Tribulations Of A Zim Migrant Worker In Cape Town

By Linda Swiza
Correspondent | Monday May 26, 2008 00:00

This sounds pretty normal for the average working man except that for Samukhange it entails back-breaking hard labour where he is on his feet for a continuous eight hours without any rest unless he uses the all-too familiar excuse of needing to use the toilet.

This is never taken lightly either and the white foreman ensures that this very temporary breakaway is timed to the last second. After all he must get as much work as he can out of the hired labourer whom he has not even bothered to ask his name. Tearing down an old building is not an easy task. For the poor Zimbabwean, like others who have literally fled home in search of a better life in other SADC countries, especially South Africa and Botswana, it means the heaving of the inevitable jackhammer in a continuous rhythm against the more than staunch wall.

He has heard that it must make way for a state-of-the-art building whose completion is marked for the end of December, and two years ahead of the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa. He cannot help but wonder at such speed and sardonically reminds himself never to take any new buildings for granted. Such splendor he realises has brought forth tears and sweat by hardened men like him.

This dance on this construction site is only temporarily halted when he has to clear the area by carrying some of the rubble using larger-than-life wheelbarrows to deposit in another space a little way off. For Samukhange's wily frame this work is almost too hard to bear, but bear it he must.

It is indeed a hard-earned R80 that Samukhange earns at the end of the day. There is more to the job than getting a meal after such hard work. Looking at the circumstances there are no other options for him. Even if he wants to go back to Zimbabwe he cannot afford a whooping R700 bus fare back home. A staggering amount indeed. He is yet to earn R500 in this not-so-honeyed country.

Samukhange has already budgeted the as-yet-to-be received R80 to the last cent. He will buy his weekly train ticket from Khayalitsha, which costs R27. He will use R23 to buy mealie-meal and other basic foodstuffs, as advised by his cousin who has graciously taken him in on a temporary basis. More important however he will reserve R30 to use at the Internet cafe.

He cannot get over congratulating himself for discovering that Internet cafe by the corner, smack in the middle of Cape Town, which charges R5 per hour. Most of the other cafes will charge double that amount for the same period. If he is lucky he may come across one of his fellow-countrymen who have been fortunate enough to buy that week's copy of the Cape Times, which always has an array of job vacancies. He doesn't think that he will be able to squeeze in that newspaper in his all-so-tight budget this week.

The one-hour on the Internet is a glorious period sufficient enough to browse for a position as a French or Portuguese lecturer at any institution keen to hire him in this South Africa, which has proved somewhat disappointing for his high hopes.

If he is not so lucky this time he will not give up either. Even if his R80 runs out he will go to that corner again and wait for those cars that come to pick up casual labourers for a day's work on some other construction site.

He sighs as he reminds himself that he has to continuously come up with new tactics to be picked out of that desperate crowd. People tend to underestimate his thin frame for weakness. He smiles sadly as he remembers the shock that never fails to appear on the face of whoever is the a-day-employer when they discover the indomitable strength in that wiry frame. Don't they realise that it is his spirit's refusal to waver that gives strength to his bones, he wonders.

He silently reminds himself that tomorrow, he will make another curriculum vitae (CV), toned down somewhat. He certainly does not want to intimidate any of those restaurant managers by his two degrees in French and Portuguese as well as his vast experience in the noble profession of teaching.

A restaurant job as a waiter will enable him to move out of his cousin's room in Khayalitsha and rest his weary hands from the easy-to-come-by construction jobs as he continues his quest for a position in the profession he once-upon-a -time trained for.

Another reminder: He must try once again for that asylum paper. He has heard that it will give him more leverage in getting better jobs in this land whose honey he is still to taste.

He mentally braces himself to making it to Home Affairs (SA government department) by 4:00 am where the queues, which are always preceded by jostling, are hard to get used to. It will be his fifth trial in this attempt but hopefully he may come back smiling. If not, he will just have to spend the night there and strive to make number one in that queue the following day. Surely even those officers with hard-looking eyes will have mercy upon him? No matter, he will just have to constantly change his game plan to stay on top despite these hindrances.

He thinks somewhat longingly of the job he left back home at that all-so-prestigious university whose hallowed halls spawned doctors, professors and business tycoons. He groans to think that these halls have also been affected by the economic crisis is his country where many of the lecturers can barely survive on their pathetic salaries and more often than not have to attend classes on empty stomachs in what one may think is a solidarity action with their students.

He cannot imagine going back to Zimbabwe anytime soon. Despite having no dependents he could no longer afford to pay for his lodgings in Harare much less come up with the fare for the daily public transport, which has also proved to be quite unpredictable because of the crippling fuel crisis.

True he misses his siblings and his mother but what is the point in reminiscing when he is not in any position to improve their lot? Besides he has only been in this not-so-honeyed pot of a country a mere six months. Despite the mounting xenophobia, attacks and killings of innocent foreigners by fellow Africans in South African townships, Samukhange has little option but endure the pain, hoping tomorrow or next month will bring better fortune. (Sila Press Agency)