5 posts tagged “brixton”
Two of my neighbours kids had their birthdays recently. Birthdays for some of these kids are very different from the birthdays of my nephew and niece (In scenario one my niece got to choose to a nother real live pony as a present as well as a smothering of gifts and a very inappropriate amount of money in each card at her birthday party that all the screaming girls counted up at the end. In scenario two, Clinton who who is of the same age got a school jersey for winter as his gift, which was a bit of a luxury as he goes to high school next year, and so needs whole new school uniform next year anyway)
When I asked one set of neighbours what I could contribute to a birthday they asked if it was possible to get a cake ( One, small cake - as his only treat)
I normally bake with these children from time to time anyway so I invited both of them and their siblings to come and bake and decorate their own cakes on Saturday.
Here in this picture are Nandio, Fiona and Lebsie wearing some of my collection of Shwe shwe Madiba aprons. They were for sale at most Pick and Pay stores a while ago and I bought one in every colour and pattern. Even though you can only wear one apron at a time, I often have several bodies in my kitchen helping out, and they made lovely gifts, so I could justify buying one of each.
I am so lucky that my awesome friend Marlise only lives two blocks away from me, and we can pop into to see each other for tea and see each other with such ease. It makes it really easy to share things like books, and get things like pieces of cake and vegetables to each other with no fuss.
We are also now starting to share more things namely the children in our street. The children who live around us in my street are here often - for a safe green garden to play in, food, help with homework or to come and play with pester my pets.
Marlise has a similar thing happening in her street and recently the children of her street and my street have figured out we are friends and are combining their efforts, which is sometimes a real handful.
Waiting for Marlise to come home last week, her bunch saw that I was home and wanted to play in my garden until Marlise came home.
So this is Lesego from Putney Road, in a lovely red shwe shwe summer top that her mom made for her. It has a white bias binding edge that ties the shirt up behind her neck.
The Fulham road children (in my street) are used to my fascination with shwe shwe even though they think its a bit traditional but Lesego was very tickled that her shirt was worth photographing.
Thoko is often at Gladys' pavement shop, and I see her around our street quite often. I have never spoken to her before, but we exchange friendly nods from time to time.
Last week through I saw her at Gladys' wearing a shwe-shwe skirt and scarf and stopped to chat. The one thing that I did not expect, but love about this project, is that its not so much about the material, but about the women wearing the material and it gives me an opportunity to open a dialogue with women around me, that I would otherwise not have had the inclination or gumption to do.
Since I started this, Brixton has become a smaller place for me, and my drive home has some familiar faces and people that I know. I meet Relation at the bakery around the corner and we now chat in the queue while we wait to pay for our bread. Gladys and I stop and chat about Fiona and share more in common now. And yesterday we were driving through the neighbourhood looking at houses on show, and my husband stopped at a house he had not seen before and remarked what a lovely house it was and how surprised he was to have missed it before. I was thrilled to be able to tell him it was the house where Sarah works, the first person I was brave enough to stop and ask about her skirt. 
My world got just a little bit smaller last week when I stopped to talk to Thoko.
Thoko is wearing a Shwe shwe skirt and scarf with a small diamond pattern . Her skirt is a wrap around skirt and has a white ric rac trim and a white bias binding trim at the bottom.
We laugh while we chooses a good spot to pose, I take the obligatory photo of Gladys first - my one payment for having her gather all the lovely shwe shwe ladies conveniently on my way home. Then I ask Thoko more about her skirt and whether she made it, or bought it.
She bought it in Mpumalanga she tells me, where her mom lives. So I tell her I know Mpumalanga and ask her where in the province of Mpumalanga she bought it, as I might know the place. And just before she answered I already had an inkling that she confirmed. Thoko bought her skirt in Ermelo, where she grew up and where her mother still lives. She tells me the exact space behind the Taxi rank at the main shopping centre where she bought it, and I can picture the whole scene and street in my mind.
So there are several Bettys now in this blog, Ermelo Betty, Betty Mielies and Betty who hangs out on the corner with Gladys and her tomato street stall. For clarity I will refer to Gladys' friend as Brixton Betty.
I have a suspicion that Brixton Betty might actually be waiting for me to come past these days. I photographed her in this gorgeous patchwork dress last week Friday and yesterday on my way home she waved at me in another new skirt. If she has an many skirts still as the patches in this dress I will be thrilled to have her wave at me everytime she has a new one :-)
Brixton Betty sews all her own clothes and this dress is made up of all the left overs of various dresses she has made. She wasn't so sure she wanted to be photographed in it- because its an old one she said, but I thought it was beautiful and she posed for me. I loved all the various patches in the skirt that speak of the many other outfits Betty has made for herself. It also looks very comfortable and like it is one of her favourite dresses.
Its all relative.
Yesterday I took some soup and vitamins to my favourite brother who was all snotted up and in bed. Just before I turned into his street I saw a wonderful dress walking by. So I dropped off my care package with my brother and had a few words with him, hoping I could still get to the owner of the dress before she disappeared.
I found her two blocks up, grabbed my data capturing kit (pen , book, camera, gumption), abandoned my car and ran across the road to speak to her.
She was quite intrigued and posed for me along a white wall where the picture would come out better (I love helpful subjects, because I often feel nervous and get the picture, questions etc wrong).
Her name is Relation, and she lives in Brixton - just like my brother and I.
Then I offered to take her home and asked where she lived in Brixton. It really was not out of my way at all to drop her off because it turns out she lives across the road from me. She has a few more outfits she tells me, and when she is next wearing them she will come and ring my doorbell and I can see them too. Hooray !
Relation's dress was bought in Joburg CBD and is made of Toto Six Stars. We see the logo on the reverse trim used around the collor. There is also braid around the bottom and around the collar and fun detail on the pockets. I can't discern what the pattern is but really like it.
