Children play and walk among burnt animal carcasses while their parents work on streets and spaces littered with used condoms and empty fast food containers. Despite the efforts of the official cleaning company, Yeoville’s streets remain strewn with litter. But some volunteers have taken cleaning into their own hands.
Animal bones are piled in one corner, burnt to a crisp. Large shards of glass glint from the sidewalk, beacons for residents to follow. Beneath the few trees, empty condom wrappers and cigarette packs lie scattered among the empty fast food containers, creating a path to the door of every business.
While many South Africans live in Yeoville, this densely populated area has become the space that many foreigners call home. Zimbabweans, Nigerians, Congolese and many other nationalities hope to start a new life here for themselves and their families. This diverse set of people has created a mix of cultures that allows almost any visitors to experience new food, music, language and traditions.
However, the great number of residents in Yeoville has put a burden on the suburb. People not only struggle to find adequate living space and work to pay for everyday survival, but pressure has been placed on the infrastructure, specifically the ability to keep the buildings and streets clean. Residents and their children live among litter, and dirty water too often flows out of blocked drains.
“If you look at Yeoville, you’ll see it’s really a dump. It’s old, dilapidated and I imagine a lot of people only move here until their funds are better for them to move somewhere better. So it’s very much a transit suburb. There’s a high-density population, the flats are very overcrowded and I think that puts a lot of pressure on the resources.”
The dirtiest streets in Yeoville are those next to and close to the market. One entrance to the market opens on Rockey Street, where many other Yeoville businesses are located.
Dr Bosama Mbokolo, a local general practitioner with an office in Hunter Street, not far from the market, has treated many patients who became sick or were injured because of the litter and broken glass on the streets.
“I’ve treated patients who have stepped in the broken glass on the streets, or have been stabbed,” says Mbokolo. “The pieces of glass are quite big, and they are just left on the street corners. People get into fights and use them as weapons.”
The doctor believes that one of the reasons there is a garbage problem in Yeoville is that 99% of the population is black and foreign. “Maybe they are considering that this [Yeoville] is the area of the poor and foreign and black and maybe the municipality leave us alone and they are not interested in [us],” says Mbokolo.
On the corner and across the street from his practice, piles of rubbish and broken glass have not been removed for weeks. Mbokolo says he doesn’t see the city’s cleaning contractor, Pikitup, cleaning his street very often.
Pikitup’s employees, however, work in Yeoville every day of the week. Their day starts at 7am and finishes at 3.30pm. The cleaners work on weekends as well, but then only from 7am to 12pm.
Mavis Masheqo, a Pikitup employee, has been cleaning the streets of Yeoville since 2011. Each street in Yeoville gets one cleaner who sweeps it, puts the rubbish in rubbish bags and sweeps the leaves into piles. However, Masheqo says it is difficult for them to do their jobs.
According to Masheqo, she often has to deal with homeless people and street kids rummaging through the refuse bags after she has filled them with garbage from the street.
“I’ve got problems with the streets kids,” she says. “When I’ve finished cleaning and I’ve put [the rubbish] in the bags, they open the bags and just leave it like that. The papers fly out, and are all over the street. Now I have to go back again and clean it again. And I’m getting angry because of it.”
Masheqo says the cleaners have complained but nothing has been done about it. They are also scared to confront the street kids because they are threatened when they do. “When you chase them away, they promise to hit you. We are not safe.”
According to Masheqo, even the community fights with them. “When you tell them: ‘Don’t throw it [rubbish] on the street, just put it inside the plastic bags’, they don’t want to listen. We don’t know what we must do … The councillor is supposed to call them and talk to them and tell them that they must work together with us, with Pikitup. [He must] tell them that they should put their garbage in the small bag [in the bin] and then we’ll come [and] put it in the big bag, not that they should throw their papers on the ground and just throw the nappy of their child on the ground just because you saw the cleaner there.”
