For picnics with rhythm, there are a series of Saturday afternoon concerts held there each month. Top of today's lineup was the South African electro-outfit Goldfish, who I had heard of before but heard for the first time today. They were amazing: an eclectic mixture of electronic music with vocals, saxophone, flute and even double bass (hid it behind the DJ pult). The crowd was pumping.
My friend Anna, a lutheran pastor, moonlights regularly for the methodists. On Thursday evenings she helps out at external prayer services and soup kitchens at various locations around the church in Midrand, half way between Pretoria and Joburg. Like many other parts of South Africa, there are people living in shacks there in open spaces; in Midrand, many of them are refugees from Zimbabwe. While I'm not religious, I enjoy doing volunteer work, so today I went out to help her.
My car was loaded with plastic bottles filled with tap water, and our team set off in a small convoy for Sandyridge vlei, a short drive from the church. Anna sat beside me, and in the back were three other volunteers from the church: Jethro, Prince and Simon. "Where are you from?", I asked, thinking to make conversation as we drove through the light dizzle. "Zimbabwe", said Jethro. "I have been here for about 8 years. I work at the African Development Bank". "Zimbabwe" said Prince, who had found work at nearby construction sites but needed a roof over his head. "Zimbabwe", said Simon. "I have been here for only a week. I entered South Africa by crossing the Limpopo River. It was deeper than I thought, and I was afraid I would drown".
Then they turned the question on me. "Zimbabwe", I said. Although I no longer think of myself as a Zimbabwean, it is where I spent the first 18 years of my life, longer than in any other country.
The cars lurched up a curb into a dark grassy vlei, littered with plastic bowls. and sloping down towards the lights of Joburg's wealthy northern suburbs. Horns were hooted to announce our arrival, camping lanterns lit and soon a group of about 40 people materialized out of the grasslands and stood in a circle around us.
The service was held in South Sotho and lead by Yolandi, a confident and obviously well-off Pedi woman who later confided how shy she had felt. She asked others in the circle to pray or lead a hymn to which the circle danced; despite the cool drizzle and damp windiness of the evening, the circle took on the cheer of an evening around a campfire.
After the service, soup, bread and water were distributed to a crowd which magically doubled in size. Our bucket of soup was rapidly exhausted, and the queue of people dissolved into the darkness.
Back in the church, Dzvikho, who had managed the operation and was himself a Zimbabwean, handed some of the helpers blankets and let them sleep in a caravan at the bottom of the church property.
Anna and I went out for a pizza afterwards, experiencing that strange social warp by moving a very short distance from the impoverished world of the squatters and the soup kitchen to the luxury of an upscale mall a stone's throw away. Suddenly we had been transformed from the third world into the first: its a warp which is so common in South Africa you forget how strange it is.
In the parking lot a man in a reflective orange vest bounded towards us: the parking guard. "My name is Augustine, and I think you are Anna!" he said happily. He knew my friend from the church. Augustine was a Zimbabwean with a degree in philosophy; at home he had been a teacher. Here his job in the mall's parking had him pay R35 for the privilege of getting tips from people who's cars he guarded. His wife was expecting their first child.
We shared a pizza in a somewhat sombre mood. The waiter who served us was friendly and helpful. We got him to pack half of the pizza into a box, to give to Augustine, and bought him a cup of hot tea too. On the way out, on a hunch, I asked our waiter where he was from. "Zimbabwe", he said, smiling.
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