1 post tagged “thoko”

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.