Sizwe

He was named after Umkhonto we Sizwe like many other young men of his generation. Sizwe was 20 when I met him. He arrived at my gate with a group of five or six other young men, new in the city from one or other rural location. Petrus was the leader of the team in the beginning.

They presented a piece of paper with the words 'Action Security' written on it and Petrus's cell number. A few of us in 8th Avenue decided to take a chance on them although it was evident they were not trained for security work.
When news spread that households that reneged on their agreement with Action Security were promptly robbed, it dawned on me that I was nurturing a group of vigilantes, but by this time I knew them all and it was too late for me to extricate myself.

Over the years the team changed and so did the name of the security company. Some of the gang returned home to Limpopo or Mpumalanga or Northwest Province, generally because somebody was dead or dying. As a poet said, these were the days of ‘love in a time of AIDS’.

Others ended up in jail. The team of six became five and then three - Sizwe, Lucas and the Mozambican Caluti - and then just Sizwe and Action Security became 'Sizwe's Security'.

The Portuguese builder from 7^th Avenue gave him a bicycle and I bought a chain for it. Once a day, then once a week, then once every now and then, Sizwe would cycle past and wave.

As more and more cars were stolen, Sizwe's clients dwindled. I was one of the few who endured. He continued to arrive at my gate on the first of every month with a tattered blue receipt book, still bearing the name, 'Action Security' and I continued to pay him.

One starless night in April, he shouted for me from the gate. He was dressed in a leather jacket and a cap and there was a taxi revving in the road behind him. He said he had a problem with rent and was about to be evicted. There was an aura of hysteria around him. I didn't have any money to lend him so I told him to come back the next day.

Weeks passed and still no sign of Sizwe. When I saw Norman, a gardener from Kensington, pushing his lawnmower down Cumberland Avenue, I stopped the car. ‘Any news of Sizwe?’ He shook his head and bending down, demonstrated with his hands Sizwe's swollen legs and feet. ‘I think it's this disease of these days,’ he said, a local euphemism for AIDS.

I sent an SMS to Sizwe's cell number after many futile attempts to call the number: ‘I have known you for more than 12 years, why didn’t you speak to me about your problems?’

Almost a year later, he arrived at my gate. He said he had been treated for TB in a clinic in Mpumalanga for eight months and then went home. His cell phone had been stolen and he had lost all his possessions.

I gave him my bike - a woman’s bike with a white shopping basket in front.

He hasn't managed to re-establish himself as a security company. He says it is because the people who can afford to pay have moved away.  He has a piece job a couple of days a week as a gardener in Observatory and has rented another back room in 8th Avenue.

Mama Fluffy

The children from 196  - Mohammed and Abdullah and Nabeela - call me ‘Auntie Melody’ (pronounced ‘Uhnnteee Melody’) but the children from 194 – Angel and Grace and also Ntombi’s children and their cousins and friends - call me ‘Mama Fluffy’.  I prefer ‘Uhnnteee Melody’.

The name came about when Angel bonded with my little dog, Daisy. She was messmerised by Daisy’s fluffy white hair and gave her the name 'fluffy'. 

Even the girls’ father who generally calls me ‘Mel’, refers to me as ‘Mama Fluffy’ when speaking to them about me. “Ask Mama Fluffy…” he says.

Old Lorentzville synagogue

“I am an Afrikaans kugel living in a Jewish synagogue in a predominantly Muslim area, with a buddha.” This is how Jungian therapist Marianna Nielsen describes herself. Marianna is the third private owner of the old synagogue in Lorentzville/Bertrams, which was consecrated in 1926 and deconsecrated in 1983.  She spent two years renovating the building, which was in a dilapidated condition when she bought it, before moving in in 2001. 

In the gallery where the women would be seated, Marianna has her lounge, study, bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. Downstairs is a vast space containing minimal furniture and a statue of the Buddha in the the area that would be where the 'Ark' is found.

The part of Lorentzville/Bertrams border where the synagogue is located is adjacent to New Doornfontein and Judith's Paarl and also adjoins Troyeville. Many Jewish families used to live in this area. They were part of the Jewish community which spread to Doornfontein and beyond.

The building, which was bought by the community in 1918, had been the 'Valley Bioscope'. It was first used by the Congregation in the state in which they found it but in 1923 a decision was taken to alter the building after negotiations with the Johannesburg "Parks and Estates" fell through.

The Lorentzville/Bertrams Hebrew Congregation, established before 1917, was the religious centre for Jews living in this area for many years.  Provision was made for teaching children Hebrew and Jewish studies, and in 1925, the Bertrams Hebrew Society was formed.

In later years, as the community moved out of the area, the Congregation started to dwindle. In May 1982 a closing ceremony was held. Moveable furniture was donated to the Edenvale Hebrew Congregation.

Marianna is at home in the area. She says: “I love areas where there is a flowing of different cultures, different lifestyles, industrial, residential. I find affluent areas very sterile. Here the children play in the street, you can hear the drunk people walking past on a Saturday night, I have a Chinese neighbour on the one side and Muslim neighbour on the other side. I love the idea that there is a coming together of different cultures and religions. There are quite a few churches and missionaries in the area. There is poverty... It is real, it is just real.  It is not trying to create a kind of a false Tuscany in Sandton.” 

“I think for me it is always about trying to find home. I am on a never ending quest of trying to find home in myself and this is reflected in my outside world. This is a sacred place, a place of prayer. It is a containment.  We live in a chaotic world and I continually come back to a safe, sacred space. This allows me continuity between my inner and outer worlds.” 

There are drug dealers in the area who apparently service quite a number of prominent people from the business, media and academic worlds. “I live in the shadow of Johannesburg ….” Marianna says.  “It is about not being able to keep the shadow out and at the same time trying to find a place of groundedness.”

*Thanks to Rose Norwitch for sharing her Masters dissertation (University of the Witwatersrand, 1988): Synagogues on the Witwatersrand and in Pretoria before 1932 - their origin, form and function.