Ode to Jozi

Johannesburg, Joburg, Jozi, Egoli, City of Gold

Our writing group is multinational, multilingual & multicultural, but is based in SA. When those of us who live here saw the prompt ‘Africa’ we naturally imagined we had the home game advantage. But how do you do justice to an entire continent, or even a tiny corner of it in just 100 words? Maybe the sights and sounds of the bush? The wildlife, or expansive coastline?

But I am a city girl at heart and my first love is my adopted home, Johannesburg. Here’s my own Ode to Jozi, warts and all.

From the minute you arrive in Jozi it molests all of your senses. The city throbs with sound. Car horns blare, sirens wail, and hawkers’ voices shout above the din. Its streets reek of petrol fumes, overlaid with the smell of charcoal grills, mealies and boerewors.

Downtown the pavements stink of rotting vegetables and uncollected refuse. Vibrant splashes of colour disguise the poverty. The sky is blue, the clothes are bright and garish.

You reach out to touch, but it snarls and you withdraw your hand. Later it will come meekly to you and ask forgiveness.

You can never leave.

Sticks & Stones

Photo Credit: Phrases.org.uk

How to write on the subject Teach in a mere 150 words? The answer is it’s almost impossible, but no one said flash fiction with tight deadlines and a strict word count would be easy. Here’s my take on this particular prompt…

There are some things which can’t be taught.

You can teach a child to add and subtract and how numbers create patterns and algorithms that help us understand our world.

You can teach a child how letters form words and words form sentences. How sentences grow into paragraphs, and sometimes, paragraphs into entire stories in which you can immerse yourself, lost for hours on end in the jungle, under the sea, fighting monsters or falling in love.

You can teach them how words can rhyme, how they can hurt…or heal. How the pen is mightier than the sword and how to fight and win their battles with words alone. You can teach them that words instruct, are persuasive, how they can flatter and scorn.

You can teach them all of these things. What you can never teach them is to love words. That has to happen all on its own.