“Any other questions, before we move on to the landfill and the skeletons?” » Denim jacket, jogging and sneakers on the feet, Delight Sithole knows how to make you feel comfortable. At 23, he is a kind of rare guide in South Africa. He does neither in the lions, nor in the wine. His specialty: Hillbrow, the most disreputable district of Johannesburg. For four years, its relaxed silhouette has paved the way for tourists in the maze of Ponte City, the iconic tower of the South African economic capital.
Its 54 floors of raw concrete have dominated Johannesburg since 1975. At the time, everyone dreamed of living in this jewel of modern architecture crossed by a skylight. Half a century later, “People who come here think their phones are going to be stolen,” smiled Delight Sithole: “Some call to ask if they can take their bag. » He doesn’t blame them: “When I moved in, I was so scared that I didn’t dare go to the supermarket. There used to be a lot of gangs, but that’s over now. I haven’t even heard a gunshot this year. »
Emptied of its businesses and its white residents from the 1980s, the center of Johannesburg saw poverty and crime explode after the fall of apartheid. Following Nelson Mandela’s election in 1994, the city was considered “the most dangerous in the world outside of a war zone”. Hillbrow is synonymous with rape, drugs, murder and fridges thrown from windows on New Years Eve. But since 2012, the association Dlala Nje (“play”, in Zulu) has been trying to change the way people look at the neighborhood, which has been slowly rehabilitated, by organizing visits to Ponte City and walks in Hillbrow.
“South Africans are afraid to come here”
This Saturday in December, two tourists made the trip. They are South African – it’s rare. “Most are afraid to come here”, explains Delight Sithole. Usually, he is more used to receiving Germans, Russians or Americans. Tay, 29, grew up a few blocks from Ponte City. Her partner, Taariq, is from Cape Town. Over there, he says, people don’t like Johannesburg very much, “They find it too dangerous”. He has always been curious about “Vodacom tower”.
Surmounted by a large banner bearing the image of the telecom operator visible for miles, Ponte City is an emblem of Johannesburg. But for the majority of the inhabitants, it is also a disturbing symbol. At the foot of the building, a crossroads surmounted by a bridge is said to be the most dangerous in the city. As he approaches, motorists roll up the windows, lock the doors and fix their mirrors. At night, most don’t stop at a red light.
“When you say ‘Ponte City’, people tell you not to come, but most of them have never set foot here. Things have changed a lot. The worst that can happen to you today is to come across a pickpocket,” promises our guide. To enter, you still have to greet three guards and go through a biometric gate equipped with a fingerprint reader and an eye recognition system. “The eye scan, they just installed it”, says Delight Sithole. He grew up in Soweto but, as a teenager, he attended the community center on the ground floor of the tower. In 2017, he joined his mother, who settled in the neighborhood.
“In South Africa, you expect to do safaris, not to talk about history”, observes the guide Delight Sithole
Delight Sithole dreamed of travel by getting into tourism. He had not imagined working at the foot of his home. “In South Africa, you expect to do safaris, not talk about history. But it’s a chance, we are the only ones to do that. No one else will tell you about Hillbrow. And then I like to change people’s perception “, explains the young man. Many of its visitors are unaware that before being considered a cutthroat, Hillbrow was one of Johannesburg’s most upscale and expensive neighborhoods.
Shanty town and open dump
Swimming pool, panoramic view, shops… When it comes out of the ground, Ponte City wants to be an ideal city – for white people, of course. In power since 1948, the Afrikaner nationalists govern according to the racist principle of “separate development”, which keeps the black majority in poverty, on the fringes of the cities. “Blacks were only allowed to come to worksays Delight Sithole, sitting on a table at 51e stage. The rest of the time they could be stopped. » Except for the servants who lived there: housed on the top two floors of the tower – the architects had taken care to design smaller windows there – they were not allowed to take the elevator.
Delight Sithole didn’t know much about apartheid before becoming a guide. When it was born in 1999, Ponte City was a slum. Between 9,000 and 10,000 people – compared to around 2,500 today – crowded there, without water or electricity. The sleep merchants took advantage of the flight of whites, replaced by blacks and then by migrants. They collect the rents but do not pay the utilities. Deprived of elevators, residents throw trash out the windows. A mountain of trash piles up at the bottom of the tower, reaching the fourteenth floor. Regularly, desperate souls come to finish by throwing themselves from the top of Ponte City in this open dump.
In 2012, after several renovation attempts, a South African journalist is sent to investigate the drugs and crime that have made the place famous. On site, Nickolaus Bauer discovers a tower inhabited by middle-class families. The place has always fascinated him, the rents are much more attractive than in his neighborhood and the view is breathtaking. “I came back with a different story from the one I was ordered to…and a lease agreement,” he said.
Then Nickolaus Bauer convinces a friend to move into the building. They imagine setting up a business at the foot of Ponte City, before changing their minds. Their project will eventually take the form of the Dlala Nje association, a reception center where children can do their homework, access the Internet, play and, above all, stay away from public parks where drugs circulate. The guided tours organized by Delight Sithole are used to finance the structure. Since its creation, more than 20,000 tourists have visited Ponte City.
Summary of the series “Pros and cons of tourism in Africa”