15th March 2009

Johannesburg was a dirty old girl. She’d let herself go. Badly.

The gold slut had seen my type come and go and didn’t care if we caught her compromised. Her shuttered gaze indifferent to the lense; her pose awkward to my foreign eye.

“F-ck-off”, she seemed to mumble. “Voetsak back to Sandton, Laarnie”. Her morning breath slipped between the riotous weeds, rank and uncaring.

I had visited Jozi often. Just to marvel. As a foreigner. I’d grab my mountainbike or the dr. Entering her from the dark eastern side where victorian buildings huddled together, their ruddy features flushing as I sped past.

Today Jozi seemed different.

When I winked, she didn’t look away, returning instead without rancour to her business. She now seemed to carry her blemishes with a noisy dignity;  the stitched red earth more vital; the life returning to her grey arteries