It's good to walk

When I told people that our apartment was around the corner from the Killarney Mall and that we were looking forward to walking there to do our shopping, the idea was met with a deal of scepticism. The general perception is that it is impossible to walk the streets of any part of Jozi at all, any time. This is not the case.

Killarney is a leafy maze of avenues that hide apartment blocks called Whitehall (a national monument), Brenthurst, Cranwell Hall and our block Hanover Gate. Combine those with street names such as Fifth Street and Second Avenue and you get a sense that you are in London or New York. The mall is a ten minute walk from our place and on the way I will usually pass a granny pushing a pram, a granny walking alone weighed down with a few plastic bags of shopping, a gardener, a few nannies, and one or two homeless guys lying in the park.

Make a few cents
There is also a young girl who I imagine is in her late teens who sits under a tree with a tray that on my last pass had on it three packets of chips and two packets of cigarettes. Her post is in sight of the mall but she does some business selling loose cigarettes for two rand each to people that pass by. I didn’t ask her the price of the chips but her margins cannot be that high. Diagonally across her an older guy, homeless by the looks of him, has set up shop opposite one of entrances to the mall. In his tray, and sometime scattered on the floor around him, is a collection of key rings. They are plastic bottle openers with pictures of elephants and hippos. Mine splashed open when I dropped it on the floor of the apartment. It cost ten rand and I gave him twenty for his trouble.

Killarney Mall, built in 1961, is the first such shopping centre built in South Africa. Recently revamped, the mall has the usual selection of shops (book shop, banks, post office, supermarket, bottle store, Le Creuset store) made a little more exotic by the fact that there is a kosher deli and butcher at the supermarket. This is because this area is regarded as a Jewish neighbourhood although I suspect that is only the grannies left and all the kids in America. There is a shul around the corner but the make up of the community today is quite mixed. Every Thursday though the mall hosts an organic market. There are a number of stalls all selling a wide selection of food from curries to cakes to vegetables. It is quite a meeting of worlds.

Cupcakes and butternut
There is a lady from Montenegro who works for the Bulgarian cheese maker, a lady from Serbia who works for a Swede (I have not met him but the name on the card is Mikael Olsson and Serbia swears he’s a Swede) who makes wonderful tarts, pies and quiches. There are two young ladies selling the most incredible luxury cupcakes. They are more like works of art decorated with a swirling mountain of icing in flavours such as strawberries and cream, toffee, double chocolate and Madagascan vanilla. I must admit I am an easy target for the cupcake crew.

Then there is the guy, as tall as a basketball player, who drives in from Limpopo with wonderful organic veggies. Beautiful orange butternut big enough to feed ten, squash, onions, and shiny red tomatoes are some of the wares on display. There is also an Indian lady selling spices and potato roti, a Polish lady who sells biltong and kabanosy sausages, and the old biddy who makes pancakes to order. There was also a stand selling honey and another devoted to all things lemon. Lemon tart, lemon cake, lemon pudding. I just don’t have the budget.

Killarney does not have the cachet or buzz of Parkhurst or Norwood with their street café vibe but it does have a sense of welcome calm. There are no hip and trendy bars or restaurants in Killarney but there is a sense of a bygone era where people greet each other on the street and kids can play in the park. Next I plan to take a walk up the road towards the zoo and the military museum.

For those of you who read the last post, the cooler weather has done for the mosquitoes so we sleep in peace.