Sophiatown revisited as City entertains gogos, old timers

04 May 2016

 

The spirit of the 1950s Sophiatown era was relived on Friday April 29 when City of Johannesburg Council Speaker Councillor Connie Bapela entertained more than 350 senior citizens at Orlando Communal Hall in Soweto.

 

Song and the jitterbug, and food and drinks were the order of the day. Councillor Bapela mixed and mingled with the old timers and gogos, who came from all the City’s seven regions to attend the annual event, the fifth since 2011.

To the strains of Meadowlands, a popular golden oldie performed at the party by a Region E brass band, Bapela could not help it but join in a jitterbug as the elderly danced the day away. In her address earlier, the Speaker said the event was to thank the senior citizens for the role they had played in building Johannesburg.

“We love you and will always love you,” she said, reminding them not to forget to vote during the local government elections on August 3. 
Complimenting them for their resilience and tenacity in their fight against apartheid, she called on the elegantly dressed senior citizens to help fight social ills affecting “our land”.

“Our land is wasting away because of drugs, teenage pregnancies, etc. Let’s unite and make sure we build this nation,” she said.

Councillor Bapela decried the violence that normally characterised service delivery protests. “It pains me to see councillors being attacked by their communities. Let’s have roundtable discussions. If you don’t like something, you don’t have to burn a library or a [councillor’s] house. At the end of the day we got to go back and rebuild that burnt library because we want a nation that is well-read,” she said.

Bapela called on the elderly to respect their councillors.

“We’re only celebrating 22 years of our freedom. We are not yet in Canaan. But it’s indisputable that the city is doing wonders.”

Present at the venue were officials of the Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Health. Some of the elderly were given a free health checks for blood pressure, sugar diabetes and cancer. The elderly thanked the City for the treat an day-out.

“We really had a good time,” said elderly Nokuzola Mthimunye of Orange Farm in Region G as she boarded a bus back home.