Almost every South African has heard that sentence before.

“Uzoythola kanjani uhlele khoneni?”

How will you make something of yourself while standing at the corner?

firstly aretshwareng thapelo:)..
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It’s usually said with disappointment. Sometimes frustration. Sometimes as a warning from parents, teachers or elders watching young boys stand around in groups, laughing loudly in oversized Dickies, All Stars and bucket hats.

To many people, the corner represents wasted time.

It represents laziness.
Trouble.
Crime.
Drugs.
Failure.

And to be fair, sometimes those things do exist there.

But I think many people misunderstand what “ekhoneni” really is.

Because for a lot of us, the corner was never just a corner.

It was a community.

Not every classroom has walls. Some lessons are learned standing on the street with friends.

Long before podcasts, group chats and motivational spaces, there were conversations ekhoneni. Conversations about music, football, girls, politics, fashion, survival and dreams. Some of the funniest, deepest and most honest conversations I’ve ever heard didn’t happen in boardrooms, they happened standing outside with friends while cars passed by.

People see young men standing together and immediately assume nothing productive is happening.

But sometimes ideas are being born there.

The Pantsula culture has always been misunderstood in South Africa. People often reduce it to criminality while ignoring the history, creativity and identity behind it. The style, the language, the dance, the confidence, the movement… all of it came from somewhere deeper than just “being a thug.”

Pantsulas created culture out of environments that were never designed to inspire them.

Townships have always been places where struggle and creativity live in the same room.

Even today, you can still see its influence everywhere:
in music,
in fashion,
in dance,
in slang,
in photography,
in street culture.

Yet the people carrying that culture are still looked down on.

The truth is, some corners do destroy people.

Some people really do become stuck there. Days become months. Months become years. Dreams slowly disappear into routine. That reality exists and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.

But reducing every person at the corner to laziness also ignores reality.

Because some people at the corner are thinkers.
Some are artists.
Some are future entrepreneurs.
Some are simply looking for belonging in a country where many young people feel lost and invisible.

Sometimes the corner isn’t where people go to waste time. Sometimes it’s where they go to feel less alone.

Not everybody has access to cafés, creative hubs or networking events.

For some people, the street corner is the only social space they have.

And maybe that’s what people fail to understand.

The corner is not always about “doing nothing.”

Sometimes it’s about escaping pressure at home.
Sometimes it’s about friendship.
Sometimes it’s about identity.
Sometimes it’s about feeling seen.

Before society calls young men lazy, it should first ask whether they were ever given somewhere meaningful to belong.

South African township culture has always created beauty out of struggle. That’s why even in places associated with poverty, people still find ways to create style, humour, dance, music and language powerful enough to influence the entire country.

Mapantsula culture is part of that story.

Of course, not everything should be romanticised. We should still encourage growth, ambition and purpose. Nobody should settle for simply existing at the corner forever.

But I also think we should stop acting like every person standing there has no vision for their life.

For me, this is not just theory.

I used to be one of those guys at the corner and the spaza. That was life ..conversations, laughter, time passing without us really knowing what the future would look like. It didn’t look like anything special from the outside.

But today, I am a medical student.

And I carry both realities with me. The corner didn’t define me, but it shaped how I see people, especially the ones society is quick to judge.

It taught me that potential doesn’t always look organised. Sometimes it looks like a group of boys standing outside a spaza, talking too loudly, dreaming too openly.

Not every person at the corner is waiting for life to happen. Some are trying to figure life out together.

Maybe the question was never really:
“Uzoythola kanjani uhlele khoneni?”

Maybe the real question is:
“What are people actually searching for at the corner?”

Because sometimes it’s not just money.

Sometimes it’s connection.
Sometimes it’s identity.
Sometimes it’s hope.

until the next post…aretshwareng thapelo
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