31 km driven to interview Kathorus women

While thousands of South African women celebrate Women’s Month with loud ululations and song and dance, there are still those on the fringe of society who regard August as just another month in their daily struggle for survival.

Kathorus MAIL drove around the townships of Kathorus and spoke to some of these women – mothers, aunts and sisters – who, despite the odds, come rain or shine, wake up every morning and sit by the side of the road in the hope of earning a living and creating a difference in the lives of their families and loved ones.

Unlike their counterparts in the corporate world whose success is measured in PowerPoint slides and Excel graphs, the women on the fringe make meagre profits that would make any formal-business owner suffer a heart attack.

These informal township entrepreneurs sit by the side of the road daily, from dawn to dusk, selling their wares, commodities and foodstuff to a random and often unreliable clientele.

While many women around the townships are celebrating their political and social emancipation, the women on the fringe regard their continuous toil as proof of their determination to succeed in life.

Some of them spoke about how they have managed to keep a roof over the heads of their children, put them through school and even through tertiary education.

Thirty-two-year-old Eunice Matlou is a mother of four children, aged 16, 12, eight, and six months. She says her two-year-old side-road restaurant is her main source of income. She described earning R500 on good days and R300 on bad days, and running the business as “a lot better than doing nothing”.

“At least I am able to feed my children, clothe them and pay for their schooling with the money I earn from this business,” she said proudly as she prepared to clean the several pots she uses to cook basic meals for the handful of construction workers nearby.

Farther along the road, Ricketta Mahlalela (56) has been running her fruit and vegetable stall for as long as she can remember. “I used to sell from the other side of the road, where I started seven years ago,” she recalled as she sat with her 24-year-old daughter, Culi, and newly-born granddaughter under the shelter of her fruit stall in Zonkizizwe’s Extension 6.

For Mama Mahlalela, her stock of apples, pineapples, oranges and bananas mingled with an assortment of packets of crisps, biscuits, peanuts and round ginger cookies ensures her a steady income of between R30 and R50 on slow days and R100 on good days.

It costs her between R80 and R100 to hire a taxi to ferry her stock from the City Deep Food Market to her stall outside her house in Zonkizizwe. Fruits and vegetables, though among her fast-moving stock, cost more to sell because of their short shelf life. “Sometimes you end up cooking some of your stock for your own family because you want to avoid having to throw it away before it goes off,” explained the elderly street trader.

Alerta Ndhavele’s (46) open fruit stall at the corner of M7 and Masakhane Road opens as early as 7am every morning and closes at dusk, seven days a week. And for this effort she is proud to take home between R150 and R300 a day, depending “how luck tips the scales”. With four children to feed at home, Alerta describes herself as an “efficient and capable” businesswoman.

Alerta told Kathorus MAIL she still hopes to grow her informal fruit stall into a more formal and professional business. “I’m actually proud that I have managed to run the business for the past fours. I am able to pay for my two younger children, aged 13 and seven, who are still at school,” said Alerta, whose stock of fresh avocados are a delicacy for her nearby local clientele.

Alice Kopa said she spotted the opportunity to embark on what has turned out to be a thriving pavement restaurant when the Palm Ridge High Court Buildings opened in 2007. According to her, since then, her small informal street restaurant outside the court building has become a regular food outlet for many of the court’s highly placed employees, from police detectives to court interpreters and lawyers.

Alice described how she prepares her food daily in her kitchen at home before transporting the pots to her pavement restaurant. It is strategically situated in a neat tent with tables and chairs right at the front entrance of the court building. To date, Alice’s pavement eatery has created jobs for 11 people.

“We are just as happy working here as we would be working for any restaurant in Alberton, Germiston or Boksburg CBD,” said Alex, a male waiter at Alice’s pavement eating house.

For 40-year-old Precious Nkosi, a mother of three from Zonkizizwe’s Zone 1, creating colourful traditional bead adornments has helped her put her three children through school.

Her eldest daughter (18), who requested not be named or photographed, told Kathorus MAIL she is extremely proud of her hard-working mom. “I managed to finish college through her hard work,” she said.

Precious said her childhood pastime has been the only work she has done all her life. The most she earns from her informal business is a meagre R300 a month. “Half of that in bad months.”