#Culture

I’ve been looking for an excuse to hang out at the sprawling outdoor market in Fordsburg – Joburg’s “Little India” – on a Saturday night. The market, called “the Square,” is where Fordsburg residents go to see and be seen on Saturdays. It’s also a great place to buy clothes, DVDs, spices, jewelry, and tasty Indian and Pakistani street food.

Last night I attended the Melville Photographic and Poetry Exhibition at the Melville Visitors Centre. The exhibition featured about half a dozen photographers and half a dozen poets. The artists vary widely in their subject matter, professional backgrounds, and ethnic heritage, but share one thing in common – they live and/or work in Melville.

The retail strip along Melville’s Main Road is a gritty place. It’s lined with seedy bars, fast-food joints, and boarded-up storefronts. Traffic is brutal, trees are scarce, and the sidewalk is potholed.

One of the unfortunate realities about life in Joburg is that if you need something, you’ll probably have to go a shopping mall to buy it. And the malls here are sprawling, crowded, and uniformly depressing.