Residents tell the cleaners that, because they are working and earning money, people can throw the garbage wherever they want to, she says.
Yeoville falls under Ward 67. According to the councillor, Sihlwele Myeki, the council has received complaints from the community that Pikitup is not cleaning efficiently, although they are there every day. “I would like to think that Pikitup is doing its best,” says Myeki.
A big part of the sanitation and litter problem, he says, can be attributed to the large number of people on the streets: “There are unusually large numbers of people that either do business in Yeoville and stay in Yeoville or come through here for enjoyment.”
The councillor says he has to deal with people who say they litter because they know there are people who will clean the streets. “I’ve told them I’m sure you won’t do this in Sandton,” he says. “I don’t think it’s because Yeoville is full of foreigners, but I do think that when people see others doing it, or see other people cleaning it up, they don’t care.”
Too much foot traffic
Mexican-born Sebastian Zaremba, a trader and committee member of the Yeoville Market, agrees that a big contribution to the dirty streets is the overcrowding.
“In the main street, in particular, there’s a hell of a lot of foot traffic, because most of the shops like the Shoprite, the butchery and food places are located there.
“Most people will trek up and down that street, so there’s a lot of movement but there’s also a lot of rubbish that gets discarded because, by the time you’ve crossed the robot, you’ve finished your cool drink or packet of chips or whatever you’ve bought and you just discard it.
“If you look at Yeoville, you’ll see it’s really a dump. It’s old, dilapidated and I imagine a lot of people only move here until their funds are better for them to move somewhere better. So it’s very much a transit suburb. There’s a high-density population, the flats are very overcrowded and I think that puts a lot of pressure on the resources.”
While Pikitup is responsible for cleaning the streets of Yeoville, they do not clean the market. The committee has assembled a group of 12 volunteers who clean the market after it has closed at night. The volunteers all work or trade in the market, and do not get paid for cleaning it. They sweep the surrounding streets as well and place all the garbage in bags. Pikitup fetches these bags at midnight and before the market opens at 7am, about three volunteers sweep the streets and the market again.
According to Zaremba, the committee has also taken out the big garbage bins and placed them outside the market. The traders are responsible for getting rid of their garbage when they close their shops at night. Since the committee introduced “three or four cats”, Zaremba says the number of rats and cockroaches has gone down.
However, a big problem with litter and sanitation, which leads to health problems, are the bathrooms in the market and how people use them. There is also a shortage of public toilets in Yeoville. A fee of R1 is charged for the use of the toilets in the market, but Zaremba says not everyone knows how to use them properly.
“Blocked drains are a very common occurrence. Not only in the buildings, but on the streets as well. I think because most of the foreign nationals coming in to Yeoville come from countries where you just discard your rubbish on the streets. What happens here, however, is that it all collects in the drains. In many of their countries, especially those that are developing countries, which most of them are, they are used to using buckets and not proper toilets.”
Zaremba says the women’s toilets are a problem specifically because they sit down. When the toilet seat is too dirty, women squat in the corner on the floor. This creates a breeding ground for flies, maggots and bacteria. Diseases like diarrhoea and urinary tract infections are passed on this way. He says people seldom wash their hands, especially with soap, and, because most of the people who use these bathrooms work in the market, they work with food and spread the diseases to their customers.
The market committee has employed someone to clean the market toilets at night, paid with the money they make when people use the bathrooms throughout the day.
Zaremba says he would like to see the other cleaning volunteers getting paid as well but until they are able to apply to the council for a tender to clean the market, “they are going to have to work for free”. The cleaning volunteer group is made up of Yeoville residents, and not outsiders, and is therefore an example of what can be done to create more jobs for and within the community.
Plans to help everyone
According to councillor Myeki, a programme called Jozi at Work will soon be implemented in, among others, the general Yeoville area. The aim of Jozi at Work is to alleviate poverty by creating jobs within communities. “The City of Johannesburg intends to use Jozi at Work as a form of environmental management.
