Each day on Main Road and Small Street in Freedom Park, two young men sweep the road.
“Your first time driving here, you say ‘Why are these boys standing here?’ If you don’t know, you think we’re doing something wrong,” said Treasure Zungu, 22.
Zungu and his friend Bongani Ralarala, 18, fixed a patch of Main Road in May last year, filling the potholes with gravel. Without fail, from 11am until 5pm every day, they work to maintain the road network in their neighbourhood.
They sweep, slop, smooth, dig and ask passing motorists for donations, raking in around R200 a day, which they share 50/50. “It’s not because we are in poverty, but we wanted to do something for the community. We don’t bother anyone or find ourselves committing any crime,” said Ralarala.
Zungu and Ralarala are both school dropouts who were unemployed and looking for a way to make money without engaging in criminal activity, like many of their peers.
It hasn’t gone unnoticed by the community. “The most (we received at once) was R50. It was a white lady,” Zungu said.
The woman pulled over and took the note from her wallet, saying “Good job, boys. I like what you’re doing. Keep it up. Other boys your age are turning to crime.”
In fact, Zungu and Ralarala turned in the opposite direction. “We ended up doing what was supposed to be done by the government,” Zungu said. “Every time when we passed along this road, we would see potholes, and one day we came up with this initiative.”
“Give us something, boss! Even if it’s anything!” they yell at drivers whizzing past. “But we’re not rude,” Zungu added. “If someone swears at us, we don’t swear back. We say sorry.”
The boys have made a difference to many. The once heavy traffic on the narrow road has eased.
“It’s been 10 years that I have been using this road and what these boys are doing is very good, because the traffic cost us our business as taxi drivers,” said taxi driver Edward Keisprince. “We could not have enough money to put into the table.”
The boys don’t plan to do this forever, though. Zungu puts aside R50 of his earnings each day to save for his driving licence. He hopes to find a job as a driver within the next year.