Johannesburg — musings of a former resident returned

Welcome to Jozi

Johannesburg is covered in rain. Outside there is a deluge. Inside the car, we are fight­ing to nav­ig­ate the M1 – the east­ern bypass around the city some people liken to New York (won­der if the Big Apple could func­tion without any road mark­ings?) — whilst the wind­screen soon begins to mist over. We crank up the heater and lean for­ward in a bid to make some sense of the mess in which the M1 finds itself.

It's around 60 days and count­ing to the World Cup and Johannesburg, like most of the other major cit­ies of South Africa, is reel­ing. Projects, such as re-constructing the M1, appear to be behind sched­ule — cer­tainly it's doubt­ful that this major high­way is going to mira­cu­lously con­form to a smooth ride, with accom­pa­ny­ing road mark­ings, by the time vis­it­ors arrive, still, South Africans are resource­ful, you never know. For loc­als it's just one more reason they spend their lives stuck in traffic.

It's good to be 'home'. I haven't lived here for nigh on ten years. Now I call the moun­tains of Cape Town my home, but with every 'return' to Jo'burg, there is a sense of home­com­ing. This des­pite the mania that is this city that sel­dom sleeps; the city that qual­i­fies as a real African city. My Johannesburg doesn't have gun-toting guys leap­ing out at you from behind pil­lars, des­pite the fears of all and sun­dry who don't live here. Crime is in no uncer­tain terms part of the fab­ric of Johannsburg, but to live in con­stant fear gives it form and cred­ib­il­ity. And the aver­age vis­itor leaves pretty much unscathed, and the richer for the visit.

My Jo'burg is big, brash, and unashamed of the fact. Its main streets are lined with bill­boards, so much so, that if you're not used to it, you find your­self cran­ing your neck, des­pite the traffic. Did I men­tion the traffic. It's manic. Gautengers do not obey ordin­ary road pro­tocol like indic­at­ing before chan­ging lanes or stick­ing within the speed limit — that's for other cit­ies, in other parts of the world.  In fact, if there is a road rule, the aver­age Jozi taxi has already brazenly flouted it for all to see, and without penalty.

My Johannesburg is a melt­ing pot of cul­tures — black, white, col­oured and in-between, north, east and west African, Zimbabwean and Indian. Some of them like this vari­ety, oth­ers don't. My Johannesburg is a mirage of fancy cars, sky scrapers, cool bars and res­taur­ants and import­ant his­tory. It's the site of the country's most fam­ous town­ship, Soweto, and another less-famous but as dense, over­pop­u­lated and feisty — Alex.

Yet, it's also a city full of trees, and vil­lages where you can safely leave your car and stroll around, like Melville, Parktown and Norwood, where you can visit zany cof­fee shops, altern­at­ive shops, used book­stores, pubs and res­taur­ants. It's a city over run with gar­gan­tuan shop­ping malls — glitsy halls lined with boutiques, chain stores, book stores, music stores, gimic stores and just about any­thing else you can buy. It's where most of the teen­agers 'hang out'. No longer safe in parks or sub­ways, Jo'burg's youth are mall rats. They pout, pose and swag­ger whilst self-consciously smooth­ing a fringe or tweak­ing the top of jeans. They're cell­phone tout­ing, Ipod swinging spend­ers. And they hang out on benches, at the movies or McDonalds — it doesn't mat­ter to them where.

Johannesburg is fiercely loved by its res­id­ents, and hated by those who don't live here. You've got to reside here to under­stand. The con­stantly chan­ging met­ro­polis, with an inner city burst­ing at the seams with illegal occu­pants, hawkers and non law law-abiding taxi drivers who behave as if their very exist­ence is under threat by the BRT and the Gautrain, has to be savoured over time to be appre­ci­ated. There is some­thing about liv­ing here and know­ing your way around, that over­comes the fear those just off the plane exper­i­ence as a res­ult of neg­at­ive media por­tray­als. The place gets into your blood.

My Johannesburg is home to a series of mine dumps, African muti shops, myriad sub­urbs each with its own fla­vour, a dis­tinc­tion between north­ern and south­ern sub­urbs, des­pite there being no river to come betwixt them, a mish­mash of archi­tec­tural styles that bor­row heav­ily from Tuscany in the newer north­ern sub­urbs, none of which is dis­tinctly South African, and sig­na­ture six-foot walls lined with barbed wire and elec­tric fencing.

This is the same Johannesburg people visit to see the Apartheid Museum, the Origins Centre at Wits, New Town and its theatre, the Nelson Mandela bridge and the Pilanesberg National Park, just out­side of the city. It's the city where Hillbrow was yes­ter­day and Melville is today.

It's elec­tric and elec­tri­fy­ing. You would be mad not to visit.

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