“Jozi at Work will allow people in the community to do the clean-up, separation [of recyclable materials], and be paid for it. So hopefully when that kick-starts and kicks in, we will be seeing a cleaner environment and a cleaner Yeoville.”
“Jozi at Work is about creating encouragement and co-operatives,” says Yvette Adams, a Yeoville resident and owner of Barefoot in the Keys, a company that employs people to do general handy work such as fix gates, paint houses and walls as well as fix geysers and potholes.
“Jozi at Work is about creating jobs, and the way to go is a joint venture or a co-op. If my company gets a job from, for example, the Johannesburg Roads Agency, then it’s only me and I only employ one or two people. But with this [Jozi at work], there are eight of us, so if we get, let’s say, three projects, three of us can employ five people. So then instead of one person only giving five people jobs, three give 15 people jobs.”
The jobs can include anything from fixing roads to building and fixing houses, as well as cleaning. According to Adams and Myeki, the community seems very happy and excited about the programme. However, there are some people who have doubts. A trader, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he thinks the City of Johannesburg will not deliver.
“They will only give work to their friends and to who they like,” he says. “I think they will also take most of the money and there will still be people in Yeoville who are homeless and very poor.”
A homeless man who wants to be known simply as “Marcus”, says he really hopes the programme works.
“Yeoville has a lot of people like me, who can and want to work but can’t find any. I can paint a house or fix a gate, and I can clean very, very well. It is not nice to sleep in a dirty place, and Yeoville is very dirty. I really hope people like me can get a job so that we can also make Yeoville a better place.”
FEATURED IMAGE: This group, mainly women, has grown very close since they started cleaning together earlier this year. They have a specific routine every night – they start with the inside of the market and move to the outside – and make sure they help each other as much as they can. Photo: Zelmarie Goosen
POWERFUL: Farah Wael (left) and Tebatso Kgagke (right) before the first session of the tenth Power Reporting conference. They travelled together and plan to sit in on the data journalism sessions together. Photo: Zelmarie Goosen.
The tenth installation of the continent’s largest investigative journalism conference opened its doors yesterday to delegates from more than 16 countries. Hosted by Wits Journalism at Wits University, the 2014 Power Reporting conference kicked off with a focus on data journalism.
Internationally acclaimed author and academic Jock McCulloch opened the conference with a keynote address about his research into corporate crime in the South African mining industry.
McCulloch’s book South Africa’s Gold Mines and the Politics of Silicosis took nearly 54 months of data collection and analysis. Through his work, McColloch was able to show how the mining industry, together with the apartheid state, hid the extent of the occupational lung disease among its workers for nearly a hundred years.
Online journalist Lenyaro Sello, from local broadcaster enca.com, said she believes data journalism is the “future of the craft”.
Marvin Adams from The Citizen said he would like to learn how to truly understand data journalism because he thinks it’s useful in “becoming a better investigator”.
Many of the delegates said they are looking forward to the new skills offered at the conference but also to learning from one another.
“I want to attend as much as possible and learn from journalists with decades of experience,” said Anele Mjekula from South Africa’s oldest independent newspaper, Grocott’s Mail in the Eastern Cape.
Yaw Gyau, a journalism lecture, said he was very interested the tools used for data journalism and hoped to take these back to his students at the Ghana Institute of Journalism.
As part of the programme, the annual Carlos Cardoso memorial lecture on freedom of expression will take place tonight. This year the will be given by Rafael Marques de Morais of Maka Angola.
The conference runs from November 3-5 at Wits west campus.
HOME DÉCOR: Masters Students Jamy-Lee Brophy and Megan Heilig exhibit recreations of the home environment at various venues in and around campus. The displays are part of their new project which focuses on creating what they call ‘institutions’, which explores and examines what we as multicultural beings experience as an institution and the effects of this experience. Photo: Provided
You’ve probably seen the stack of bricks arranged outside the Wits School of Arts, the Great Hall and other random places around campus and been curious and confused about why they’re there.
