Rift Valley Reflections: 2011-06-26

Wednesday 29 June 2011

Prophets and healers

Pamphlets promoting ‘prophets’ and ‘healers’ are distributed throughout Johannesburg. I collect several on the drive from Bruma to Joubert Park.

Opposite Joubert Park in Wolmarans Street, a block away from what was once the Presbyterian Church, an entire wall is devoted to advertisements for cheap abortions, penis enlargement and healings and redemption from a wide variety of physical, spiritual and material disease.

Dr. Ismail, specialist astrologist, herbalist and healer from Zanzibar brings back a lost lover even if lost for a long time; offers supernatural luck to win the lotto, casino, dice, horse races and black jack; shows who your enemies are using a mirror and water; and recovers stolen property.

Prof. Wakho, hailed as the herbalist of the year in East Africa, can get you married to that lover of your life in a short time and seal the marriage with eternal love and happiness; remove bad spells from home and business; and enlarge a penis in both length and girth permanently.

Prophet Eli’s herbs offer power to a weak penis; help a woman discover the secret to managing her husband or boyfriend forever; give a constant feeling for sex; kill parasites that cause drug addiction; stop abnormal sweating; and attract customers to any business.

Monday 27 June 2011

"...the Mountaintop of our desires..."

When Carlos from 190 had his Pikitup bin stolen, I painted mine orange and stuck multi-coloured stars and feathers and horseshoes and bells and moons and smiley faces around a large, glitzy sticker of the madonna and child. The madonna had sparks exploding into a night sky from her halo and she looked quite scary.

I hoped to ward off superstitious thieves or at least give the police something to go on. I could call the flying squad and tell them an orange bin, liberally adorned with children’s stickers and religious paraphernalia, was being wheeled somewhere in the vicinity.

It worked for a while but perhaps because of the buildup of tensions – and trash - in the weeks of the strike, on the first day Pikitup workers were back on the streets, somebody ripped the madonna from the front of the bin, apparently with some force, because the paint went too, leaving a black hole.

Contemplating the hole made me think of life lived in the Valley. Valleys are generally considered to be places from which one looks up at the mountain in the hope of arriving there some day. Biblical imagery is vivid. Nelson Mandela used it: “There is no easy walk to freedom… many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires….”

So here I am in Bez Valley, still aspiring.

Eighth Avenue stretches from Queens High in Kensington to the Ellis Park Stadium, which was apparently once a vast lake. Lakes and places of worship are part of the terrain. I am surrounded by the AFM Impact Church, the New Apostolic Church, the Reformed Seventh Day Adventist Church and the towering Kensington Fellowship Church. From time to time a duck taking time out from Rhodes Park or Bruma lake, settles on its steeple.

On the Bertrams side of Eighth Avenue is the imposing Masjid-E-Muqeemus Salaat and close by, the ‘Brotherhood of the Cross and Star’ and a deconsecrated synagogue, now the home of Jungian psychologist, Marianne Nielsen.

Religion ushers in each new day when my neighbour, Ahmed, leaves for the mosque before sunrise. In all seasons, I am awoken by the revving of his car engine between 5.30 and 6.00 a.m., followed by the call to prayer. Religious sounds, symbols and celebrations are integral to my life in Bez Valley. The Adhaan, choirs rehearsing at the crack of dawn on a Sunday, children chanting verses from the Qur’an on weekday afternoons, church bells, Christmas, Easter, Ramadan, Eid.

History of Bezuidenhout Valley and surrounding inner city suburbs of Joburg

The first owner of the farm, known as 'Doornfontein' is said to have been a Voortrekker named Barend Christiaan Viljoen. He apparently named the farm 'Doornfontein' because of the thorn trees (doringbome) and springs (fonteine) on the land.

Records indicate that the farm was transferred to Frederick Bezuidenhout on the same day that it was registered in the name of Viljoen by Mrs. Viljoen, who ceded the farm to the Bezuidenhout family.

Bezuidenhout was a young trekboer who came up from the Cape in 1848 and helped the Viljoen family with the farm. He eventually married the Viljoen's daughter, Judith, after whom the suburb of Judith's Paarl was named.

Frederick is believed to have built the homestead that can be seen today.

The farm consisted of approximately 4,000 hectares of ‘bleak, exposed and sparsely vegetated…’ land, extending from what is now End Street in the west to Bedfordview in the east and from Louis Botha in the north to beyond the Natal Spruit in the south. The Bezuidenhout's farm contributed to Jo'burg's transformation into the City of Gold.

The Main Reef Leader running across the south of the farm was proclaimed a public digging; there was an abundant water supply on the farm; and the requirement for land close to the growing town were critical factors in the evolution of Johannesburg.

Over time sections of the farm were auctioned off and the suburbs of Doornfontein, Jeppestown, Belgravia, Troyeville, Fairview, Bertrams, Lorentzville, Judith's Paarl, Bezuidenhout Valley, Observatory, Kensington, Cyrildene, Dewetshof, Bruma and Morninghill were founded.

Why this blog?

I was born in Johannesburg and have lived here most of my life. For 15 years I lived in the inner city suburb of Bez Valley, where I often felt like one of the characters in 'Road', a play by Jim Cartwright, who said, "It's so hard..."

My thespian nephew played the role of Scullery in the play, the narrator who "meanders aimlessly down his road pointing out features of the grim landscape and setting the scene for the glimpses we see of the inhabitants lives..."

But Cartwright does find hope in the lives of his characters and as Gilbert Keith Chesterton points out, "One sees great things from the valley and only small things from the peak."

I recently moved from Bez Valley to another liminal space on the Louis Botha Avenue side of Orchards, around the corner from Satyagraha House and across the road from the Torah Academy. This is an historically very rich part of Johannesburg and I am already planning a few blog posts.

So this blog will continue to explore the changing face of Jo'burg, moving slightly further afield than Bez Valley and the suburbs that immediately surround it, but not abandoning my starting point by any means. There is still so much to say.