Lizeka Mda : City Limits
A lifetime ago, couples would sit in Pioneer Park and smooch over a lunch of fish and chips, while mothers kept a beady eye on children mesmerised by a statue of leaping springboks.
Ten years ago the park, wedged behind the Rissik Street post office and Joubert Street, still vaguely resembled a park. In Johannesburg, where public spaces have always been at a premium, a stroll through the park from Market to President Street provided a welcome escape from the congestion on the city’s narrow pavements.
Today Harry Oppenheimer, who in 1960 donated the springboks to the city in memory of his father Sir Ernest, would be hard-pressed to recognise the park, let alone spend time near the statue. The park is no more, it has been taken over by an unusual enterprise – a hawkers’ trolley parkade.
Early in the morning heaving mounds of trolleys, red or blue-and-white checked bags, cardboard, plastic sheeting, planks and trestles – all the property of the hawkers who ply their trade on the city’s pavements – are packed chock-a-block in the square.
Holding court in this not-so-sightly island is David Madzivhandila, who is paid by the hawkers to look after the trolleys and bags overnight.
He is a small man, usually dressed in a black leather jacket, rain or shine, with an ever-pleasant countenance that hints at a kind heart, and an impish sense of humour. Just don’t catch him between 5.30am and 11.30am, or 4pm and 11pm.
Then he is a study in concentration as he stands watch at the President Street entrance to the square, to check that what each hawker brings in the evening is the same as what is taken out in the morning rush.
“Your big trolley has already left,” he tells a woman with a baby on her back. “Fetch this woman those two planks at the back,” he instructs one of his assistants.
There are no labels for the more than 900 trolleys and bags, and Madzivhandila does not know all the 400 or so hawkers by name, yet he can match a face to a Woolworths trolley or a towering stack of bananas, peaches or potatoes.
There does not seem to be any system for packing the trolleys away either, everything works on a first-come-first-served basis. Yet every morning, the hawkers hardly spend five minutes locating their baggage with the help of Madzivhandila’s seven assistants.
It only looks chaotic if you do not understand how it works. And the secret of how it works lies with Madzivhandila himself.
“It’s all in this computer,” he says, tapping his head. “At the beginning I used to be amazed that I knew which bag, which planks, belonged to whom, because I had never worked in a warehouse.”
It’s a marvellous computer, because day in and day out the only complaints, if any, come from the fruit and vegetable vendors when something has leaned too heavily on their fragile produce. And when that happens, “we do not argue about loss”, says Madzivhandila. “We just replace. But that does not happen often.”
It’s his “computer” that puts his services in huge demand among hawkers all over the city. That is how he reluctantly acquired another parkade at the corner of Diagonal and Pritchard streets, where he looks after 30-odd trolleys.
At face value, the bags and boxes do not look like much, but the goods they hold – handbags, disposable nappies, shoes, detergent, cosmetics and clothes – represent stock worth hundreds of thousands of rands. For their owners they mean that school fees get paid and countless mouths are fed, across the continent.
The majority of hawkers who use Madzivhandila’s lot seem to come from the Northern Province and Mpumalanga, judging by the languages they speak. These women, who stand out in the bright-coloured cloths of the Shangaan-speaking peoples, leave their children in rural areas and rent rooms in places like Chiawelo in Soweto, or shacks in Orange Farm.
Foreign hawkers may be targets for their local colleagues in the streets, but not on Madzivhandila’s lot. All are welcome here – Ethiopians, Congolese, Mozambicans and West Africans.
“I even have five white hawkers who keep their things here,” he says. “I do not discriminate. Here the need is the same, and so is the money. You can call this the OAU [Organisation of African Unity] if you like.”
Madzivhandila’s computer comes cheap, too. Since January each hawker contributes R8 a week to have their things looked after. For years it was just R6, until the hawkers themselves adjusted the payment. There are no receipts but he knows who has paid.
“In the beginning some people used to think they could fool me. No one does that anymore because I would embarrass them when the lot was full. And they would not know where to hide their heads from the shame. I am not working to be rich. I just want to help the community.”
One’s cynicism may be rather tickled by this statement, but the evidence points to the truth of it. Like the 100 or so trolleys that are isolated in the corner of the square. Their owners have not returned since Christmas, some for years before. When the owners or their relatives eventually claim the trolleys, they will not pay storage.
“With what money?” Madzivhandila asks. “If the trolleys are here, it means the owners have not been working. Some have encountered problems in their homes, and others are still trying to raise money for stock. Nothing is removed here without the owner’s permission. That is why there is no fighting here.”
And then there are hawkers who sell disposable nappies. None of them have wholesale buying cards, which means a pack of 150 nappies would cost them R130. Madzivhandila arranged with a friend who has a card to shop at a wholesaler to buy the nappies for the women. The friend delivers them to the lot and the hawkers buy them for the wholesale price of R90.
Madzivhandila employs seven young men at R250 a week, to help look after the trolleys, but most importantly, to take the trolleys out of the lot and to fetch them in the evenings for elderly hawkers who cannot push their trolleys. On top of that, he employs someone to cook meals for the young men.
“If they are not hungry, they won’t be tempted to steal from the hawkers.”
David Madzivhandila was born 49 years ago in Tshakuma, near Louis Trichardt in the Northern Province, where his wife and four children live. In 1969 he came to Johannesburg, where he found a job as a painter. He has been looking after the trolleys for 10 years in various locations, only moving to Pioneer Park three years ago.
“We would be completely lost without David,” says Susan Maepa, who sells school bags, greeting cards, socks and face cloths in Kerk Street. She supports an extended family, including her two children in Burgersfort, near Pietersburg, from her business. “Can you imagine lugging these things to and from Soweto in a taxi, every day?”
In Madzivhandila, the hawkers have a person who lives for those trolleys. He works punishingly long hours. He does not rest until the last trolleys come in, and at the weekend, the wors-roll vendors come back as late as 4am.
“I dream about the trolleys. Often I wake up in a cold sweat, fearing that the trolleys have been stolen. But that has not happened. That is why I say this is God’s work. There’s no muti, just God.”