As part of a new project, Wits Fine Arts students Jamy-Lee Brophy and Megan Heilig have collected unused bricks from campus and around Braamfontein and built small-scale structures they call ”institutions”.
The project focuses on exploring and examining the idea of what different institutions, especially homes, mean to us in Johannesburg and as students on campus.
“We’re questioning the ideas of institutions, and how institutions reinforce ideologies and constructions and we try and challenge them,” said Brophy. “We have collected bricks … and what we do from this is basically try to build an institution, one that can create a conversation in different spaces and one that’s kind of transitory.”
Heilig added: “I think an institution is an experience, so in everyone’s lives we experience things such as race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, cultural background, and all these things amalgamated within the city and especially in Johannesburg.”
Brophy and Heilig collected the bricks for free from people who wanted to get rid of them, but they also “stole” materials some of them from campus. Heilig said they stole materials because Wits wouldn’t give them funding for their project.
The duo also want to challenge and question the idea of claiming space on Wits campus. The current installation placed outside the Great Hall, which appear to be a pile of bricks, is seen as a “cornerstone”, the implication that there’s an institution outside of another institution. They move the bricks around to rebuild these institutions in various locations so that people will start talking about it and about why they’re doing it.
The focus of their project is somewhat political, and they look at political parties as institutions in themselves and what they represent or how they misrepresent. They created the Halfa Pitchca Party, which is their own organisation and which helps them examine the idea of the relationship between politics and art.
“I think that art is political, and that what’s happening here can be political and it can be social, and it can relate to other people,” said Heilig. “This thing is not just about art for art’s sake, we’re not painting to look how nice paint looks on a canvas, that’s not what all people do here.”
They want to encourage other students on campus to go to exhibitions held at places like the Substation and the Wits Art Museum and know that art is for everybody and something everybody can relate to. Their current project is a way of getting out on the streets and getting talking.
“We want people to know about it [exhibitions],” said Heilig. “We don’t want it to be this underground thing where only if you’re cool and in with the art kids you can come and check out their stuff, that’s bullshit. We need something fresh, something new, and we want to open up spaces in the city on the street and have spaces that we create, especially in the city.”
TOGETHER THROUGH ART: The theme of the 2014 Arts Alive Festival is 20 years of democracy, emphasizing the role the art’s had in ending Apartheid. Photo: Provided
The people of Johannesburg once again have the opportunity to experience the city in an artistic way. Poetry, music, dance and theatre are being celebrated during the Johannesburg Arts Alive International Festival, which kicked off on the 31st of August.
“Cities are more than just about bricks and mortar, they are about the quality of life,” says Festival Director Lesley Hudson.
“The arts makes a huge contribution to the way we experience our city, and the Johannesburg Arts Alive International Festival plays an important part in this.”
Hosted by the City of Johannesburg, this is the 22nd year the Festival is being held. It has an intense programme that offers a wide range of performances, exhibitions, workshops and musicals, taking place at various venues in the city.
The theme of this year is 20 years of democracy, and a lot of the shows were organised around it. Hudson emphasizes that the organisers of the Festival try every year to consider the different genres, ages of the audience when deciding on the festival’s programme.
“But most importantly, we try to pair the unexpected with the better known. So, you will come to a concert because you recognise a name, but will be exposed to a performer you would not ordinarily have seen,” says Hudson. “It’s about broadening horizons.”
The Festival started during the last few years of Apartheid, when the arts were used in the drive to shift South Africa towards a democracy. Hudson says the city of Johannesburg realized an arts festival could “give voice to its citizens” and be part of building a better and fairer society.
The festival is running until the 10th of September, and Hudson encourages both students and the public to go beyond what they know and feel comfortable with, and let the festival “wow them”.
“There is nothing more thrilling than seeing 24 000 Joburgers all speaking the language of music; enjoying the sun, the sound, and each other,” says Hudson.
Twenty years into democracy and we are at each other’s throats. Levels of dissatisfaction go far beyond the high crime rate and unemployment figures. I could list the issues which have caused most despair and conflict over the past few years, but they’re old news now.
South Africa is not the only country whose government appears to fail at every turn, nor are we the only society bursting with violence. But we are part of a country which is still trying to transform itself into a “rainbow nation”. And, I don’t know about you, but I’m more than ready for that to be realised now.
I’m tired of apartheid. I’m tired of reading about people who had to get violent to get access to basic human rights. I’m tired of judging, being judged, and feeding off a never-ending stream of negativity.
I think you’re tired too. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a call to arms. The message I’m trying to impart is this: I do believe that, despite the undeniable challenges still to be faced, we are actually halfway there.
“For a long time, our history has formed a very real part of our present, but we are moving away from it now in a very real way.”
Unfortunately, in many ways our parents’ view of South Africa and other races and cultures will continue to follow us as we carve out our future. The misconceptions and cruel beliefs we’ve had to see them struggle with and try to impart on us are a part of who we are, whether we like it or not.
I don’t want to go on a tangent about how we should make more of an effort to get along and accept each other – we’ve all heard about that. Ironically, it’s also what we’ve been taught alongside being taught to be cautious of the ‘other race’. We already know that we have to do better. We know that we want better.
There are issues that we must still face and they are serious issues with the potential to cripple the country. But our generation is nonetheless achieving what anti-apartheid activists fought for: we’re standing as one, despite our differences. For a long time, our history has formed a very real part of our present, but we are moving away from it now in a very real way.
Yes, it sounds dreamy and romantic but for the first time I feel that, despite every horrible twist and unbelievable turn, we are getting where we’ve always wanted to be. The very fact that our government has let us down time and again means that we’ve been forced to deal with what’s truly important. When we look back one day, we may realise that it’s the sole reason we’ve moved forward.
It would be dangerous and wrong to say the strikes, the protests, and the general apathy of our government have all been a good thing. But at least our generation is moving South Africa into a space where we can talk about uncomfortable things and accept each other for who and what we are.
There’s no doubt that things will get worse before they get better, and we all have a lot of work to do on ourselves, but at least we have reason to hope.
FLAUNTING IT: Miss Gay Jozi 2014 finalist Sjarmanté Diamanté showing off her first outfit backstage before the start of the show. She designed and made the dress herself. Photo: Robyn Kirk
Over the top make-up, fabulous dresses, and South African gay pride came to the Wits Theatre this weekend for the second annual 2014 Miss Gay Jozi pageant.
Miss Thabo Tee Menu took the title of Miss Gay Jozi in an event that featured 12 female impersonators or drag queen finalists.
The first princess was Thibe Monale and second princess, Theasare Jaars.
The theme of this year’s competition was a celebration of the country’s 20 years of democracy. The ladies did the first walk of the evening in a traditional outfit of their choice while Labelz performed Wakka Wakka, the song made famous during the 2010 World Cup.
“We basically do it [the pageant] within this month because on the 25th of May is Africa Day, so we want to celebrate and commemorate Africa Day and also show that us drag queens, and us gay people also are African,” said event co-ordinator Zsa-Zsa Whitney Gabor-Houston. “And we also believe in our country and believe in our rights and this is just a way of us expressing our rights as well as a gay community.”
Many of the organisers and finalists emphasised the importance of being proud of being gay and South African. “Be brave, come out, and don’t be afraid to explore,” said producer and director Dino Abrahams. “Don’t be afraid of who you are.”
Technical difficulties and wardrobe malfunctions meant the event got off to a slow start, but it was worth the wait. Along with Labelz several other performers wowed the crowd, including Divas of Drag, Ellah Elkenaza, Eldrid aka Mr. Carter, Sonwa Gxilishe, Foxy and Rosslyn Van Der Woodsen Bass.
