Day 110: Exploring Creative Inner-City Nabe Maboneng with Guide Bongani
Woke up at the Peech Hotel, which we really like.
At 10 this morning we were picked up by our guide for the next two days, Bongani. Bongani’s a young, very cool artist and historian who’s deeply involved in the street art/fashion/culture scene in Joburg, as well as its local history.
On the schedule today: A walking tour and lunch in Maboneng, a former “no-go” zone neighborhood in inner city Joburg that’s undergone a massive redevelopment/revitalization.
Very Brooklyn-y — lots of old warehouses and garages and factories converted to artist lofts, music studios, workshops, ad agencies, restaurants and cafes.
The crowd was mixed, hipster faces black and white, and the streets had that cleaned-up but gritty-with-beautiful-graffiti look of many Brooklyn neighborhoods.
It had a twinge of manufactured cool, but it was still refreshing to see. More on that to further down.
Bongani is clearly a dialed-in “somebody” here — lots of greetings and fist bumps from business owners and random artist walking down the street.
He even had a stencil of his own face in a doorway jammed with spray-stenciled portraits of Bob Marley, Nelson Mandela, Biggie Smalls, etc.
We spent a drizzly few hours exploring the streets, visiting places like the “I Was Shot in Joburg” photography studio and South Africa’s only 48-channel analogue sound mixer, where Americans and famous South Americans alike come to record albums.
We went to this very cool store called Unknown Union, and I bought a bomber-style vest made from a traditional Lesotho blanket (if you’ve seen Black Panther you’ll recognize the pattern). The vest is not only cool, but on our first night in Cape Town, when we met up with Meg and Luke, we had a picnic/sundowner on a Lesotho blanket, and I have very good memories. So – a fun purchase.
For lunch we ate at Che, an Argentinian restaurant that’s a favorite in the neighborhood and chatted with Bongani.
Asked him a million questions, shared everything we’d seen so far. He reminds us of so many people we know in NYC. We really like him.
Once Bongani and driver Andrew dropped us back off at the hotel, we took the rest of the day easy.
Teddy, Willa and James went to the James and Ethel Gray Park across the street from our hotel and met the after-work dog park crowd.
They befriended a mom and her two golden retrievers. Both had eyebrows penciled onto their faces because she’d been playing with makeup with her daughter beforehand.
Apparently the fun and conversation ground to a halt as soon as one of the goldens, Chloe, ate a huge mouthful of dog poop and had to be taken home. Talk about things the kids will remember from this year…
James and Teddy ate dinner in the restaurant, Willa wasn’t up for it so she had room service. We called it a night early.
Miscellaneous:
Have we mentioned yet that James has earned the nickname Famous James on this trip? Beginning in Brazil, James has consistently been the most popular person in our family every single place we go — most notably among service people like Uber drivers, hotel staff, etc. At one point Willa asked, “Why is James so famous everywhere we go?” She couldn’t have said it better. We were wondering the same thing!
Meaning, why is he getting picked up, twirled around, cheeks pinched, hair tousled, fist bumped, special handshaked, invited to play catch/look for cats/tell jokes, etc. all the time. It often feels like he’s the only one in the room. For whatever reason, between all of Brazil and everywhere we’ve been since (Africa), his vibe appeals to people — especially men. Not in a creepy way at all. It’s so funny.
So of course it was no surprise to us that Bongani loved James, and the two of them held hands, arm wrestled, etc.
Unrelated, Bongani explained that people walk and drive really fast in Joburg — and that that behavior stems from its roots as a gold rush town — everyone’s scarmbling, hustling, etc.
It was so good for us to see downtown Joburg, and to tour a thriving, creative mostly-black community. We spent three weeks in Cape Town — stunning and special but we saw verrrrry little mixing of races or black-led business. Our two weeks in wine country and along the coast and into some Afrikans territory were also interesting but even more segregated. Durban was more diverse than the rest but still. Everywhere we’ve been, the issue is a constant presence, and every day we’d wonder: is anyone even trying to bridge the divide here?? We just didn’t see much that showed forward progress on the race stuff.
Until Joburg. It’s a different ball game — many of the same issues but seems to have a different vibe. I think a lot of tourists — especially Americans — do time in Cape Town and safari and fly home. It’s a shame they miss Johannesburg. I’m so glad we built in today and tomorrow to get to see more of this city. We needed this…
