Opinion by Thabo Mopasi
Let me tell you about the history of rats in Alexandra Township.
The rats began breeding from the year 1977 when I was in lower primary school at Ikage primary, in Alex.
Well, the person in charge of those rats was Mr Memela who lived at 55-12th Avenue in Alexandra.
Memela raised Greyhound Dogs. He worked as a security guard and had a side-business selling rats to people who had snakes in their homes in Noorwood (next to Pick n Pay).
Remember that some supermarkets also used to sell rats from the 1970s to the late 1980s.
The big white and black rats spread to other parts of Alex through a man known as Big Donga.
Mr Sinki Matotoka (a friend of mine who is the neighbor of Memela), told me what the man known as Mzito did.
I was interested in how the rats ended up at Dongas’ house. So Sinki told me Memela had gone to work and left the rats in the cage in his place as usual.
So the naughty Mzito opened the cage so the rats would escape… and the rest is history!
This is the first part in Alex’s rat story.
