FROM PAP AND TEARS TO MANSION AND CAR'S

THE R800 THAT CHANGED MY LIFE IN BELLVILLE

EPISODE 2

The next morning I woke up with eyes that were swollen from crying the whole night. My head was painful and my heart was still beating fast from the decision I made at three AM. I did not sleep at all after that. I just sat on the floor looking at Sipho who was sleeping like a baby with his mouth open, snoring loudly. He did not even know that while he was sleeping, his wife had decided to become a different woman. At five AM, the alarm rang and Sipho woke up. He did not say good morning or sorry for what he did last night. He just stood up, wore his taxi driver jacket, took his car keys, and left. He left a small paper on the table with two words written in his bad handwriting: "Buy bread." No money, just the words buy bread. He expected me to use the same two hundred rand he threw on the floor yesterday to buy bread today. I tore that paper into small pieces and threw it in the dustbin.

When he left, I sat down and tried to think. What can I do with zero rand in my bank account? I have Grade 12 only, no certificate, no experience. No one in Canal Walk or V&A Waterfront will hire a woman from Khayelitsha who has a four year old child and no matric certificate. I thought about all the women I see at Khayelitsha Mall who sell sweets, who sell vetkoek, who braid hair under the sun. They make small money but it is their own money. I wanted that. I wanted to have my own money even if it is ten rand, but it must be mine, not money that was thrown on the floor.

Then I remembered something important. Yesterday was the 5th of the month and my daughter Amahle's SASSA grant had just come in. I quickly opened my phone and checked the SASSA balance. It was there. Eight hundred rand. Eight hundred rand that was supposed to buy Amahle's creche fees in Langa, her clothes, and her food. I started crying again because I knew what I was about to do was risky. If I use this money and fail, my daughter will suffer. But if I don't use it, we will both suffer forever begging Sipho. I decided to take the risk. I told myself that this eight hundred rand will be my last time depending on SASSA and on Sipho. I will turn it into something bigger.

I called my best friend Lebogang. Lebogang is my only friend in Cape Town. She is thirty years old and she works as a hairdresser in a small salon on Long Street in Cape Town CBD. Long Street is where all the tourists go, where there are clubs and shops and white people with tattoos. Lebogang knows the hustle of Cape Town. She came from Johannesburg to Cape Town three years ago and she never went back. When she picked up the phone I started crying again and told her everything about the two hundred rand and the R0.00 balance. She kept quiet for a minute and then she shouted at me so loud that my daughter woke up.

She said, "Nthabiseng, are you mad? You have hands, you have a phone, you have a pretty face, why are you crying? Stop crying now! You think women in Cape Town make money by crying? No! We make money by hustling. Come to Bellville CBD now, now, now. Take your last money and come. There is a man called Mr Kabir who has a big warehouse at Bellville China Town near the Bellville taxi rank. He sells wigs. I buy my braids from him. He is an Indian man but he has a good heart. He gives wigs to women on credit if he sees you are serious. Come now before he closes."

I did not have time to think. I bathed Amahle, left her with my neighbor Mama Zanele who looks after kids for twenty rand a day, and I took a Golden Arrow bus with my last forty rand to Bellville. The bus was full of people going to work - some going to work at Tyger Valley Mall, some going to work in Bellville industrial area, some going to Cape Town CBD. I was the only one who was going to start a business with eight hundred rand. The bus passed Canal Walk Mall in Century City and I looked through the window at the big mall with all the glass and the rich people going inside with Woolworths bags. I promised myself that one day I will park my own car at Canal Walk and shop without looking at the price tag.

When I arrived at Bellville China Town, I was scared. The place is big and full of shops with Chinese writing, Indian shops, and Somali shops. The smell of spices was everywhere. I asked around for Mr Kabir's wig shop and a man showed me a small warehouse with hundreds of wigs hanging - blonde wigs, black wigs, curly wigs, straight wigs, short wigs, long wigs. It was like heaven for a woman who loves hair. Mr Kabir was sitting at the back counting money. He is forty two years old, with a big stomach and kind eyes. He looked at me from top to bottom. He saw my old torn takkies from Shoprite, my faded dress, my cracked phone, but he also saw my eyes. My eyes were red from crying but they had fire.

He asked, "How much money do you have, my sister?" I whispered, "Eight hundred rand." He laughed, but not in a bad way like Sipho's friends. He laughed like a father. He said, "Eight hundred rand is enough to make you a millionaire if you are serious. In Cape Town, many big businesswomen started with less. I will give you four wigs. Each wig costs eight hundred rand if you buy, but I will give you for six hundred as a start. You sell each for eight hundred and fifty rand or nine hundred rand. You bring my money back, you keep the profit. If you fail, you bring back my wigs, no problem. But you must not fail." He then stood up and picked four beautiful wigs - one curly black one that was trending on t****k, one long blonde one that Coloured girls in Mitchells Plain love, one straight bob that ladies who work at V&A Waterfront wear, and one brown highlight that girls from Stellenbosch University love.

I carried those four wigs like they were gold. I held them tight on the Golden Arrow bus back to Khayelitsha because I was scared someone would steal them. People on the bus were looking at me because I was smiling alone. They did not know that I was carrying my future in a black plastic bag. When I got home, Mama Zanele had already brought Amahle back. Amahle was playing with a doll that has no hair. I looked at her and said, "My daughter, Mama is going to buy you a doll with real hair soon."

At seven PM that night, after cooking pap for Amahle and after Sipho had not yet come back from his taxi rank, I did something I had never done before. I opened t****k Live. I put the four wigs on my small table, I put my cracked phone on top of two bricks to make it stand, and I started Live. My background was my cracked wall in Khayelitsha with a calendar from 2023. I was shaking. Only three people joined my Live. One person asked, "How much?" and then left. Another person laughed and said, "Your wall needs paint." I wanted to cry and close the Live, but then I remembered Sipho throwing money on the floor and I said to myself, "I will go Live again tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, until someone buys."

END OF EPISODE 2