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I live in a building in Hillbrow. It was taken by the municipality of Johannesburg because the building was owing more than a million rand.
Each month, rent is paid to an agent by the woman who rents the flat, Thandeka. She is in charge and sub-lets to the rest of us. We are 15 or more people staying in the flat.
If someone is not working, as long as you behave she will allow you to stay for a while. We have no running water from the taps. The water is taken from the fire hosepipe on the fourth floor.
Our flat is on the first floor next to the fire-escape stairs.
The flat has two rooms. The first one is for ladies. I stay in the other room, which has five beds. We each have a bed and a mattress. Some people share beds. There is also a place in the corner to put your belongings. You can hang your jackets or shirts on a nail on the wall.
I pay R200 a month for my bed. There is a guy in our flat who sometimes sleeps on the kitchen floor. He puts food around the edges to keep the rats away.
When so many people live together there is always conflict. But there is a kindness too. Take Vuyani. He comes from the Eastern Cape. He is a quiet man but he has a real temper. He’s a heavy smoker and a gambler. I’ve never heard him say he won anything.
He used to live in Orange Farm but he treated his wife badly. Then he lost his job, so he lost the place where he was staying because he couldn’t afford rent any more. He moved in with his mother in Hillbrow for a month or two. He used to leave the flat very early in the morning and sneak back late at night so the landlord wouldn’t see him, but the landlord caught him and forced him out.
He would stand on the street corner holding a plastic full of soccer fixtures, newspapers and betting papers. I thought he was a bit odd at first. When Vuyani had nowhere to stay, Gcobani, who stays in our flat, invited him to come and stay with us. He introduced him to Thandeka.
She gave Vuyani a bed and a blanket. He had no clothes, so Gcobani lent him some of his. Gcobani is my friend. I have known him for years. He likes to drink Old Brown Sherry. One night he got very drunk and fell just at the entrance to the flat and blocked the door. No one could get in or leave. We tried to wake him but he just shouted, “Heita daar, heita daar,” and went back to sleep. It wasn’t long before Gcobani and Vuyani started to fall out.
They sleep next to each other and when Gcobani comes back drunk – which is most days – he makes a noise in the middle of the night and no one can sleep. So Vuyani klaps him.
I sometimes wake up and have to stop them fighting.
Then there is Sledge, a friendly guy who comes from East London. He’s a qualified civil engineer from Port Elizabeth Technikon. He once worked for a big company earning big money. He liked beautiful and expensive cars. He drank expensive whiskey. But something bad happened to him. Like many people I know, he lost his job. He lost his townhouse and went to stay with his sister in Soweto. But she gave him her bank card to buy groceries and instead he took R5 000 and went gambling. When he returned to her house she asked for her bank card and car keys and told him to pack his bags and leave.
I felt sorry for him because he didn’t have a place to live, so I invited him to come to my flat. I introduced him to Thandeka who said he could stay.
Sledge used to share food with Gcobani. Once they came back home drunk late at night, hungry, and started cooking. The only water was in a bathing basin in the kitchen, so Sledge took the water from the basin to cook his rice. Some tenants tried to stop him but he ignored them. Then everyone started laughing. He didn’t understand why until Thandeka told him she had just had a bath in that water. Recently someone burnt imphepho to chase the bad spirits away. He burnt it because he was looking for a job and wanted to bring some luck to himself. Imphepho smells strongly of burnt grass, and some people didn’t like it. They didn’t understand the meaning of what he was doing. Others didn’t mind. Their families burnt imphepho to chase away bad spirits, so they believed it would bring luck to everyone else staying in the flat as well.
* The names of the people in this story have been changed.
This story appears in Vaya: Untold Stories of Johannesburg – The people and stories that inspired the award-winning film. R300, Bookstorm. Available in all good bookshops and online as an ebook.
