Buying and selling

A car guard from the Democratic Republic of the Congo waves me into a parking place.  ‘Madame!’ he says with a French accent, bowing graciously.

Entering the shopping centre from the underground parking area I  notice that the shops where ‘African Foods’ and ‘Saucy Chips’ used to be are now empty. 

I walk past the bottle store, up the escalator, florist on the right, biscuit shop on the left,  pass the second hand cell phone shop and the dry cleaners, and into Pick ‘n Pay.  Looking across the to the opposite side of the escalators and down to ground level, I see one, two, three, four, more empty shops with ‘To Let’ signs on the windows. According to The caretaker there are 17 empty shops at Darras Centre.  “People haven't got money to pay rent... management is bad, and there is too much corruption”, he tells me.

Meanwhile, informal traders and small general stores and hairdressing salons are mushrooming in Bez Valley.  Traders are generally not South Africans though some are from other provinces - Limpopo and Mpumalanga. They tell me they are from Rwanda, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, DRC, Nigeria, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

A short distance away at Oriental City in Bruma and Chinatown in Cyrildene, there are no empty shops and new shops and restaurants open almost every day.