Joburg Day 14: Grandmothers

Today I spent the day with my Ahma (father’s mother) and Popo (mother’s mother). It was a blast.

There are more pictures, but they are of food, and I am saving them for my EPIC FOOD POST. It’s almost done but I know we’re going to eat an awesome meal tomorrow so you’ll just have to wait until I get back to Brooklyn.

Joburg Day 13: Tipo

Today I spent the day with my Popo (Grandma). Popo has lived in Swaziland for over 30 years. She’s cooked for the king! Both of them! The two of us went grocery shopping in Chinatown and then to visit my 94 year old Tipo (Great Grandma). Tipo came to South Africa from China as a young girl without shoes or a birth certificate. She worked as a servant for a Chinese businessman, his wife, and six children, before later marrying her employer and bearing six more children. She still lives alone and is feisty as heck.

Tipo’s Kitchen:

Living Room:

Bedroom:

Tipo with my Great Grandpa:

Tipo and Popo:

Joburg Day 10 & 11: Out with the Uncles

Tuesday and Wednesday were very much “take your niece to work day” for my Uncle Roger (my mom’s brother, whom I’ve been staying with, and who owns an awesome co-working-esque cofffe shop, Guru) and Uncle Donny (my dad’s brother, who helped Trust Art connect with most of our DREAM TEAM here). On Tuesday I went to Guru with Uncle Roger bright and early, before being picked up with Uncle Donny to spend the day hanging out with him at his office and then taking a nice little fashion/gallery/arts tour of Joburg.

Uncle Donny, or Dion, or “Mr. Chang” is somewhat of a celebrity here in South Africa. Known for his fashion expertise, regular column in Elle Magazine and tenure as fashion editor there, and now for his successful business & culture trends company, Flux Trends, he’s recognized as an all-around media guru with a loyal following.

On Wednesday, after spending the day with Uncle Roger looking for uniforms for his staff at Guru, we went to watch Uncle Donny’s Q1 Trends Presentation for Flux at the Apple Store here in Joburg.

Flux Office:

Grabbing some coffee:

Black Coffee:

Lunch at Service Station: Homemade ginger beer, squash and sweet potato quiche, leek and gorgonzola quiche, beet salad, lemon polenta cake, chocolate almond cake.

Entropy. I want to furnish my life with this store.

Superella:

Pulic Art:

AFRONOVA

Juta Street:

More Galleries:

Circa Gallery // Deborah Bell:

This was amazing and my stupid iphotos aren’t doing it justice:

Dinner: Leftovers & GEM SQUASH. We don’t get gem squash in the US and it sucks. 

Chinese Wholesale Market:

Portuguese Lunch at the Troyville Hotel: Calamari, Beef, Greek Salad

Outside the iStore:

Phuti, our Flux Trends PR Master, and Uncle Roger at the Flux Trends presentation:

Joburg Day 8: “For all this dreaming I haven’t got much rest.”

After a week running on hyper Ben Franklin schedule (averaging a 7am wakeup and 1am sleeptime), mostly thanks to adrenaline and a healthy dose of Guru coffee, the BK Dream Team was pretty pooped.

We woke up at a leisurely 9am and headed over to the Rosebank Fleamarket with Auntie Gail to do some hard bargaining for some gifts and curios to take home. (yes, I will be your facebook friend in exchange for African house music recommendations and a 35% discount on this wallet; no, I will not pay R1200 for this gold horned viking helmet, how about R150?).

Back at Uncle Roger’s place, it was time for a big family braai with all of the family (yay!) and of course, more food than Jose and Justin knew what to do with. There was also a chocolate fountain, but I’m pretty sure they knew exactly what to do with that. 

In the evening, as some of the family hunkered down for a long evening of pushing blocks (mahjong), Jose, Justin and I headed back to Lesley’s epic house for one last evening together. Without the stress of the event to deal with, we opened a bottle of wine, filled our bowls with mac and cheese, and plopped in front of the fireplace.

Lesley, we love you. We love your stories, we love your spirit, we love your home, Chills, Martha, your four cats and three dogs. We miss you already and can’t wait to meet again.

On the Seventh Day We Dreamed

Thank you to the young women of StoryScarves (and their incredible director, Stacey Rozen); Lesley Perkes and Ludwe Manzana from AAW! for all of their help organizing the event, and for their home, their friends, their love, their ideas, and their imagination; Joey Khuvutlu from Dream Station for his amazing designs for all the DREAM invitations and posters, for organizing transportation and printing, for his input, collaboration, and ideas, and to him and Kathleen Ebersohn for opening up their home, hearts, and kitchens to us; to Dion Chang and Phuti Rakgotho of Flux Trends for connecting us with all of the people listed above and for organizing so many radio and print media opportunities; to Roger and Caroline King for hosting us, stuffing us with food, and all their help leading up to and on the day of the shoot, and for letting us use Guru as our coffee headquarters; to Byron MacLean for his vibes, his energy, and his wheels; to Kelly Fraser for donating 100 meters of white fabric to dress our dreams; to CheeseKids and the Buhlebuzile Youth Press Team for enriching our day and helping to capture it; to the Joburg Photowalkers and all the amazing photographers who came; to my amazing family for all their support, rides, and plates of food; to the rest of our Trust Art Brooklyn Crew, Anne and Seth, who dreamt with us from afar; and finally to all of the DREAMERS who came came out despite the rain and made Saturday a day of beauty and wonder.

Please follow our Dreamers Page on facebook to stay in touch with us. You can also reach us or send any of your photos, media, words, or dreams to info@trutart.org, and keep up with our other projects via yrs truly on the official blog: http://trustart.org/posts.