Worried about her hungry neighbours suffering during the Covid-19 lockdown and job wipe-outs, Cape Town domestic worker Lauren Juries has started a soup kitchen in her flat in Ottery.
Roping in her mother, Estelle Stefanus, and her aunts, enormous pots of lentil stew and rice are cooked on their stove in their tiny kitchen in Regents Court under the banner of “Ottery Community Action Now” (Ottery Can).

By sunset, a long queue has formed outside the blocks of flats, which include children, and bowls and plates are filled, so that they don’t have to go to bed hungry.
“I’m on the ground and I see what they need,” said Juries.

On Youth Day, a public holiday, the cooks were a bit ambitious and tried to cook more than usual, to cater for the extra numbers. However, the rings on the modest stove bent from the heaviness of the pots and so they had to straighten them out and lighten the load in the pots.

Juries is a domestic worker in Green Point, which is very far afield, and in Pinelands.

The cleaning of houses and washing and ironing does make her tired, but she cannot bear the thought of neighbours going hungry.

On her Backabuddy page to raise funds, she notes that Covid-19 has made life very hard for the residents of the blocks of flats.

“Isolation here is near-impossible, what with 4-12 people sharing a flat. The impact of lockdown on the people who live here is crippling. They have a roof over their heads, but no money to buy food and amenities. This is a community struggling for survival.”They also feel forgotten and desolate, with the GPS not even showing the location of their flats, making them feel even more invisible.

It is for this reason that Juries loudly lobbies for more money, electricity units and food parcels for her community.

She also helps to connect the needy with people who are better off and have something to spare in a buddy programme, called Amakhaya, that one of her employers told her about.

In this programme, 44 needy families are matched with 44 families who are better off, and they look out for each other and check in on each other by phone, in line with physical distancing.

The people, who have something to spare, will send to those who are struggling with electricity units, or a retail shop voucher for groceries, or cash for other essentials.

She also checks in on old people who struggle to use their phones, to make sure they are not isolated.If you want to help, the link will take you to where you can sponsor a food parcel, or sponsor a pot of food for R250, or you can send a food voucher, or send electricity units.

For example, R500 can make a good hot meal for at least 300 people a day, and it can be used to buy electricity for those who need.

They have discovered that the community prefers a hot meal like a stew or soup as winter sets in, and not sandwiches, so her mom’s stove is working overtime at the moment.

Groote Schuur Hospital nursing assistant Judith Parenzee describes Covid-19 as “a war”.

She has been rushed off her feet since the pandemic hit South Africa, and then took its greatest toll on the Western Cape.She has already lost colleagues to the virus, but still keeps going.

“When we first heard about this thing, Covid-19, we didn’t know what to think,” said Parenzee.
Wuhan in China appeared to have brought it under control quickly, but stories were coming through of Italy’s hospitals buckling under the pressure of Covid-19 cases.

When the first case in South Africa was announced in March, it seemed the country would get off lightly as people were very quickly located and quarantined.However, after Western Cape Premier Alan Winde announced the first case in the province on 11 March, the virus spread quickly in the province.

Parenzee said they watched it happen, with their Covid-19 isolation intensive care ward quickly growing from three patients to 18.

“It is a war,” said Parenzee, as she and her colleagues go to battle every day with the virus, and a severe shortage of staff.

Speaking on her day off, during a short break from house chores, she told News24 she became a nursing assistant because she loved the way nurses care for people. But they try not to let it show.

She said from speaking to frantic relatives on the phone for updates, to washing an unconscious patient, she is determined to be bright and happy.

As rushed as their days are, the time she spends washing patients every morning is when she speaks words of reassurance and strength to them, even though they may be sedated.

“I am sure they can hear me,” she says.

Losing colleagues

They spend a lot of time ferrying messages from relatives to patients and taking calls on condition updates.

They try to avoid taking a video call from a relative to a patient, because the sight of a loved on a ventilator and on dialysis can be very distressing to a relative outside the hospital.

They also have to be patient when a relative’s airtime runs out and they call back again.

“They are not used to seeing them like that,” she says sympathetically.Single mom

But, once at home, the single mother of three small children, says her children can wash their hands like medical professionals, and every day they go around the house wiping down door knobs and other commonly touched places.

