The homes we make, make us.

 

 

Most small-town South Africans who then become migrant labourers share a similar experience regarding the somewhat valid yet dramatic warnings of our people when we mention the desire or plan to move to this wonderful city. Everyone seems to know someone who has moved to the mecca and has been swallowed whole by its horrors. The ruthless killers and thieves, the drug cartels and the snow-white cocaine that lines the streets with the same stability and splendour as the jacaranda trees and of course the cunning men who seek to exploit the naivety of a small-town girl with promises of a love they are incapable of giving. Naturally, this is not an exhaustive list of Johannesburg’s demerits according to our loved ones and communities but surely the most pressing of them. And yet despite those warnings, some of us come to fall deeply in love with this city full of transgressions.

Johannesburg, once simply open farmland in the highveld saw its first reinvention during the 19^th century gold rush that turned it into a lively mining town attracting people from all over the country and the world. Hopeful South Africans set out to start a new life and make a living following the loss of their land and wealth as a result of settler colonialism. This set up the city to become the country’s economic hub, a position it still holds regardless of the now much lower mining activity taking place in it. Reinvention is always possible here, necessary even. One can make, unmake and remake themselves as often as they would like. Those reinventions are not without difficulty as well the criticism and malevolence of others, but they are attainable.  This is something I think is important for making our lives as satisfying and exciting as they can be.

The city is known as the world’s largest man-made urban jungle with millions of trees planted making it pleasant for the quality of life of some of its residents (mostly white) who occupy those areas. In stark contrast though, the majority of its population (black) live in townships where there is barely sufficient living space and rarely any lush foliage. Johannesburg, much like humans themselves, is full of contradictions and jarring realities. The kind we should obsessively take as a mirror of who we are and of the country posterity will inherit if we continue to be both myopic and individualistic in our attempts or demands for change and progress.

 Johannesburg is a culture and identity cauldron that holds space for both wanderer and wonderer. Those who have always known that the world is big and that that is not something to be terrified of but rather insisted upon, embraced and experienced. Where the imagination can find companionship and where expression has room to dance, much like a home ought to be. And so we come to this place and find our worlds and their other residents, shrinking the loneliness we had begun to accept as the natural condition of our being. There is something for everyone here. For those who thirst for destruction and chaos, there is plenty. There is limitless pleasure for the hedonist, serenity for the peace seeker and everything for the indifferent.

In the long list of things to love about this place is what seems to be the collective commitment to black creative expression. Art is at the core of what makes this city what it is. People travel far and wide to be immersed in it and those of us who are fortunate enough to live here and are drawn to it as way of life, are never starved. Of course, more could be done to support it, by institutions, by the government but most importantly by us,  the residents. A city needs soul and while capitalism runs rampant and nearly everything is often reduced to being either for haves or the have nots, creative expression can be for us all.  

The news is not all good. There is evidence of deterioration everywhere bust I am not interested in being trite regarding the failings of the administration in charge of running this beautiful city. I am interested in looking at it, in its fullness and remembering always why it is that I am here, we are here and how best to enjoy this time. In the near decade that I have lived here, what started out as mild curiosity about this place has blossomed into a deep and abiding love for it and the people who continue to make and protect its goodness.

 It is my home in a way no other place will ever be. I have changed many times over in my time here and with each change it seems Johannesburg’s arms have widened to embrace whatever new version of myself I choose. I am yet to feel out of place here like I have in other places that I have lived in and been to. I’ll be honest, I still sometimes glitch momentarily before enthusiastically replying to another’s “shap fede?” but I also never want to know what life is like without this simple acknowledgment of one another’s humanity.