Lizeka Mda
A career as a mechanical engineer may seem an impossible dream for a parking attendant. Yet Lungile Ndebele keeps the dream of studying engineering alive every day, despite indications that it is becoming distant.
Every morning the 20-year-old leaves her home in Orange Farm to go to her “job” in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, where she looks after cars parked in a section of Smit Street, in return for donations from car owners who are grateful for any deterrent to car thieves.
Ndebele wrote matric in 1996 with a vague hope that she would go on to study at Wits University. But she only received a school-leaving certificate because her symbols for biology, geography, physics, English and isiZulu were very low, and her maths mark can only be described as dismal.
Undeterred, she registered to rewrite maths as a private candidate in 1997. But when exam numbers were given out for people who were registered, her name did not appear. Between her old school, Black Forest in Orange Farm, and the Department of Education her R50 registration fee had disappeared, and she could not write the exam.
Around the same time, the juice- manufacturing factory in Lenasia where her mother, Ntombifuthi Ndebele (45), was working as a machinist went under and the owner disappeared, leaving 18 workers high and dry. Only the eldest of her eight children has left home and is independent.
After months of begging and borrowing from relatives, someone suggested Ntombifuthi become a parking attendant. Together with her daughter, she walked the streets of Johannesburg looking for unattended streets, until they reached Braamfontein.
They registered with a company which lent them an apron identifying them as car guards, but in February this year, tired of paying the daily fee of R5 to rent an apron, they struck out on their own.
“On top of the taxi fare, which is R11 a day, it was too much to pay just for an apron,” says Lungile. So they registered with the city council to give car owners peace of mind. For a once-off payment of R30, Ntombifuthi got a jacket which identifies her as a parking attendant, but Lungile delayed and the jackets ran out.
“When you register, the council emphasises that this is voluntary work. We cannot charge people for looking after their cars, and they are not obliged to pay us.
“We accept whatever donations they give us.”
Ntombifuthi works a whole block in Juta Street, while her daughter shares part of a block in Smit Street with another attendant.
Lungile’s job is easier because the majority of the cars she looks after belong to people who work in the buildings on the street.
Some give her weekly, and others monthly, donations.
This kind of regular client is in the minority for Ntombifuthi, whose street is busier. She runs herself ragged up and down the street sticking papers which say “Beware: car under surveillance” on to the cars, and keeping an eye out for returning drivers. On a very good day she takes R60 home.
It’s very tiring, as I found out when I volunteered to stand in for her while she went for an interview to borrow money from a money lender.
After only one hour, I could feel my varicose veins growing, and was shocked at just how rude some drivers can be. I did not even know what I would do if someone tried to steal a car.
Lungile and Ntombifuthi smile through it all, and only leave to catch the taxi home at 5.30pm.
“When I first did this work, I would get so tired I would get home and cry in the evenings,” says Ntombifuthi. “But now I am used to it, and the exercise keeps me young. The most important thing is that my children are at school and they do not go to bed hungry.”
As for car thieves, the pair says they can spot them a mile away. Apparently they spend some time checking the place out.
Others are so brazen as to ask the attendant to look the other way while they steal the car, for money.
“We just say no thanks,” says Lungile, “what we earn is enough.” Both have access to panic buzzers that are attached to some of the buildings, and have very cordial relations with security guards in the area.
Lungile is suspending the mechanical engineering dream for the moment.
She is registering for a computer course that will span 12 months of Saturday study. But she has to pay a deposit of R400, and R250 a month thereafter, hence the interview with the loan shark.
“Because of my work, I am not a burden to my mother. But I am not going to do this for the rest of my life,” she vows. ” You can be sure of that.”