Contained, with very little room to do much, except what is necessary. 

The four-room house is almost reminiscent of a box, a dull cardboard box, where one stores things away and they gather dust, ultimately forgotten and eventually thrown out. Now, imagine a conglomerate of boxes, all stored next to one another, so closely knit, you can peer into the next one, as easily as they can yours.

It is a phenomenon-a tragic one, yet all together fascinating.

I am walking down Chere Street in Vosloorus, I find myself thinking, it is so much hotter this side of town than it is anywhere else, but the heat often culminates in mesmerising sunsets. 

As powerfully as the sun shows up, it certainly shows off. 

Besides the over bearing heat, there are kids everywhere, their faces gleaming with smiles, some of mischief, most, of sheer innocence. 

I notice a subtle cloud of dust. 

Chere Street holds a timeworn build, it is written on the face of the houses, mostly cracked and no longer physically attractive to the contemporary climate. 

But, Chere has personality. Young ladies often gather in their chosen cliques discussing the weekends hotspots. 

Mothers and elderly women, alike, still gravitate towards each other in the midst of the afternoon, in support of a neighbour whose husband died, or perhaps in aid of elderly parents who’ve lost their grip on their offspring and find comfort in prayer. 

I don’t identify too many young men, perhaps they have, themselves, fled the unsightly being that they used to call home.

What I find most interesting about these boxes that typically make up the township, is their unobserved strength, they have raised families and they often witness the beginnings and endings of love, although at first glance, they don’t quite take the trophy for any semblance of success or progress, for that matter. 

I picture a womb, how a life is formed. 

A foetus knows not of the outside world until exposed to it, when it has reached full growth in one realm it moves on to the next. 

One moment, encapsulated in familiarity and warmth, the next moment, met by the reality of the world at large. 

Then it dawns on me; many black folk hold a perplexed perception of their becoming-the
kind that has us walking around unsure of our being, because we are cultivated and brought up in these boxes, then birthed into the harsh reality of opposing gatekeepers in educational spaces, in our workplaces and finally realizing that the fundamental purpose of being stored away was for us to never do better or be better.

I share a jar of berry flavoured juice with a companion on Chere street, sounds of soothing jazz fill the corner of the box that we now occupy. 

We speak of things beyond our lived reality, beyond our contrasting boxes and I think to myself; perhaps we ought to stand firm in our foundations, stand
firm in where we come from. 

This box that was typically made to contain, has, over time, sustained and remained a source of identity. 

This box has raised my mother, your cousin and that one uncle
who is stubbornly fighting the title deed. 

It forms the backbone of our history, a narrative that was meant to be a cursed inheritance but has been able to carry us beyond those restrictions. 

Perhaps...

Just maybe, we ought to bless our origins.

Words by Amo Helang.

Images by Button Konupi.