”Sometimes I go home without having had any customers for the day,” explains Albetina Sotoe, also known as Betina. We settle under a shop awning opposite Spitz, and Mathusse gets her second customer for the day - someone who is there to have ponte fine (fine point). ”Come with me,” she says, running towards a nearby Spitz shoe store that is under construction. Now it starts to pour and the ”Shangaan corner” erupts as everyone scrambles for shelter. ”This is what I was going to tell you about … the rain,” she says, moving her chairs and other belongings to a sheltered spot. She starts telling me about the hardships braiders face, and, right on cue, it starts to rain. By the time money reaches me I already have a purpose for it, so I don’t know how much it is monthly.” Sometimes I get more than that, especially in December,” she says, adding that she makes between R3Â 000 and R5Â 000 a month. I make my money so that I can spend it on the things that I need.” ”I keep the money that I make daily in a purse and then I do minor grocery shopping weekly, and then only do I go to the bank and save the rest. She says she never knows exactly how much she makes each month. Withdrawing money from an ATM is something that Mathusse is unfamiliar with the only time she ever goes to the bank is when she deposits money. I mean, let’s face it, I didn’t get the time to finish school, so there is no other way I could try to make money,” she smiles, almost daring me to tell her otherwise. ”I believe that I can do anything with my hands, if I would just be given a chance to watch and learn. I would walk past him every day after work and I used to watch him do it,” she says. I was fascinated because I could braid, but not with a needle … in fact, I had never seen anyone do that before. ”I saw a man who used to braid using a needle. I was living in someone’s backyard room in Dube, Soweto, at that time,” she says. ”I came to Johannesburg a year later and then I worked at a shoe shop near Westgate station. I was really scared but I had to come here because it was the only way I could get a better life for myself.”Ĭurrently living in Yeoville, she first spent a few months on a farm in Komatipoort where she worked for food and clothes. ”I must have been 13 or 14 when I came here. Mathusse braids because it is the only way she can make money. She says braiding is easy, but getting the customers is the challenge. Mathusse, along with 30 other braiders, has a prime spot on the corner opposite Charlie Parkers - a store that sells hairpieces and cosmetics. ”We book them before they even say they want a braid,” says Melita Mathusse (30), a Mozambican woman who arrived in South Africa in 1991 as she assesses the customer potential of passers-by. It’s all about ”calling the customers yourself”. But, like everyone, they have hopes and dreams and, for the moment, are just trying to make ends meet.īeing in the business of braiding requires patience, strength and strategy. Many of the braiders are frustrated because they don’t earn a regular income, so they can’t apply for credit. Now, a fight can see a braider banned from the area for a month. Before the Central Johannesburg Partnership - a non-profit company focusing on urban renewal and renewal of the inner city - introduced a system of permits last year, fistfights broke out as braiders literally fought for their customers. Porschia Ncube (46), a teacher from Zimbabwe, says her colleagues in Bulawayo earn Z$3-million (about R680) a month, which she can make in three hours.Ĭompetition is fierce. There are women from almost any Southern African country one could care to name - Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Angola - and all have been driven to sit on a cheap plastic chair in the centre of Johannesburg because they make more money here than many of their countrymen will make in a month. Now, however, there are so many braiders that they have to apply for a permit to work in the area. Hundreds of women congregate here every day to provide a vital service to the city’s female residents: braiding.Īt first, anyone could set up shop in this bustling pedestrian mall, flanked by furniture shops. ” Woza sisi, wozobona ,” say the braiders on the corner of Kerk and Eloff streets in downtown Johannesburg. Thembelihle Tshabalala meets some of Johannesburg's braiders. Hundreds of women congregate here every day to provide a vital service to the city's women: braiding. ''Woza sisi, wozobona ,'' say the braiders on the corner of Kerk and Eloff streets in downtown Johannesburg.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |