#northcliff

Why I love Johannesburg

Johannesburg is the world’s biggest man-made forest. When I first heard that, I immediately thought of how apt that is as a metaphor for the people that inhabit it. What was once isolated is now a melting pot of all cultures and creeds.

We do not live in a perfect city. I often hear of horrifying things happening here - of danger and death and poverty. But there are also lovely things.

Like eating a ripe mango in the middle of a long January day.

And starting up a conversation with a hawker hanging on your car in afternoon traffic; little bits of people’s lives briefly becoming entangled with your own.

Then there are dinners in Maboneng, and afternoon beers in Parkhurst. There are friends and family and lots and lots of laughing.

There is the vibrancy of the town; the impeccably dressed women parading down the streets; the rage that the cheeky taxi drivers incite in people.

The mix of the old and the new.

We are a happy people in general. Fraught with the burdens of the past and the constant hope for the future, but we go on.  

And I, well I love the sound of the rain in the night. And the camaraderie I find in the grocery store when the lady in front of me shouts and I smile with the cashier.

I love the swooping synchronicity of the flying ants in twilight and the purple bloom of Morning Glory. The hazy blue skyline from atop the old water tower.

I love the shape of the city from the M1 and the flickering lights in the still of the evening.

I love the passion of the students and the wisdom of the old.