Born a Crime

The most common were the
spaza shops and the shebeens. The
spaza shops were informal grocery
stores. People would build a kiosk
in their garage, buy wholesale bread
and eggs, and then resell them
piecemeal. Everyone in the
township bought things in minute
quantities because nobody had any
money. You couldn’t afford to buy a
dozen eggs at a time, but you could
buy two eggs because that’s all you
needed that morning. You could
buy a quarter loaf of bread, a cup of
sugar. The shebeens were unlawful
bars in the back of someone’s
house. They’d put chairs in their