The road to Miss Gay Jozi started with auditions of 25 hopefuls. The number was cut down to 12 finalists for Saturday night’s show, and throughout the evening only six made it to the final round.
ENCIRCLED: Wits alumni enjoying food and drinks at the newly opened Wits Alumni Pub on west campus. Photo: Zelmarie Goosen
By Zelmarie Goosen and Lutho Mtongana
Staff and alumni of Wits now have an after-work hangout on west campus.
The Alumni Pub opened its doors for a trial run yesterday in one of the many spaces at the Cape-Dutch styled Wits Club.
The pub caters for alumni, staff, and the Kudu runners, a team of Wits alumni runners.
Postgraduate students and alumni from other universities are welcome at the pub which currently consists of a lounge and outside dining area.
Jimmy Neophytou, manager of the pub, says the menu currently only consists of small food items. “It’s a starting point, we want to grow it, and once it’s grown we will add more items to the menu,” he said.
“This is like a test run. As it develops we will have specials and discounts and events”, Neophytou added.
The Alumni Pub is an initiative of the Wits Alumni office which wanted to provide a relaxing, after-hours meeting for alumni of Wits and other universities.
The pub’s survival is dependent on the number of people that will make use of it. “As it grows the menu will grow, the number of days will grow, so this [opening] is just to see if people are interested in it” says Neophytou.
The pub opens every Wednesday from 17:30 to 21:30.
A CHANCE TO GIVE: With the weather becoming increasingly colder, students can donate clothes to those in need. Photo: Zelmarie Goosen
Winter is fast approaching and while most of us are geared for the cold, there are many students that need some help keeping warm.
Wits campus radio station VowFM recently launched their annual campaign to collect warm winter clothing for those in need.
“Every year we have different homes that we work with in the Braamfontein area,” said Vow’s marketing manager Lucky Mdaweni. “This year we’re working with the Wits Volunteering Office, [now called] Wits Citizenship and Community Outreach (WCCO).”
The WCCO office helps VoWFM locate charity homes, as well as students within the university who are in need of the donated items.
“They work a lot more closely with students on campus who need the clothing and other things … which works nicely because not all students on campus want to be known as the kids who want clothing, so they work with them anonymously.”
Mdaweni says that Witsies have responded positively to the initiative. “We’ve had a lot of requests to have the boxes stay a bit longer, purely because of the demand in terms of people giving a lot of clothing within the university,” Mdaweni said.
The campaign runs until the end of June, when all the clothes that have been donated are given out, but continues after that if people want to donate more. Boxes, such as those pictured above are located all over campus.
FREEDOM: We stand together, free and as one where no boundaries separate us. Photo by: Zelmarie Goosen
This year South Africa celebrates 20 years of democracy. For some this is cause for celebration. For others, it’s a reminder of how we’ve failed. But take a moment, and ask what this really means and answer honestly to whether or not we really have reason to be so upset.
While no one can argue that South Africa still has long way to go and there definitely are things that should be fixed in our system, isn’t it true that our country is still in its infancy?
It’s easy to focus on the negative, especially with everything that’s happened in the last few months. Our government has let us down, our president has let us down, and it all makes us feel like our ideal of a true rainbow nation can never be achieved.
But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and I can promise you, neither will South Africa. Think about the friends and colleagues you have now, about your Friday night parties or Saturday afternoon braais – we all complain about the same ANC-related problems. And isn’t that, using a certain twisted logic, exactly what it means to be free? Your black friend who brought the pap didn’t make it because you ordered him to – he brought it because he knew you’d like it. Your white boss isn’t yelling at you because of your colour, he’s probably doing it because you did something wrong. And when you fall in love with someone who has a different skin colour, you don’t have to worry about a law keeping you from expressing that love.
