A Soweto family is using traditional hair-plaiting skills to make ends meet
Bongani Majola
Ordinary women like Miriam Mothobeki make extraordinary tales. She is a matriarch of 72 years who has ensured the passage of an essential survival skill from generation to generation plaiting hair for a living.
Though Mothobeki has long “retired” from ukuqhina (the art of plaiting) due to a mild stroke, the tradition of braiding and plaiting is kept intact and thriving through her family of 17 grandchildren and six children.
In their home in Diepkloof, Soweto, every person in the 26-member family is skilled in the art of plaiting hair and they all share the three bedroomed house, including a one-roomed shack outside.
On a busy day like Saturday all the women have their hands full of hair. Even the youngest of the grandchildren, Tshidi, on reprieve from studying for matric, has a customer to take care of.
“On a day like that,” says Makoma, the most lively and talkative of the six sisters, “we do about 20 to 30 people. For each braiding style, prices range from R15 to R200.”
So they make a lot of money?
“Just enough to clothe and feed the whole family,” says Maidi, the oldest of the daughters.
The Mothobeki braiding women are Skedi, Makoma, Maidi, Tshidi, Nkele, Morongwe, Maki and Sheila. They sometimes enlist assistance from the family’s five boys, who are equally skilled.
“I started doing hair at 17,” says Miriam, “and the styles have grown sophisticated over the years, but my children take care of that.”
Taking care of it means being able to create such fashionably popular styles like “Kabibi”, “Mrobozo”, “Cordroy” and “Da Brat” with ease. And since nobody is employed in the entire family, they have as much fun doing hair and chatting as they make ends meet.
Maidi says they started serving customers “seriously from 1999 when the African pride trend started showing itself in braids. Suddenly everybody wanted their hair plaited.”
And this is when what was considered a favourite pastime took on serious economic importance for the Mothobeki family. The time could not have been better.
“With so many people in the township unemployed, we decided to do something for ourselves and contribute to the general beauty of the community at the same time,” chuckles Nkele with a broad smile.
And the community sings their praises. One particularly satisfied customer is Happy Mokoena. Though normally a shy person (she begs us not to take a photo of her), her coyness cannot hide the beautiful work done on her hair.
“The prices here are reasonable compared to elsewhere. They have done my hair for only R35. I would pay something like R80 somewhere else. And you can get your hair done on credit,” she enthuses.
“We also sell ice cream,” says Nkele, the most playful of the Mothobeki sisters.