. Bab’uSithole does not do hair anymore, Mam’Sipho says. He is on pension.
“The way I see it, he has arthritis but he mistook it for a stroke. That’s what he said. I spoke to him and I said ‘no this is not stroke; stroke is not like this. If it was a stroke, you wouldn’t be able to control your fingers’. But you know South Africans, they earn grant for disability and all that,” she says with a mock twang and laughs.
The queen of Kerk Street
Mam’Sipho laughs a lot and flashes a dazzling smile every time she speaks. She is big and bubbly with inquisitive, piercing eyes. She is originally from Zimbabwe but came to South Africa in 1990 or ’91 – she is not too sure. She started working on Kerk Street in 1993 and has been here ever since.
“I have six kids. I did it six times,” she says and laughs, again. Mam’Sipho is 47 years’ old. Age has barely touched her face. She has given birth to six children, two (a boy and a girl) of which are still in primary school. The two visit her every day on their home from school. “The other one is standing there,” she says, picking out her daughter, 9, who is squeezing her way through a mash of people crowding Kerk and Von Brandis Street. She has on a blue tunic and a navy jersey.
Her brother, 11, drags his feet slovenly behind her. The boy’s name is Ramsey but the Kerk street hawkers call him Popo. The girl is Fezile. Through the milling crowd of traders and buyers and the cluster of goods a man calls out to Mam’Sipho upon spotting her “two little ones” as she calls them.
“Mamazala!” the man shouts, lumbering towards her chair where she is still tending to her customer. “Yebo mkhwenyana!” she calls back. “Do you see how big your boy Popo is?” the man says in a hoarse voice. “He needs to exercise. He is even bigger than me?” “Ah Mkhenyana, bigger than you?” “He has a big mkhaba. What size does he wear? I’m sure his trousers are tailored now?” the man says, catching his breath.
“Who? Bobo?” Mam’Sipho laughs. “Vele, it is so, I ordered these ones from Indians. You see yourself that he is shaped like an Indian.” Mam’Sipho has a candour about her that seems to attract vendors and customers to her like moths to a lightbulb. This effect has been good for her business.
On average she make about R800.00 a day, although she is quick to say that when days are good she takes home a lot more. With her hairdressing business she has been able to buy a house in Zimbabwe and pay the R5300 monthly rent for her two-bedroom flat on Plein and Joubert street.
THE BEST HAIRDRESSER IN TOWN:Mam’uSipho (blue top) is the block leader of Kerk Street and her chair is always busy with the young women who come from near and far to get their hair styled by her. Photo: Lwandile Fikeni
Taking a stand against the authorities
However, things have not always run so swiftly on Kerk Street. Bab’uShezi can attest to that. He is part of the original trio – Bab’uSithole, Mam’Sipho, and then him – who started the hairdressing business on the narrow street. Like Bab’uSithole, he also hails from KwaZulu-Natal. His bone of contention has to do with the formal vending stalls that were built in 2010 – for the Fifa World Cup – which were intended to formalise their business.
Clouds quickly gather above the city’s blue sky as Bab’uShezi speaks. “These new stalls were built while I was working here,” he says in isiZulu, his face a lump of grief. “Here they took our IDs to create these structures for us but when they were complete they turned on us and installed migrants in our place. “
The City of Johannesburg announced that hairdressers were forbidden from the new flea market, Bab’uShezi says. They even made us cards and then they came back and confiscated them. That’s when they introduced these new people, he says with visible contempt at the hawkers shielded in the shade.
“We don’t know how these people got their stalls – whether they bought them or not,” he continues, shaking his head and working the hooked needle in his hands around the balding spot of his customer, who’s asked for a weave.
“We hear that this might be the case,” he says grumpily. “R10 000 is the price being thrown around. These were our stands and we were kicked out. That’s why we’re here on the side of the street. They wanted to chase us off this area. I’m the one who fought for this place the most.”
On this last score a twitch of angry satisfaction flickers across his face. Bab’Shezi is a very proud man. He is short and wears a greying goatee, his signature spottie (bucket hat) hangs down one side of his head as he speaks. His hands work mechanically, drawing the threaded needle in and out of his customer’s loose coif of damaged hair. Bab’uShezi doesn’t know how old he is but he says he was born in 1964.
“When was it when they wanted to forcibly remove us from here?” he turns round and asks another hairdresser close by.
“It was that time when they were cleaning up the city,” the woman says with a sigh.
“Yes, that time,” he retorts.
CLICK TO VIEW GALLERY: Kerk Street is a crowded strip in the inner city which has been demarcated for hawkers. While the hawkers have been granted permits to operate in this area, the hairdressers are still being chased away from time to time by JMPD. Photo: Lwandile Fikeni
“I can’t remember very well,” the woman says. “This was during the world cup. That time when they didn’t want any hawkers selling on the side of the road.”
They have contempt for us hairdressers, Bab’uShezi says, dialling up his own contempt at the way the city and its Metro police treat him and his colleagues.
“They say we aren’t needed here. Now that we’re inching closer to december…” “They also came here three months ago,” the woman cuts him.
“Yes, three months,” Bab’uShezi adds. “So that’s the kind of life we live here.”
Bab’uShezi says he has collected the names of the elderly hairdressers who work on Kerk Street and took them to a lawyer “who was helping us; his name was Mantanga, and he took our case to the high court.
