They had been allowed into South Africa to provide cheap labour and at the same time they had followed their own dreams of wealth and peace at a time when their home country was poverty-stricken and war-ravaged.
Luis had ostensibly benefitted from the peace in Mozambique that followed the end of the civil war in 1992. He’d been educated in metallurgy and engineering in East Germany, but WENELA no longer trawled the villages of Mozambique and Zimbabwe looking for labour. The catchcry after Mandela came to power was South African jobs for South Africans. But there were still opportunitiesfor those prepared to work hard and the minimum wage in South Africa was still a relative fortune in Mozambique.
So Luis had walked south and then west and crossed the Limpopo River and joined the
mahambane
, ‘the walkers’, who braved the wild dangerous expanse of the Kruger National Park to cross into South Africa and put their skills to use in a country that, despite its job creation rhetoric, had a pressing need for them. Others from his village had disappeared on the journey to
e-goli
, the place of gold. Some had been killed by lions in the national park, others became lost and died of thirst or starvation, while still more fell prey to criminals who stole what little they carried in their suitcases.
Luis, though, had made it to Johannesburg, where he had met a man from his village working on a mine near Benoni. It was a small mine, and not as diligent as the bigger companies at sticking to the letter of the law when it came to hiring policies. Luis had soon proved his worth to the shift boss as a labourer, and his metallurgy qualification meant he had hope of a job above ground. Luis moved in with his friend from the village, taking a corner of a jerry-built shack in an informal settlement, the new South Africa’s euphemism for a shanty town.
Things were good for a while. As well as sending money home to his wife and two-year-old son in Inhambane, Luis managed to save enough to buy himself some sheets of plywood and corrugated iron to start building his own shack.
In 2008 trouble began brewing in the settlement. No one could remember what started it, but it spread like a bushfire through their community and others across the country. In what became known as the xenophobia riots, South Africans living in the informal settlements turned on their neighbours from other countries. Mozambicans, Zimbabweans, Malawians and other Africans who had lived peacefully alongside the locals for so long suddenly found themselves the targets of mob violence. Some were beaten, others stabbed and burned in a spontaneous orgy of hatred that claimed the lives of more than sixty migrants across the country.
Luis’s shack was burned to the ground, along with his meagre possessions, and his friend’s home was likewise razed. The mob had caught up with him as he’d tried to salvage his suitcase – they had dragged him into the dusty laneway and kicked him and beat him with sticks.
As Luis listened to the screams of the environmental manager, he felt again the thud of boots on flesh. Wellington Shumba, the man they called ‘the Lion’ after his surname and his predatory nature, was the devil who ruled this underground hell, but he had given Luis a job when the mine in Benoni had made him redundant for exceeding his sick leave entitlement. It didn’t matter that Luis had spent weeks recovering from a broken arm and ribs and septicaemia in a church-run clinic and had been unable to get a sick note from a doctor sent to the mine. The mining company had heeded the call of the unions and the streets to employ fewer foreigners and more South Africans – even if they couldn’t do the jobs they were paid to do.
Luis had used the last of his money to catch a bus to Barberton, and there he’d walked straight into the devil’s arms.
5
K ylie declined the complimentary champagne as she arranged herself in her business class seat on the Qantas Boeing.
Luis had ostensibly benefitted from the peace in Mozambique that followed the end of the civil war in 1992. He’d been educated in metallurgy and engineering in East Germany, but WENELA no longer trawled the villages of Mozambique and Zimbabwe looking for labour. The catchcry after Mandela came to power was South African jobs for South Africans. But there were still opportunitiesfor those prepared to work hard and the minimum wage in South Africa was still a relative fortune in Mozambique.
So Luis had walked south and then west and crossed the Limpopo River and joined the
mahambane
, ‘the walkers’, who braved the wild dangerous expanse of the Kruger National Park to cross into South Africa and put their skills to use in a country that, despite its job creation rhetoric, had a pressing need for them. Others from his village had disappeared on the journey to
e-goli
, the place of gold. Some had been killed by lions in the national park, others became lost and died of thirst or starvation, while still more fell prey to criminals who stole what little they carried in their suitcases.
Luis, though, had made it to Johannesburg, where he had met a man from his village working on a mine near Benoni. It was a small mine, and not as diligent as the bigger companies at sticking to the letter of the law when it came to hiring policies. Luis had soon proved his worth to the shift boss as a labourer, and his metallurgy qualification meant he had hope of a job above ground. Luis moved in with his friend from the village, taking a corner of a jerry-built shack in an informal settlement, the new South Africa’s euphemism for a shanty town.
Things were good for a while. As well as sending money home to his wife and two-year-old son in Inhambane, Luis managed to save enough to buy himself some sheets of plywood and corrugated iron to start building his own shack.
In 2008 trouble began brewing in the settlement. No one could remember what started it, but it spread like a bushfire through their community and others across the country. In what became known as the xenophobia riots, South Africans living in the informal settlements turned on their neighbours from other countries. Mozambicans, Zimbabweans, Malawians and other Africans who had lived peacefully alongside the locals for so long suddenly found themselves the targets of mob violence. Some were beaten, others stabbed and burned in a spontaneous orgy of hatred that claimed the lives of more than sixty migrants across the country.
Luis’s shack was burned to the ground, along with his meagre possessions, and his friend’s home was likewise razed. The mob had caught up with him as he’d tried to salvage his suitcase – they had dragged him into the dusty laneway and kicked him and beat him with sticks.
As Luis listened to the screams of the environmental manager, he felt again the thud of boots on flesh. Wellington Shumba, the man they called ‘the Lion’ after his surname and his predatory nature, was the devil who ruled this underground hell, but he had given Luis a job when the mine in Benoni had made him redundant for exceeding his sick leave entitlement. It didn’t matter that Luis had spent weeks recovering from a broken arm and ribs and septicaemia in a church-run clinic and had been unable to get a sick note from a doctor sent to the mine. The mining company had heeded the call of the unions and the streets to employ fewer foreigners and more South Africans – even if they couldn’t do the jobs they were paid to do.
Luis had used the last of his money to catch a bus to Barberton, and there he’d walked straight into the devil’s arms.
5
K ylie declined the complimentary champagne as she arranged herself in her business class seat on the Qantas Boeing.
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