Last week Friday

Simphiwe got a new sign. It's black mostly, with colourful blocks on the edges. It does that thing that signs are meant to do: catch your eye. So I was a little surprised by how underwhelmed Simphiwe's wife seems to be. 

"But it's gorgeous!" I gushed.
She laughed, "yes, yes, but it has no number."
"No number?"
"No cell number."
"Aaaah," I nodded, and realized why the scrappy piece of cardboard squished in between the bars of Simphiwe's security gate was so necessary: it had his number. It looked like the bottom of a beer box, you know the box that holds four six-packs all pressed together? And his name and number were written, a little skew, in careful lettering made by the repeated lines of a ballpoint pen.

We stood outside, his wife and I, and looked at the shiny new sign tacked to the side of the container. And at the cardboard rectangle with his number.
"So has it helped business?" I ask her.
"Yes," she starts, "but only when we added the cell. Now people can see the shop from far away and get the number when they get close."
"Good strategy." I reply. "Where did he get the sign? Did he design it himself?"
"No, I don't know. It's from the business class."
"I like it."
"Yes, I like it also."

We chat a little longer but she doesn't have much time for me today, the shop is busy. So I wander around outside for a bit, mostly between the women who're yet to move into a container. They're on the ground with their goods, all laid out on blankets and canvas mats. Shoes, underwear, children's clothes. There's building here, still. There's almost always building here. Now it's a double-story container structure, there at the entrance to the Shoprite parking lot. It's bright blue. The man working on it is bright blue too, with a mask and some gloves and a tool that's grinding orange sparks off the window frame. It's loud. I call to the shop and wave goodbye as I stroll further along the road.

Driving down Modderdam on the way back to the N2, I notice that the city government continues with its project to rehumanize Manenberg. They're painting the courts, nice neutral tones mostly, with a brick red stripe running down the height of the building every couple of flats. It looks good, from the road. Slow down and look through the rows of flats and squares of courts and you'll see that those in the background still peel and pucker like stretched old skin hardly able to contain the life pulsing against it. I wonder if they're painting inside too: inside the courts, inside the flats. Inside the bodies that keep them warm and alive. Got to start somewhere, I suppose.

New signs, new paint. There's a man pushing a red and green (Spar) trolley up the road outside Jooste. He's wearing a grey stripey hoodie. Inside his trolley is a boy, his son? And he's wearing a grey stripey hoodie. Aesthetics hey; everything, nothing, something in between.