She tries to protect their little ears from the frightening coronavirus news on television.

“But there is always one sharp one,” she says of one of her small children. “One asked me, ‘mommy, am I going to get black lungs?’.”

But she does not let that get her down, and reminds the kids how to de-germ everything properly. She said she did not know how she would cope without the help of her parents.

Parenzee said that people thank her and her colleagues constantly for their work.

“People don’t know what else to do. They say to us over and over, ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’.”

Cassper Nyovest will take AKA on in the boxing ring.
Image: Instagram/AKA/Cassper Nyovest
The social media streets are still unstable after learning that they may finally get the boxing match they’ve been SBWL’ing since AKA toyed with the idea on TL. Cassper finally agreed to entertain the match and Mzansi can’t wait.

According to the recent episode of YouTube podcast PopCast, which features Scoop Makhathini, Ms Cosmo, PH and DJ Speedsta, Cassper confirmed that the boxing match will see the light of day on his Saturday Metro FM show.

“We need to meet in the ring. That’s all I want. It’s too late for apologies,” Cass said on Speedsta’s show.

Now, there aren’t many details available currently except to say that the match is allegedly set for some time later this year.

But, of course, this has not stopped the pair from preparing or the fans from placing their bets and psyching themselves up for the big fight.

Cassper took to Twitter to post the announcement and share his excitement, totally singing a different tune to the one he was shouting at the top of his lungs just a few weeks back when AKA hurled insults at his entire family while trying to taunt him into accepting the fight.

The rapper is getting himself some mental training.

“Boxing is such an amazing form of art. The history and the stories are inspiring. True championship shit!!! I have so much respect for people who do this for a living. I’ve been introduced to a new world and I’m inspired,” he said.

Somizi Mhlongo’s taxi strike joke didn’t land well with everyone.
Image: Instagram/Somizi
Some jokes just don’t land in the expected manner on social media, and that is exactly what happened when Somizi made a joke about Monday’s taxi strike.

SomG has a winning sense of humour and always manages to see the lighter side of most hectic situations. So when he saw picture of parked taxis (include ghetto G63 aka Venture that almost matches the colour of his car), he saw an opportunity to share what he thought was a harmless joke with his followers.

“When my boss asks why I’m late for work and I tell him I’m stuck at the taxi strike and he asks for a pic as proof …..nazo boss that’s my gvagon” he said.Most people got the joke and reacted accordingly. However, a few people didn’t find the joke funny. One follower called Somizi out for the “bad joke”.

“Bad joke. People’s livelihoods are affected by this,” the follower said.

“Don’t laugh then,” Somizi hit back, to which his other followers joined in.

There was a general consensus in the comment section that Somizi’s joke was a winner and that the follower really should just “move along” if it rubs her up the wrong way.

LOL, jokes are always risky on these social streets!

ctress Ayanda Borotho talks about raising her daughter Ayaphiwa Ngubane.
Image: Instagram/Ayanda Borotho
Actress Ayanda Borotho has revealed how it’s like being a mother to her daughter, Ayaphiwa Ngubane, who she’s dubbed a “rebel queen”.

In recent months the actress has been at the forefront of conversations that help empower women and the power they possess.

With a picture of her sassy looking daughter, the actress took to Instagram and shared the meaning of “rebel queen”, which she believes her Ayaphiwa is a true testament of.

Like taking an extract from her book, Unbecoming To Becoming, Ayanda added that she talks in more details of what she means by that phrase “rebel queen” in chapter 14 of her book that she believes her daughter embodies.

“It talks to raising girl children in our era and the system put in place to suppress their power … my daughter is one such Queen. Train them young to own their power responsibly.”It’s no secret that Ayanda and her daughter share a close bond and they emphasised that on her YouTube series called Conversations With Our Daughters.

In one of the episodes, Ayanda speaks about a patriarchy-driven world and women who disempower other women to empower themselves.

During her talk, Ayanda and Ayaphiwa touched on beauty standards and the notion that patriarchy thrives on the oppression of women.

“Patriarchy has actually divided women and thrives on our ignorance, identity and power as women. That’s the biggest thing patriarchy has been able to do, which is to write a narrative for women. As a result, it excluded women from writing their own narrative that will allow them to own their own power.”