soweto '21
Today, Michael, you are in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the suburb of Melville. The sky is overcast, and the cool breeze gives your legs goosebumps as you write this on the porch of your rented apartment. Birds are chirping in the small yard, competing with the distant sounds of school children playing.
Yesterday, you spent the day with Lerato Ngakane.
She brought you out of the suburbs and into Johannesburg’s true heart, Soweto, with laughter and stories.
In the morning Lerato messages you, I’ll be there soon soon, ne?
When she arrives an hour later, she is tickled by your American understanding of soon soon. Smiling back, you mention you are hungry and she says she has a meal in mind to feed you: fat cakes (amagwinya) with white liver and fried fish. The amagwinya shop, with a line of patient customers out the door, reminds you of your grandfather’s market, Fishrunner, and the hot fried dough reminds you of your morning breakfasts in St. Thomas of Johnny Cakes and saltfish (brought to you by the smiling face of Giselle).
We must eat these now, while they’re hot, Lerato grins.
Sure, you say, climbing back into the car, and she shows you the proper way to eat amagwinya.
You can’t forget the mango achar, she reminds you between bites.
You nod, mouth too full to speak, dipping the dough into the fiery red relish, the oil staining your fingers.
After eating, you cruise the streets as they slowly come to life, visit Lerato’s family to drink a homemade beer that looks milky, white, and pink yet tastes of dry cider, then travel to a mystical garden full of fantastical scenes that portray the story of man from the beginning — his untold visits with extraterrestrial beings and statues built to commemorate Mother Nature and the divinity of woman.
You and Lerato take turns creating your own stories to describe the statues and figures until a man arrives, a guide, and takes you up 49 stairs to the top of a stone tower overlooking all of Soweto. A patchwork of painted concrete and zinc roofs shimmers before you, the sun glinting back off the zinc makes you squint.
“Birds flying high, you know how I feel. Sun in the sky, you know how I feel. It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day. And I’m feeling good” - Nina Simone
Later, outside Mandela’s home at the corner of Ngakane and Vilakazi streets, you two stand together beneath the Ngakane St. sign and take a picture — the sign is your surnames joined together. In the picture, she hugs you, and you smile broadly.
She takes you to her mother’s home where her brother now lives to, Kiss my nieces.
Lerato walks you into the yard, around the back, and knocks on the rear door. A child opens the top half of the door, pops her head up, hair sectioned off into knots held in place by barrettes, and roars like a lion.
Temi, the child’s mother, opens the door and lets the two of you in. While Lerato and Temi chat, you chase the toddler around the house, taking turns roaring.
Raarrgh, she starts racing you. You stop, letting her slap your hand when she passes you. The girl runs to the couch, and each time she reaches it, she yells, I’m a winner!
In the kitchen, Temi says she’s finished cooking, and now her high is coming down. Lerato tells you her brother, the child’s father, has the nickname “Deli” for delicious. He has seven children by five women, and today, he is not at the house.
Before you leave, Temi asks you to try some of the chakalaka she’s made with the last of the mayonnaise, passing you a spoonful that coats your mouth — it’s sweet, savory, creamy, and hearty.
The spices warm your chest.
The streets of Soweto are vibrant like those in Accra. The people live life more expressively than at home. It is a living born of necessity.
There are barbers cutting hair outdoors under tarps. A man has placed a sewing machine on a table beside the street and takes customers for clothing repairs.
Yet the red clay reminds you of Georgia. The tall pines bring back memories of your youth in North Carolina, playing games with your cousins in the woods behind Aunt Carolyn’s home.
Tucked-away from it all, stands a quiet boutique named Thesis with cut-and-sew trousers, shorts, shirts, jackets, and above all: bucket hats or “sportys” — the defining streetwear piece in Soweto. Thesis makes at least three distinct sporty cuts, all with a variety of patterns, colors, and fabrics.
And yet Thesis is also a kitchen.
In the adjacent storefront, a flurry of activity and moving parts kicks out food and beer to locals who bring tables, order hookah, and bring coolers filled with champagne or blended scotch. The people chat, move, and hang on the block as you weave in between them, the rhythms of amapiano drifting from the speakers.
The day is fading into dusk. Lerato has you carrying a sack of potatoes she bought, it’s resting on your head (another skill you learned in Accra). Yet before you leave, you put down the sack, dash back through the people, into the kitchen and buy two beers, a Corona for Lerato and a Black Label for yourself, for the ride home. You get in her car, and as she drives, you roll down the window, reaching out towards the passing streets with their faint hum, and watch your hand crest and dive on the passing currents.