For Something I started on a whim and simply to ease my social conscience, my Street People chronicles are becoming a tad more emotionally challenging than I had expected.
I am continually being astonished at how people - who have virtually nothing and justifiably have every reason to be disgruntled with the hand life has dealt them - are positive; are grateful for what they do have and are kind-hearted.
The Knitting Lady rescues abandoned kittens, the Juggler loves animals, the Penman puts money away for his granddaughter, the Hunchback bears no grudges for being dropped and maimed as a child, the Broom Daddy is determined his kids will have an education, the Roseman supports nine people... All very humbling.
For a long time now, I’ve been irritated by a chap who dresses in a suit, tie and blindingly white shirt, who often appears on the corner of Bryanston Drive and Main Road at my car window, carrying a plastic refuse bag.
He is better dressed than the Minister of Finance Malusi Gigaba and just as cool. As he
moves down the row of cars, he does an absurd little jig, while with a huge smile pointing at
you as if encountering an old friend, and looking as though, given the chance, he would
high-five you if you just threw some rubbish into his bag.
I am not sure what it is, but the more a street person annoys me, (the Juggler springs to
mind), the more I want to find out what makes them tick.
So, despite my vexed reaction to his cabaret, and telling people he is one person I will never interview, I stop and chat to him.
“Hi, my name is David,” I say by way of getting the ball rolling. He gives me a smile and
says: “Me too.” Weird.
It turns out David Nkopane, 33, is from Lesotho. His motive in coming to South Africa was,
predictably, to find a job. When he first got here he worked on a building site. After the job
finished he worked in the security industry. “Putting in alarm systems and electric fences.
“After four years all the jobs finished and I came to the robots.” This was in 2005.
“How did you choose rubbish collecting as something to do?” I ask him.
“I was struggling – I don’t have a parent here or someone to help me, so I must do what I
can to survive. But I can’t just ask for money; so I take people’s car rubbish to do something
for them.”
I ask how he felt when he first started. He laughs and says, “I was scared…when I looked at the people I just wanted to get away.
“But little by little, it got better. And also I found when I took rubbish and they said they
don’t have change and I used to say ‘no problem’, the next time they would give me money.”
“What do you do with the rubbish?”
“I put it in the bin and when it is full, Pikitup come and collect it,” he says.
I then ask him about my pet peeve. “When did you start doing your little dance as you
walk down the cars?”
He smiles at me, obviously assuming I am a fan.
“Not long time now. But I think people see I am clean and smart and I am friendly, so a lot
of them smile at me and give me money. Often they say, ‘You so happy’ and they give me food and even sometimes clothes and money.”
Then he laughs and says, “Ay, but some of them say, ‘Why you want money? You too
smart’ or they tell me ‘F. . . off ’.”
He seems to think this is a perfectly acceptable reaction.
I ask him if it bothers him.
“No,” he says, “I am always smiling and happy. I don’t know what happens in their lives, so I
just smile and move on.”
He does seem cheerful by nature; every now and then while chatting to him he laughs
and rarely stops grinning.
Maybe he thinks I’m not convinced, so he adds, “Even when I’m together with my wife
at home, I like to smile. It is the way God built me. The people in our township say I’m always
smart and happy.”
David lives with his wife in a room in Diepsloot, for which he pays R350 a month. It costs
him R30 a day for transport and on a good day he can earn anything from R250 to R400.
But he emphasises that it's on a good day.
I also suspect he is exaggerating, because as we chatted he hadn’t earned anything.
It seems, although he mostly gets by, there are times he can’t afford the rent.
“Then what do you do?” I ask.
“Sometimes I go and talk to the people and they help me.”
I gather this means they give him an extension.
He has identical twin boys, Thabo and Thabang, who are five years old and stay with
their mother in KwaZulu-Natal.
“When you see them,” David says, “you know they are my boys – they are like me.”
I ask him how he gets on with their mother who is not his wife.
“No, she is good. When I phone her and she is near to them, she always makes them
talk to me.”
He says he would like to see more of them, but it depends on money.
However, he talks to them every day. Although they are identical, apparently they
are different in nature.
“The one is like me and the other one is like my younger brother,” he says.
I then ask about a typical day for him.
He wakes at 5am and puts water on to boil, then goes back to sleep until it does.
At that point he gets up and washes and sometimes eats; but often
doesn’t, as he says he isn’t usually hungry then.
Around 7am he heads off to catch a taxi to get to Bryanston Drive.
“What do you do about eating during the day?” I ask.
“Some people give me food,” he says. “Sometimes a pie or a sandwich or fruit. But other
times, if I have money I buy something at the garage like bread or chips.
And there is a guy from Mount Street who always brings me an apple and some water.
If we are short of food at home I keep it to share with my wife.
I don’t have friends – she is my friend. At night if we have food, she cooks for me.”
He is quite philosophical and even though he tells me life in Diepsloot is not easy, and if
one is not careful it can be dangerous; he is remarkably phlegmatic about his lot.
He doesn’t complain about anything.
It has often crossed my mind while waiting in my car for the lights to change at his corner,
he could do better than spend his meagre earnings on smart clothes.
As if reading my mind, he volunteers that they have all been given to him. He has four
suits. Originally none of which fitted him, but the tailors of Diepsloot altered them.
The suits are dry-cleaned (in Diepsloot) at R80 a time whenever he can afford to.
His wife washes and irons his shirts.
I return to his motive for dressing so smartly to collect rubbish.
“If I am to get a job, I must look clean and smart. If you are dirty and badly dressed
no-one will employ you,” is his simple rationale.
David’s biggest wish is to get a permanent job as a gardener.
For the first time since we had begun talking, he stopped smiling and said quietly: “A full time
job would be life-changing for me; and I love gardening.”
He called me to say on the day his interview appeared in the Saturday Star, he sold more than R1 000 worth of brooms
– a record. More important (it seems to him) all his fellow sales-people were hugely impressed he was in the paper.
I’ve been contacted by someone who is keen to assist with cement and window frames (and a mirror) for Zoroao.
She has been asked to give knitting lessons in the Blairgowrie community hall.
She reports (ecstatically) she is living in a new world where she can actually see things.
They were overjoyed on seeing their article in last week’s Saturday Star.
“Now we are truly famous,” they chorused happily.