The Hermit Of Mogoditshane

GREG KELEBONYE
Staff Writer | Friday March 5, 2010 00:00

The Moshupa born 65 year old has lived in the shack since 1984, he thinks. His has been a hermit's existence.

Reclusive, solitude existence.  To many he is just a man with no family and whose origin is not known.

'I have lived here, I think since 1984. I initially came here to find a living and was allowed by the landowner to put up my shed,' he said.

Sitting on the hard, once-upon-a-time white garden chair, Mabifi casts a forlorn figure. Behind him is a sprawling 'garden' of metal debris. Bits and pieces that he has been collecting over the years. He says he sells the pieces to earn a living. The money is not much, but it can on a good moon, afford him a meal at least once a day.

'I usually fill a wheelbarrow with the pieces, and manage to get about P20 from their sale. With that I can buy a small bag of mealie-meal,' he said.

No one ever visits Mabifi. Residents find him strange and that has somehow caused them to keep away from him.

He is aware of that but will not fret over it.  For a man who has lived all his life without a woman companion and has no children, Mabifi has only himself to worry about. He suspects people might be wary of him because at one point he was a practicing traditional doctor. Then, he kept shoulder length dreadlocks and a beard that could easily have made people mistake him for a 'mopostori'. Then, as now, he kept to himself, going out of his shed only to dig for herbs or buy food from the shops. He has since taken a break from treating people as he felt he was not at his full potential. It's a type of retreat and regroup for him.

' I guess if I have to start practicing again, I would have to be at my full potential.

Except for those who were 'fortunate' to bump into Mabifi when he went to the store to buy food, no one has ever seen him at a clothes store. This is because all of Mabifi's clothes are 'throw-aways' that he picks and re-uses.

'I cannot recall the last time I bought  clothes, but I think it was the time I was working at the mines in the 70s.

All my clothes, including the ones that I am wearing I pick from rubble and rubbish bins,' he says, casting a glance towards a bathtub full of bits and pieces.

Even the pieces of rags that he uses for blankets he picked from among thrown away items at dumpsites.

Because of his reclusive existence, Mabifi lives under the scepter of dying and no one knowing whether he is dead or alive. On the day that The Monitor is visiting, his neighbours, the people who are tenants in the more accommodative houses in the compound where he has put up his shack say they have not seen him for sometime.

'We are not really worried when we don't see him because he often disappears for days on end only to suddenly resurface,' said one of the tenants.

Actually during those times Mabifi would be ill.

'I do from time to time become ill. I could be writhing inside this shack for as long as the pain wants to buffet me. However I always eventually heal and go about my business. No one asks me where I have been and I don't tell anyone either,' he says,

Mabifi has siblings who are still alive and have homes in Moshupa, but he will not go home.

'I came here to find a living. Life has decided to treat me otherwise, but I will not become my sibling's burden. In any case I went home the year before last and found some strangers inhabiting my mother's house. Someone had rented the house out. When I enquired who they were they gave me quite a beating, and I swore that I would never go back there. Unless I have a place of my own, I would rather stay and die here.'

Mabifi is saturated with hopelessness.

' I know I need help, but I don't even know where anyone who wants to help would start. I just have...nothing,' he hesitates as he scratches his head, his eyes looking at the horizon as if looking for an answer from some northerly divinity.

Other than The Monitor team, no one has ever visited Mabifi to understand his fate.

'No, I have not had anyone from the council visit me.'

Mabifi does not even know where to go to seek help from the council. He is not even aware that he has attained age 65, and thus qualifies for old-age pension.

'I suspect I am 62 years old, since I was born in 1945,' he told Monitor. The interview took place last Saturday.

Old age had caught up with Mabifi and he finds doing the ordinary tasks that he used to do a chore.

'I could walk many kilometers before, but I am finding it increasingly difficult lately. Other than the fact that I am now older, I am also sickly. I have tried to piece these old bicycle frames together to make myself a bicycle, but I find it difficult as I do not have money to buy the parts.'

While Mabifi occasionally attends a funeral he only does so in the area where he stays.

'You can always tell that there is a funeral, so no one is barred from attending funerals, and I do attend if I am able.'

As we prepare to leave we walk over to the pile of metal debris that supposedly shelters Mabifi from the elements. He warns us to be particularly careful with a yellowish sponge-like substance by the entrance.

'I don't know what that thing is. Some mischievous person came and threw it on my canvass, my bed and the doorway, and it itches like the world is coming to an end.'  We are able to identify the spongy little heap as fiberglass and warn him to keep away from it as best he can.