The discarded products are a health hazard to consumers not only because they are picked up at the dumping site but because this site is also a dumping ground for clinical waste from Bamalete Lutheran Hospital.
Driven by hunger, South African women and children cross the border into Botswana daily, to salvage food and other items at the disposal site. Some of this food is for their own consumption but the rest of the ‘products’ are for sale.
On Tuesday Mmegi accompanied three young South African women aged between 16 and 20 to the dumping site.
Their day begins at around 5am when the first truck from Bolux Milling, about five km away from Ramotswa arrives with the first load of waste. By that time the South Africans are hiding in the thick bushes along the Notwane river. The truck loaders then set the discarded food alight. Within moments dark clouds of smoke from the burning rubbish can be seen. The women then appear from the bushes as if beckoned by the smoke.
Since the dumping site sits atop a hilly outcrop it can be seen from Moshana about five kilometers away.
The South Africans then hurriedly mingle with their Botswana counterparts and salvage an assortment of packaging and food from the blazing fire.
Occasionally, some of them get caught by the police for entering the country at ungazetted points but poverty knows no borders - they keep coming back. A worker at the site said that last week seven of them were arrested.
Last month Balibadzi Boy of Ramotswa Police Station told Mmegi that their efforts to apprehend the aliens were frustrated by the proximity of the border fence to the site.
“We cross the border knowing that we risk being arrested but we have to find food to survive,” says Bonyana Marumola (20), one of the young women we accompanied. She was in the company of her younger sister Elizabeth (16) and an acquaintance, Emily Motsamai (18). The Marumolas say they dropped out of school in grades nine and seven respectively. Their parents are unemployed and their eldest brother, who is the breadwinner, works at a quarry and has to cater for a family of seven. Emily’s story is similar. She comes from a family of five and no one in her family has a regular job. The girls who initially don’t say much fearing that I might be an undercover official later decide to allow me to travel with them to their home village.
We begin the one-hour journey to Moshana on foot, which begins with jumping the border fences between the two countries. I carry my passport and press card and yet cross the border illegally with them. After emerging from a thicket of bushes we follow the dusty and bumpy road to Moshana village. Along the way one of the women narrates how they learnt of this second hand food business from others in their village. Their mothers have never been to the dumping site and have often discouraged them from taking risky trips but because of the food they bring home, they do not stop them. When we arrive at Moshana some of their neighbours look at them in disdain, while others seem envious but the girls just ignore them as they enter their home. Their home does not exactly paint a picture of abject poverty. The house has two bedrooms similar to most of the other houses in the village.
The mother to the sisters, Annah Marumola (36), explains that she cannot afford to pay school fees for her daughters. “I wish my girls could complete their schooling and not remain as poor as I am,” she says. Both girls express their wish to become teachers someday. One can understand their choice of the same career path, as there are no job opportunities in their village other than in the formal sector.
“I wish the government could intervene with more help,” she says. Annah says the family depends on a social grant for her two toddlers just like most people in Moshana.
