Bovine Head Cooks Part 1: History and Memory

Rebecca Plumbley Bovine head meat served with steamed bread is a popular meal in Warwick. Cooking involves the cleaving of meat off the skull bones which takes about 30 minutes. The meat is then boiled in a pot for an hour. In Warwick Junction the main consumers of bovine head meat are the porters and … Read more

Mealie Cooks Part 2: Evolving Infrastructure

Rebecca Plumbley This blog post is the 2nd part of the story of the Mealie Cooks; read part 1 here. The cooking process of mealies involves placing 13 dozen mealies in a 200l steel drum with 40-50L water and 45g of bicarbonate of soda. This is then covered with a piece of plastic and left … Read more

Mealie Cooks Part 1: “There’s fire in my system”

Rebecca Plumbley As a popular, low-cost, carbohydrate fast-food mealie (corn-on-the-cob) cooking has a long history in Warwick and its surrounds. Like many other activities in Warwick mealie cooking has recently undergone its third iteration of infrastructure to enable informal workers. There are currently around 64 cooks, the majority of whom are women. As some of … Read more

“Qeda usizi” end [our] suffering: improving the lives of street cooks – Part 2

Phumelele Mkhize and Trang Luu (follow on from Part 1) The horizontal stove design emerged as an option from the MIT D-Lab, as an iteration of the existing cooking method, combined with learning’s from smoke and fuel efficient stove technologies- such as RocketWorks. The concept design aimed to use existing materials and technical insight to … Read more

“Qeda usizi” end our suffering: improving the lives of street cooks – Part 1.

Phumelele Mkhize and Trang Luu Freshly cooked mealies (corn-on-the-cob) are an essential Durban street food staple – they’re healthy, affordable and conveniently accessible to the local commuter population. Over the years, the preparation of mealies in the inner city has developed incrementally- from the hazard of large open fire cooking on city pavements, to a designated site … Read more

Informal Workers’ Seasonal Vulnerability

Rebecca Plumbley Several variables have an impact on the livelihoods of informal workers- one such factor that Asiye eTafuleni has noted is the implications of the seasons, which have an influence on resource availability. In times when their supply is low traders cannot easily diversify what they sell as they are likely to then be … Read more

Sensitizing Informal Workers to Hearing Health

Rebecca Plumbley Last week students and educators from the University of KwaZulu-Natal held hearing screenings and diagnostic testing with around 50 informal workers in Warwick Junction, as part of a greater socio-sonic research project. This is aligned to Asiye eTafuleni’s hearing preservation programme and continued interest in health, occupational safety and social protection. UKZN students … Read more

From a muddy bank with newsprint to enabling infrastructure

Rebecca Plumbley There are approximately 700 bead sellers in Warwick, the majority of whom are women. Most of the bead sellers are from areas outside of Durban such as Ndwedwe and Umzinyathi. They work in family units in their homesteads- coming in to the city on Fridays to sell their wares. In part, this is … Read more