Informal Shop

“I have a name” is an incredible photo series showcasing everyday South Africans in the most phenomenal way. Proudly South African… one story at a time.

The stories are told by the incredible South Africans… raw & unedited. It’s a showcase of humanness, a reminder that behind every face, is a name.

Meet Sipho Manyise… the plant whisperer.

The Plant Whisperer, that’s what I’m calling him. The Plant Whisperer in Eeyore pj pants. A colourful hat sits jauntily on his head.

Sipho Manyise hails from Maputu Mozambique. A year ago he was working at Komatipoort in a plantation. ” I was working there planting bananas, looking after the trees… and tomato plants, lots of tomatoes.

A man came looking for workers. He promised me a job doing plastering. He said he would bring us to Johannesburg. I left my mother, wife, and 12 year old son Thabo to make money in South Africa. The man brought me here to Johannesburg, but then he disappeared…I didn’t get paid.”

Sipho, now all alone in a new country and city, without a cent to his name, fell back on what he knows and does best…growing plants…taking shoots and off-cuts and nurturing them to health. He has a whole bunch on display and I ask him where he got them from.

A big smile lights up his face when he talks about his plants.

” My father, he taught me… I go look in the empty plots of land around Broadacres and I dig up little shoots. I bring them back… I look after them.

This soil is no good…”

He grabs some dirt from the ground, the light brown soil runs through his fingers.

“This is not healthy for plants, but this dark soil…. and here he points to the soil in the little plastic pots,

“This is good , this is healthy.”

Sipho has found some scraps of cardboard which he’s decorated with pictures of plants, huts, and people. A colourful stuffed caterpillar hangs from a tree .

He also sleeps here – right next to Pine Road. He shows me where – a little enclosure fenced in with broken straw mats. A few scraps of cardboard and plastic bags on the ground…

“At night I put my plants here where I sleep. They protect me from the wind. They are like my friends. ”

“Do you have a blanket Sipho?”

“No… no blanket… but I sleep here under the black plastic bag and cardboard.”

“And how long have you been sleeping here?”

“5 months now… I get drinking water from the security guards at the complex next door and I water my plants with water from that little stream,”

He points into the bushes…

“But I can’t drink that water.”

With the little money Sipho makes from the sale of his succulents, he walks to the Spar and buys some mealie meal. Sipho really has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to plants.

He would be an asset to any plant nursery, or as a gardener. He has no phone, and only a few clothes.You can’t miss him if you drive down Lombardy Road , on the corner of Pine Ave

Plant Whisperer


“I Have A Name” is a space where an anonymous photographer (we’ll call her J) is taking photos of everyday South Africans to showcase their incredible stories.

How do we bridge the great South African divides? Black vs white, young vs old, rich vs poor, men vs women? The divides that keep us from making eye contact with the beggar standing on the street corner, or the stranger in the lift.

CS Lewis said, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.”

Come with me on a journey…the stories and names behind the faces of everyday South Africans living their life in your neighbourhood, on your streets.

I think you will discover that we have a lot in common.

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About the Author

Brent Lindeque is the founder and editor in charge at Good Things Guy.

Recognised as one of the Mail and Guardian’s Top 200 Young South African’s as well as a Primedia LeadSA Hero, Brent is a change maker, thought leader, radio host, foodie, vlogger, writer and all round good guy.

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