Entrepreneurs

Johannesburg is a huge city with thousands of the businesses that we would normally think of as “businesses.” These are in tall glass skyscrapers or in shopping malls or in strip malls much as you would see in the United States or in any part of the world. The businesses that I want to comment on, though, must make the number of businesses in Johannesburg swell into the millions. These are the very small, sometimes miniscule businesses that are created by a people with such an entrepreneurial spirit, who know that unless they do something to earn their food for the day, there will be no other source waiting to fill that need. It seems that if people can afford the tiniest building or structure of any kind, they will create a businesses. In most cases, their business and their home is the same although it may be a single room. If there is no structure, they will find a crate and set up a selling stand. If there is no crate, then a blanket or a grassy patch will display what they are selling. Their fruit stand might be a beautiful display of colorful fruits and vegetables or a few clumps of bananas and some small bags of corn puff snacks. If they have nothing to sell, they will offer to take your trash at a stop sign, they will claim that they are keeping the intersection safe and clean for you, they will guide you out of or into parking spots, hoping for a small tip. There are hundreds of men here who are trash recyclers, sorting through garbage to pick out bottles or cardboard which they pull through the streets on low wheeled carts or if they have no cart, carry on their backs. By the end of the day, these bundles can be massive.  hunger here in South Africa but it seems that there would be a lot more if it weren’t of all of these creative business builders. There are of course those who just beg, but it seems that so many try to find something, anything to offer for sale or for service. Set side to side with areas of modernism and plenty, there is a lot of hunger here in South Africa but it seems that there would be a lot more if it weren’t of all of these creative business builders.