Mdantsane - A Way of Life

Car Wash on the weekend overlooking beautiful NU 5

The material for the book " The Mdantsane Way " has been collected for over five years by now, and my archive of photos and stories is still growing. The Mdantsane Way has evolved and become a project. The first version of this book will be released in January as an e-book. We have decided to publish it as an e-book as well because e-books are taking the whole world by storm. The book will be cheaper to aquire and this puts more people in a position to have access to it. There will be a hardcover version as well. 

We have named the book " The Mdantsane Way " because most of all Mdantsane stands for a certain way of life. It is the second biggest township in South Africa but foremost it represents a life-style. A lifestyle that embodies community spirit, African vibrancy and energy, uniqueness, creativity and a whole lot of humor. If you live in Mdantsane you do it the Mdantsane Way. 

It was our objective to capture and to show you as many scenes of daily life and street life of this township as possible. I can say today this has not been done before ever. Not for Mdantsane. There is very little photographic material about Mdantsane available. Nobody has taken as many pictures and collected as many stories as we did. What started in my head as an art project became a journey with consequences. I infected my friends with this idea and we could not let go of it since then. And we feel a little proud of it.

This blog was created for you, the people in Mdantsane who have helped us pushing it through. 

The stories, the faces, the photos we were allowed to take, the fun and the new things we have seen and learned are worth a trillion.

I hope you see your face here on this blog sooner or later. And it is for all the others as well that have taken an interest in it. I can say there are many who know Mdantsane by now a little bit through our stories and pictures. 

If you want to use and upload the pictures that you see here and on our facebook and twitter pages-you can. Spread them, show them around, add them to your photos. That is why they were taken. Just mention our name so that we get seen and heard more.

This will enable us may be to get more support for the online magazine and the movie we have started working on.

More Street Life

I got not much to say tonight.

It's not always necessary to talk. Right ?

But I am sending some idyllic Mdantsane Street life scenes in your direction

Life is on the streets

and that is great

just the right thing for a grey Sunday afternoon

to close the week end off

Take care and see you soon.

With Eyes Wide Open

With your eyes wide open you will see !

 

Close to the Sisa Dukashe stadium in NU 1 is a grey concrete wall, fenced and spiked on top, serving as the ideal location for all sorts of advertisements. You can see this wall to your right when you drive down Shai road in direction to the high way.

The wall does not only display advertisements but also the handpainted pastel murals that you can see in the pictures. The colors are faded which makes them even more attractive giving them a small ressemblance with old fresco drawings in churches in Italy that have endured thousands of years. 

These African murals are very beautiful. Beauty of course is in the eye of the beholder. But to me they are beautiful.

They seem to portray typical village scenes. Adolescent boys playing a board game while sharing a coke. The glass coke bottle is drawn in a naive but accurately charming way. You know immediately it's a glass coke bottle.

Other scenes show older men sitting in front of their houses, chatting, ( chatting like in the old days, namely face to face) and smoking a pipe. And I guess the scene on the right with the dog and the men in traditional clothing shows an initiation school.

Then there are women in front of houses attending to a garden and a farmer leaving with his donkey cart. It is probably not Mdantsane that is shown here. 

Who made them? Who is the artist? I don't know. Many advertisements in the township are signed by their creator but here I could not find a name or a phone number. The paint is washed off in many places but these murals are large and very impressive. You can just walk along them and move from one scene to the next.

I was busy studying them when these two ladies spotted me and developed a keen interest in my photographic ambitions. 

It has to be mentioned that they had already downed a considerbale amount of happy making spirit. So, it became nearly impossible to look for a name and instead I became the object of their undivided attention and had to take photos of them. Nope, not shown here ! They wouldn't like it ! Only the back.

But hey, it was Mandela Day and that is a true reason to celebrate.

A Strong Vision

Mdantsane FM has a strong and ambitious vision. Bravo !

" A leading development orientated radio station that is not only accessible but attractive to both public and private interests by promoting the needs of the community."

 Banner spotted on Oxford Street.

Visions are like capricious ladies. Beautiful, seductive and enchanting. They dance and swirl, twist and hide, change clothes all the time, flirt, walk away from you and come back when you don't expect them. 

They need a strong man but can't be handled too hard otherwise they break and loose all beauty. They need a lot of adoration and passion. And they have to be feel loved and cared for all the time. 

Great Vision !

Don't let ever go of your lady Mdantsane FM !

In Africa, When An Old Man Dies, It's A Library Burning

I want to introduce you to my other blog " La Vie Est Belle Souvent ". I have written a post recently that complements " Our Place Of Origin". 

If you are interested in other topics about South Africa please come and visit this site. Just click on the title and you will be transfered.

Images Juergen SChlichting

Together We Can Build Better Communities

It was a beautiful sunny day with a clear blue sky and the trees were blossoming all over Mdantsane.

And these two handsome dudes were in a compatible mood

What more can a street photographer ask for ?

I am happy !

Ancient and Modern

We want to show you the little corners in Mdantsane as well, the small things that get overlooked either because one is so used to them or because they are simply to subtle to be noticed often.

The post office No 5219 in Mdantsane Hi-way NU 1 displays a very impressive full wall mosaic on the front. It is beautifully done and shows a potpourri of South African scenes. In the left corner in the front stands a Xhosa woman in her traditional attire with a baby on her back and she is busy smoking a pipe.
In the back you can see modern houses on a mountain slope. In the right hand front corner a girl in school uniform is looking through a miscroscope. A well groomed gentleman in his Sunday suit and a hat looks over her shoulder smiling, and in the center part of the mural you can see a couple, the woman carrying a parcel on her head while the man is walking behind her.

The mosaic represents so well what South-Africa stands for today. It is the old and the new, the young and the old, the modern and the traditional, the rich and the poor - and all standing so close to each other that they can feel each other's breath. Each one of these scenes you can and will encounter in your daily life.

And a couple of seconds later, while I was still studying the mural, one of the motifs of the mosaic repeats itself on the street, when a young woman with a child on her arm passes by.

It is the first time that I have looked intensely at this work of art because I was waiting for someone in front of the post-office. I have seen it several times but I have never looked at it this way. For the first time the artist has achieved with me what I suppose he wanted to achieve. I have studied it and started reflecting about it.

It is a really beautiful and deep piece of art and I promised myself that I would go back to find out who the artist is.

Motherhood

The best place in life that you can get for a couple of years is on your mother's back.

Reflections On The Past

IT SEEMS LIKE THE FUTURE HAS OVERTAKEN THE PAST AND LEFT IT BEHIND.