I am Back...
I am featuring as my first post a fantastic writer, who lives in Johannesburg and is currently focusing on short stories. Please share, like and let me know what you think.
Nugget square My destination is in the middle of destitution. I ueber there. CBD is in some places reclaimed to waste collection and paying tenants. In other places sanitation is on the street, accommodation under the bridge and passengers like us seen as enrichment opportunities. Its 4.30 in the afternoon, the Banking District lies behind us. Google maps directs us eastwards. Plenty of people and cars on the roads. The usual call it a day hectic. I am on my way to Liza, a young Russian Artist. Liza warned me “It will be warmer ouside than inside”. I know, I have been living long in this harsh city, where the shades are sharp like blades, the dry air cuts the skin, the sun sends one off into a promising golden day and closes its eyes on shivering people at night. That’s Johannesburg. Jozi, affectionately called. Joburg, when roughing it. I have packed a basket with red wine, food and fire wood. I feel like Red Riding hood, except I am not visiting a grandmother. With certainty the bad wolf lurks outside the gate. Nugget Square consists of converted industrial buildings, with a large yard in the middle, wedged in between poverty, freeways and highways. Here artists live. One has to be an artist to be able to survive here. The ambience is great. The bare tin roofs without insulation. Second floors and staircases are made of steel and not for a cozy living. Liza’s announcement was correct. It is very cold. I put my hoody on. Liza says, the fact that she is Russian, helps managing the cold. Artist colleagues come over. They open their studios, show their work. We warm our hands on Gluehwein. In Summer it must be beautiful. The lights of the city have taken over. We listen to the last tweeting of all the birds of the district occupying the square’s trees. There is someone’s door open, light streams out, a hammering noise audible. I see colorful yarn piled up and peep in. A long row of knitting machines spitting out their work. “The machines have to stay warm”, the operator explains. Must be another artist to work under these conditions. In the sixties he came from England as a specialist. He operated huge machines making socks and jerseys. Now he manufactures cuffs and collars for school uniforms. The textile industry has reverted to a niche market. Eventually we do sit inside, but temperature wise it really makes no difference. Another glass of Gluehwein to keep warm. Liza’s artworks take me into a world of storytelling and signs, codes, formulas, pictograms, ornaments, hieroglyphs, letters of Cyrillic, Arabic and Sanskrit’s. They speak. I can hear them murmur. “Is this environment stimulating?” I want to know from Liza. She points to all her artworks. “Must be”, she says. But she feels confined to the Square without a car. The Square is like a shelter. Liza’s art is very different, she seems to have a blue phase, ink on wall paper. Into the outside world to nearby Maboneng and shops she only walks with protection of another person. The Nuggets are productive but too chilly for chatting late into the night. George and Liza take us to the gate where we meet our ueber car. Across the road on the pavement open fires burn. Young prostitutes, too young prostitutes, keep warm. We plunge into the heated car. The driver in a t-shirt. For the first time this evening we feel warm. The Uber driver does not like this area, he makes sure the doors are locked. “The police cleaned all the street kids out of this area.” I gaze through the window. I have to look twice. I would not have noticed. There is still a lot of waste. A lot of leveling out between rich and poor needs to be done.
Ada-Ruth Kellow, July 2018