This all may sound dreamy and romanticised, but the Apartheid regime wasn’t taken down because of logistics; it was pure humanity that fueled that need. We seem to sometimes forget that South Africa has to rebuild itself and become a completely new nation.
We have to work hard to scrub away what we’ve broken down to make way for the new things we are erecting. We seem to forget that the struggles of 20 years ago is in the past, and the goal of what they wanted to achieve was reached. What we should remember is that there was a certain layer of human issues we had to get rid of before we can really start building towards the future. Isn’t that now?
[pullquote]This all may sound dreamy and romanticised, but the Apartheid regime wasn’t taken down because of logistics; it was pure humanity that fueled that need[/pullquote]
Education, poverty, housing, water supply and safety should of course not be forgotten or downplayed, given the seriousness of these needs. The fact that many people are not receiving basic education or electricity or water is horrible, but it’s also got nothing to do with freedom. We can stare at the facts and the stats all day and say that we’re not free in the sense we should be. But we can also choose to look at them differently and say that we’re not at war (in any way), or hiding from extremists who’ll kill us for our point of view; we’re not bound by laws that take away our rights, or forces us to make decisions. We can choose what we want to do – which is the definition of being free.
Like I said, it’s easy to focus on the negative (a lot easier than on the positive), but 20 years into our democracy we have to remember that all the things that aren’t right, all the logistical issues in our country that we have to fix, and all the problems areas that make it seem like we’re not a nation standing together is not a ‘freedom’ problem. We’re all struggling under a government that doesn’t deliver.
We’re all plagued by the same things we want fixed.
The real hard work may only really begin now. But it means we’re moving forward. We’re going somewhere good, and South Africans of all colour, gender, race and ethnicity have endless choices along the way they’re allowed to make.
MORE REFRESHMENT: Wits Vuvuzela’s Anazi Zote sitting at Vuyo’s enjoying a refreshing beer after a long day in class. Photo: Luca Kotton
EVERY weekend student, after a hard week of studying, need some time to relax and get away from the books. But making the student budget stretch to include the many great pleasures in life can be difficult.
For beer drinkers, a nice cold beer in the downtime is a good way to settle the nerves. So Wits Vuvuzela set out to answer the all-important question: “Where can we get the cheapest beer in Braam?”
While the locally-made Castle may be a popular choice for some, the sweet taste of the internationally awarded Black Label came out tops this time round. Known as the “Zamalek” for its strong after-effects, we decided to use it as our basis for finding the cheapest beer in Braamfontein.
We looked for this most popular beer at four different places and also made a mental note of the venue’s atmosphere.
[pullquote]So Wits Vuvuzela set out to answer the all-important question: “Where can we get the cheapest beer in Braam?”[/pullquote]
The prize goes to…
The most expensive Black Label went to the Orion at R23 for a “dumpie”, which is understandable considering its upper-class target market. The second most expensive Zamalek was found at Kitchener’s, at a cost of R21. We could argue they offer much more with their student atmosphere and vibey music. Their noisy neighbours, Great Dane, sold their dumpie of Zamalek at R20. This beer of choice goes down well with one of their famous hotdogs, while dancing on their five cent floors. The cheapest beer in Braamfontein was awarded to the new kid in town, none other than Vuyo’s which sells beer at R16. Sitting outside Vuyo’s, listening to old school tunes, while knowing Mama Vuyo was in the kitchen making our favourite South African food, led to one of the most relaxing sunsets we have experienced in Braamfontein.
The truism stands: you get what you pay for. A bottle store is still the cheapest, and that comes as no surprise, but we doubt a bottle store can offer you a night to remember with great music, great friends and, more importantly, great South African beer.
Boyzn’Braam is a semi-fictional podcast that explores the cultural scene in Braamfontein. From music to fashion, Boyzn’Braam interrogates what culture looks like in modern Braamfontein, especially for the students who bring it to life. In this episode our aspiring rapper realizes that Hip-Hop is more than just a sound but a brand that needs a […]