In the end they ended up sending us back here, in the street, to continue with our work. But they returned us here, and not inside the stalls. We never got the stalls back. They kicked us out!”
When it rains there is nowhere for Bab’uShezi, Mam’Sipho and their swish of hairdressers to find shelter. They hide beneath the covering of JetMart and sometimes, while they’re there, Metro police come and confiscate their equipment.
And that equipment is never returned.
Unleashing Vimba against tsotsi’s downtown
Kerk Street is a cacophony of cars and taxis and cops comingling with the rush of bodies passing through this section of downtown Johannesburg. Against the steel fence of the South Gauteng High Court on Von Brandis Street. just off Kerk, loiters a group of young men – tsotsi’s – who are attracted by the booming hair business here.
“Tsotsi’s don’t attack us,” says Mam’Sipho with an assuring smile. “They will attack a random stranger. Us, we’re more like a police siren. We are the ones that started this vimba thing.”
Vimba means ‘catch him’. It is an infamous yell, a siren that has become synonymous with hawkers downtown. You often hear it when a tsotsi is on the run after snatching an item on sale at one the hawkers’ stalls. The yell alerts hawkers and bystanders alike and has led to many a vigilante mob that delivers raw justice on the pavements of inner city Johannesburg.
“So tsotsi’s,” Mam’Sipho continues, “they know that when they are here and they start to do these wrong things we just say ‘vimba’ and they get caught.”
“When you ask the Metro police what they are doing they tell you that you are not wanted here,” Bab’uShezi says, angrily. “And the irony is that we were here first. The oldest practitioners here are Sipho and I.
All these other people” – he gestures to the sellers in the stalls – “they found us here. Now we live this wretched life where we are harassed constantly by Metro police.
That’s how we end up fighting. It’s not that we’re fighting them [the other hawkers] but we do so in order to come back here and to do our work.”
Different hairstyles for individual needs
Hairdressers on Kerk Street have mulptiplied since Bab’uSithole, Mam’Sipho and Bab’uShezi began all those years ago – and so have styles. Styles depend on what’s in, Mam’Sipho says while weaving an intricate design on one of her old customers’ crown.
“Most people ask for the style that’s the in-style,” she says, eyes fixed on the young woman’s head. “There was a time when there was the razor cut; there was a time when this style came in (she gestures with her eyes to the young woman whose hair she is plaiting), it is called Pontofina. So it depends on what’s in fashion – it’s like clothes. It’s like a label.
That’s how it is with hair. But there are styles that never go out of fashion like amasingili (singles/braids).”
The young woman being plaited by Mam’Sipho’s studious hands is Simphiwe Maseko. She is a student at the University of Johannesburg. She’s been coming to sit in Mam’Sipho’s chair since 2014, since she started going to varsity.
“I was passing here, actually, and I saw her doing hair and I was like, no, this is nice, then I asked her if I could come do my hair with her and then she was like, you can come, it’s fine, then I came.
She did my hair and I was happy. That’s when I started coming more often.
My first hairstyle was a straight back. It was these same braids but straight back,” she says pointing to the style Mam’Sipho is currently weaving on her head.
Maseko hasn’t had her hair done elsewhere ever since that first day in Mam’Sipho’s chair.
“When I wanna do my hair I just come here,” she adds. “Mam’Sipho is good at what she does; that’s all I can say.”
A glimmer of hope for women in the city
The dangerous elements, which are so ubiquitous as to be the very air one breathes in downtown, have not succeeded in deterring both clients and hairdressers.
Zandile Zwane, an inner city resident, moved into Kerk Street in 2006. Before then, she was a student at one of the computer colleges in town.
“I found out that computers are not my thing, but i had a talent for doing hair but I wasn’t that perfect,” she says.
When she used to pass Kerk Street on her way to her computer course she would stop and ask the elderly men who crochet hair with a needle to teach her how to do it.
“I asked how much it was to train me,” she says with cool smile. “They said it’s R100.00 for each style. They mainly use a needle but they were going to teach me all the styles.”
After her brief training she went back home and practised. She already had a certificate in hairdressing but she didn’t know how to plait and crochet hair. After she was confident she could plait and crochet hair she took up a spot next to Mam’Sipho and has been on Kerk Street ever since.
“So, because I had a small child,” Zwane adds, “I thought it better to come here and do hair. I can come here anytime I like. It’s better than being a house wife. I don’t have to wake up early and come here. I’m able to make food for my kids in the morning and then come here, to the street, and then knock off whenever I like and go back to my children. So I saw it was more convenient, plus, I have a talent for it. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed and loved.”
There’s always a silver lining
The clouds above the city turn a dark grey colour and are pregnant with rain. Few moments pass before the first spittle begins to wet the street. The hairdressers usher their clients to the JetMart canopy.
Soon the rain starts pouring vehemently as the population of Kerk Street runs for cover. Mam’Sipho maintains a jubilant smile even as the rain washes down, turning small rivulets slowly into rivers of waste along the gutters of Eloff and Von Brandis Street. Bab’uShezi looks up at the sky as if quietly cursing God for all the inconvenience.
He casts his eyes back to shock of hair before him, and with his hooked needle begins to weave away.
FEATURED IMAGE:CLICK TO VIEW GALLERY: Kerk Street is a crowded strip in the inner city which has been demarcated for hawkers. While the hawkers have been granted permits to operate in this area, the hairdressers are still being chased away from time to time by JMPD. Photo: Lwandile Fikeni
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