Book 7 Streets Paved with Gold

These two short stories continue the African theme in the series “Streets Paved with Gold”. The title of the series is an idiom for Johannesburg, the city founded on the largest gold mines in the world.
The Stokvel is a light, humorous story about a ladies’ saving club called the Busy Bees. Saving clubs are a characteristic feature of working-class black women in the towns where it has been estimated that one out of two people belong to these clubs. Some clubs save for funerals and weddings, others save for groceries. The Busy Bees club, however, saves for luxuries. In this story, the members of the club have to decide whether to put their money into some type of investment, or whether to hide it under the mattress.
The story, City of Gold, is an African version of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist. The name, Egoli, was given to Johannesburg because it was founded on the largest gold mines in the world. The young protagonist, Themba, comes from a remote village in Zululand and leaves home to seek his fortune in Egoli. The streets of Johannesburg, he discovers, are anything but paved with gold. He arrives in the big city with little money, hoping to live with his cousin while looking for a job. He is taken in by a generous entrepreneur who turns out to be a gangster. Slowly, Themba is drawn into the underbelly of the City of Gold. How he survives, is the subject of the story.