In the ten years that Bongile Mveli has been a barista at the MyBrew coffee shop in Stellenbosch University’s Neelsie Student Centre, coffee and people have always been what he enjoys most about his job. Over the years he has advised, befriended and supported hundreds of Stellenbosch students and would “see how they grow up”. In an interview with SMF News’ Hélène Wessels, Bongile speaks about hardship, friendship, and his life as a barista.
Bongile Mveli is a barista at the MyBrew coffee shop, situated in the Neelsie Student Centre on the campus of Stellenbosch University. After Freddie Kruger, founder and owner of MyBrew, noticed Bongile’s friendly way of interacting with customers at a pizza place nearby (where Bongile was working at the time), Kruger asked Bongile to join MyBrew. He has been there for ten years since. PHOTO: Hélène Wessels
It is 21:00 on a Wednesday night, and the Neelsie Student Centre is anything but silent. On the deck that overlooks the bottom floor, Stellenbosch University (SU) students sit at tiny plywood and glass tables, chatting over study notes or a takeaway meal.
All the shops are closed, the insides dark except for the sharp white light of the occasional refrigerator stocked with bottles of water and pre-packaged wraps.
The MyBrew coffee shop, however, is open.
Behind the counter is only one barista. He smiles and talks to his customers – mostly students on a quick caffeine break from their studies – while brewing coffee and pouring frothed milk into black takeaway coffee cups.
The night shift at MyBrew doesn’t garner many customers, says Bongile Mveli in an interview the previous week, lifting his voice above the din of student chatter and the grinding of the MyBrew coffee machines.
“But also, in exams, I feel more like helping people out than making more business,” he adds. “Even those few people, they need it.”
During the recent Stellenbosch University exam season, Bongile Mveli worked the night shift at MyBrew. From 17:00 until 05:00, he made coffee for late-night customers and students pulling all-night study sessions on campus. Although the night shift doesn’t increase sales drastically, Bongile feels that helping people out during the tough assessment period is more important than getting more business. PHOTO: Hélène Wessels
Bongile started working at MyBrew ten years ago. While waiting for a pizza order at another outlet on campus, MyBrew founder and owner Freddie Kruger noticed the friendly way Bongile treated his customers.
“That is why I’m always the most in front – because I like chatting with people,” Bongile says.
At the time, he was a barista at Roman’s Pizza, just a few metres away from MyBrew.
“He really impressed me,” said Kruger when asked about that day. “His entire demeanor and customer service, his friendliness, stood out for me. I just believed that he would fit in perfectly with the way we run our business.”
Even though he can now make a cappuccino with his eyes closed, there was a time when being a barista was a distant reality for Bongile.
From the hills of Nqgeleni
“Most people know our big town, Umtata. But my town, it’s Nqgeleni,” says Bongile. He is referring to his home town.
“My everything is there,” he says.
The third child of seven, Bongile grew up in this village in West Pondoland in the Eastern Cape. His father was a miner; his mother a housewife.
His dream was to become a football player. From age 11 he played at the Abahlobo Football Club.
“I was good. I was very good at football,” he says. “But because of where you grow up, where you play – which is the rural area – it’s difficult for people to notice you.”
Bongile Mveli, now a barista at MyBrew in the Neelsie Student Centre on the Stellenbosch University campus, grew up in Nqgeleni, a village near Umtata in the Eastern Cape. The third child of seven, he wanted to become a football player when he was young. When he moved to Johannesburg to find work, he had to stop playing and took up running instead. During times when work was scarce and stress was high, running became something that Bongile did to clear his mind. PHOTO: Hélène Wessels
Bongile left school in Grade 10 when his parents couldn’t afford to send him anymore. When his father, Mlinganiso, went to work at a mine in Rustenburg, Bongile would spend his days looking after his father’s cattle. Mlinganiso was a generous man, he says.
“He used to help people out, especially people who had nothing,” Bongile says. “He used to like people a lot.”
But one day, his father did not come back from the mines.
During that time, taxi-related unrest was ongoing in the Eastern Cape. When returning from work one day, the taxi transporting Mlinganiso became the target of a shooting in a nearby town. The driver and all the passengers, including Bongile’s father, were killed.
This was the first time in his life that he experienced a loss like this. Bongile was 24.
This was to be the start of an intensely difficult time for him and his family – as the family grieved, hunger stared them in the face; his father was the sole breadwinner of the house.
“I remember some of the days where we used to sleep with nothing [to eat] after the whole day,” Bongile says.
They are alive because of his eldest brother, Linda, says Bongile. Just after their father passed away, Linda also went to work at a mine in Rustenburg.
“He was the one who had to stand up immediately in that time. He suffered a lot for us.”
When he was in Grade 10, MyBrew barista, Bongile Mveli, left school and started taking care of his father’s cattle. His father, Mlinganiso, was a generous man, Bongile said, and had a passion to help people, “especially people who had nothing”. Mlinganiso, who worked in a mine in Rustenburg, was killed during a taxi-related shooting when Bongile was 24. PHOTO: Hélène Wessels
To help care for his family, Bongile moved to Alexandra in Johannesburg to live with Linda and their older sister. Finding work in Gauteng was a challenge; especially as a newcomer with no contacts in the city. After a short contract as a cleaner at a Sasol office in Randburg, Bongile was out of work.
In 2016, Bongile moved to the Western Cape after securing a job as a pizza maker at the Roman’s Pizza on Banghoek Road, Stellenbosch. But soon thereafter, the owner offered him the barista job.
“I think he wanted me to be in front where I can speak with people. Maybe he noticed I am that kind of person who is not afraid of them.”
Coffee and people
The thing Bongile enjoys the most about being a barista is talking to his customers. “That is why I’m always in front,” he says. “I enjoy making coffee. I also enjoy being where people are.”
His daily interactions with students in particular are meaningful to him, Bongile says. As a parent of two children himself, he knows the importance of having someone to talk to when problems arise.
“Especially when they come in their first year… they come very young. I see how they grow up,” he says. “I feel, with some of them, that they still need to be with their parents. But there is no other way. They have to start.”
Students have said that Bongile becomes a role model for them; a father while they are away from their own.
“You never just give a coffee,” a student told him once. For Bongile, it is never an issue to ask how it is going with someone. “To you it’s a small thing,” the student said. “But to us, it’s a big thing.”
Bongile Mveli has seen thousands of students come and go in the past ten years that he has been a barista at MyBrew. “I see how they grow up,” he says. He still stays in contact with some of the students he supported and befriended over the years. PHOTO: Hélène Wessels
“It will be difficult to go find a work in another place,” Bongile says, speaking of the fond memories of the students he has met and befriended over the years.
Some students who graduate come to say goodbye. Some come to take photos with him on their last day in Stellenbosch. During graduation season – “if I’m not at Coetzenburg,” he says – students will bring their parents to MyBrew to introduce them to the Bongile whom they have heard so much about.
“I remember all of them,” Bongile says. “Some, I have their numbers and we chat. One guy is overseas now and we’re still chatting.”
Henry Viljoen, a second year MSc Wine Biotechnology student at SU, says the reason why students find it so easy to befriend Bongile is his eagerness to help people. “I’ve been here for five years, and I’ve never seen him not smile. He always talks to me as if he really cares and is really interested in what I have to say. I really appreciate that about him.”
“I think it’s in his nature,” says Bongile’s co-worker, barista Siphamantla Kokani. “He’s a person that is out there, you know. He is always willing to help.”
Bongile checks the time. It’s 16:51. His shift is about to start.
As his picture is taken in the MyBrew coffee shop, his fellow baristas cheer and suggest poses. Bongile smiles even wider.