Johannesburg - The other day, as I was getting into my car in Parktown North, someone shouted from across the road, “Do you need a broom, sir?” I looked around and walking towards me was a cheerful-looking chap carrying a bunch of mops, brooms and rakes on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t do any sweeping.”
He gave me a broad grin and said: “But if you start, sir, these are the best brooms you can buy.” I wasn’t in a rush; he seemed genuinely cheerful, was neatly dressed and quite relaxed
I wasn’t going to buy anything - so I thought I’d find out more about him.
A few days later, after lunch, we meet upstairs at the Jolly Roger in Parkhurst. His name is Welcome Gama. He doesn’t want anything to eat, but settles for a Castle Lite as, he explains, “I’ve finished for the day and my girlfriend, the mother of my daughter, is fetching her from school”. Then, I presume, just to show me he is not a drinker, he adds, “I’m all right if you buy me a beer, sir, because I don’t buy them.
"My father told me, ‘Son, don’t waste the money. Keep it safe. Save money’,” and with a smile he says, “and that’s what I do.”
Welcome is 32 and has been selling brooms around Craighall Park, Parkhurst and Parktown North since 2007.
WELL-KNOWN: Welcome has been selling brooms since 2007. PICTURE: David Gemmell
He tells me he grew up in uMlazi township in Durban.
“I went to school until Grade 9. Then when my father passed away, I came up to Johannesburg to earn money to support my family.”
“Weren’t you nervous coming to a big place like this?” I ask him.
“No,” he says, “I wasn’t scared. My uncle was living here, selling brooms, and he showed me how to make them and sell them - so I was lucky.”
He saw me studying his brooms and says, “These straw ones I make. Every Sunday and Monday when I’m not working, I make them and I can produce 20 in a day. They cost me R50 for three brooms and then I sell them for R45 each. The other ones are R85.” On closer inspection they appear to be well put together.
“Where do you get your other stock?”
“These other ones, like the mops and the rakes, I buy from The Plaza,” he says, pointing in an easterly direction.
“How many brooms do you sell in a day?”
“I sell 10, maybe nine, on a good day. If it is bad I only sell four or maybe three.” Then he grins and says, “But I never sell nothing. I always sell at least one broom, maybe two.”
He says so many people in Parkhurst know him that he must sell something. He often walks around the area going from intercom to intercom.
“How do people respond to that?” I ask. He shakes his head and says, “Sho some of them get very cross. ‘Why you ring my intercom? Go away, I’m busy.’ Or they shout, ‘Leave me alone.’ But I’m not feeling bad - it is my job. If they say ‘go away’ I’m not worried too much.
"Other people are nice. They say, ‘Come here. I don’t need a broom, but I have something for you.’ And they give me money, but they don’t take a broom.
“Another one says, ‘Hey, you try to make things nice for you so here is something’”
“What time of day do you start selling?”
“I wake up at 5am and make food for my daughter. Sandwiches with polony and cheese or something. Then I take her to school with the taxi to Yeoville.
"She is at the Commissioner Primary; it is a private school. Then I come here by 7am. I finish at 2.30pm when I go to fetch my daughter and take her home.”
In the evening he cooks dinner. “I make pap and steak - it is strong food so I can work,” he says with a smile.
I ask if he ever eats vegetables. “Yes,” he says, “that is Sunday kos (food); we have spinach and cabbage.”
After dinner he washes his trousers and chats to his daughter. “She likes her phone too much,” he says, and shakes his head. “Always she is playing,” and he taps away at the keyboard of his mobile to make his point. It is obvious she is the focal point of his life.
Welcome spends R100 on transport every day and R1 500 a month for his six-year-old daughter Thulisile’s schooling. He also has a 12-year-old son, Thulani, who stays with Welcome’s mother and is at school in Durban. “I send her R1 000 for him and herself every month,” he says.
He is adamant his kids will have a good education and will complete it. “My boy and my girl must finish school. As long as I am alive they will finish studying.”
I then ask about his living arrangements.
“We stay in my uncle’s two-bedroom house in Soweto. We have running water and electricity and TV.” When I ask what his favourite shows are, he immediately says Generations. He is also a sports fan and an Orlando Pirates’ supporter.
Given that he spends a fair amount of time walking around, I ask him if it is safe. He says mostly safe, except for an incident earlier this year. “Some guy followed me from down there in 3rd Avenue (Parkhurst). He catches me up and then suddenly he points a gun at me and tells me he wants my money. He also had a knife. He takes my phone and all the money from my pockets - it was about R800. And then he asks me where I live. I tell him Soweto. So he gives me R12 back and he says I must go.”
“So what did you do?”
“I stop somebody and I tell them they must phone the security guard. I have lots of numbers for the security guards here; they are my friends because they know me a long time. ADT come and they catch the guy and take him to Parkview police station, and I get my stuff back.”
“Were you very angry?”
“I was too cross. But the police must take him. I can’t fight him - I don’t like that. I am a church man. I go every Sunday.”
“Do you enjoy selling brooms?”
“I don’t like it, but I’m happy. And I need the money.”
“What would you rather do?”
“A long time ago I worked in a restaurant called Nice at the end of this road,” he says, and points down 4th Avenue. “I was washing dishes and cleaning, but the money wasn’t enough to send to my mother and for my daughter’s school.
"So I went back to selling brooms. But I like cooking. My sister is a chef in Durban and she teach me to cook.”