Johannes Qambelisha, the man behind the bouquets
Johannes Qambelsiha has been selling flowers on Beyers Naude Drive for the past 43 years. The paper finds out why.
Long before some in our community knew the difference between gardenias and roses, and when Beyers Naudé Drive was still known as D F Malan Drive, stood a man who sold flowers.
Meet Johannes Qambelisha, originally from Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal. He has been selling flowers on this road since 1980. In all those years, many have aged along with him, some have driven by him and others have honoured him with a show of support for his small business. But who is the man behind the bouquets? The Northcliff Melville Times met with him to find out.
When he came to the City of Gold in 1979, he was in the construction industry. This was the case until he realised he could make more money weekly, selling flowers over construction materials. So he changed his line of work and went selling all sorts of flowers, from lilies to roses and every flower in between. Each bouquet he has sold has been uniquely arranged by him. His favourite flowers are roses, “I especially love the red, but I sell all colours,” he said.
Qambelisha is father to five children – one sadly passed away and another has been wheelchair-bound for all their life. His three other children, who range from 35 to 22 years-old, were put through school and each attained their matric, thanks to the community’s purchase of his bouquets over the years. “It was very hard to make this happen. During that time, they all took public transport to get to school each day.” Notwithstanding the fact that as a breadwinner, he still needs to put food on the table.
Though many have come to know him in the time he has worked at this intersection, few still choose to support him. With many arguing that R80 a bouquet is too expensive, “They love me, but they do not love my price. They would rather pay R40 or R50. They never want to pay my full price,” he explained.
After 43 years of selling flowers, Qambelisha is now rightfully tired but he is forced to continue working, as all of his children are still currently unemployed. He shared his frustrations on his lack of agility, ” I can not run anymore, sometimes when a customer calls for me I can not get to them fast enough, and they just end up leaving.” Suffering complications with his heart and lungs, every night he has to sleep with the use of his oxygen machine.
On this particular Wednesday afternoon the paper met with him, he hadn’t made one sale by 17:00. This meant he wouldn’t have the money needed to buy more flowers at the market the next day and would most likely struggle to put bread on the table. “Though I would love to stay home, it would mean my family would have no food.”
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