Amakwerekwere series

Photo: Palesa

The Graduate Foreigner

He woke up with a yawn and stretched lazily. He hated sleeping on the cold floor; he could not get used to it at all. He liked it when Mzala was working the night shift, for then he could take his place on the bed. When Mzala worked the day shift, it meant he had to sleep on the floor, “hugging Mother Africa” as Mzala puts it. There was nothing motherly about the cold concrete; its hardness and rigidness as he slept on it were uncomfortable. It made him think far and wide. It made him wish he had come in summer, perhaps then the concrete might have been benign. It made him long for that warm goat shit that used to hit him when as a young boy he milked goats, balancing their behinds with his forehead. The concrete and the winter were a cursed, loathsome union.

“Sisekakeni la Mzala. We are in shit here, cuz,” said Mzala as he unfurled himself from under the blanket. He left a furrow on the bed where his weighty body had been bunkered.

“Quite a place it is,” he replied in a mutter. He had never thought he would come to find Mzala living in such a place, never imagined he—the graduate—would live in such a place. It was also quite unimaginable that South Africa, the land of dreams, could have such a slum, named Harare for that matter. Back home, slums were prohibited and crushed with serious furore, but here, Harare bloomed like some wild weed with new shacks mushrooming everywhere, every day. Who would dare come chase away people living in Islands of shit anyway, with raw sewage all over the place? In some places, sewage danced around doorsteps as if threatening to invade; in other places, it crusted and warped into bowls of green and yellow diarrhoea, begging flies to come and feast. There was no escaping this shit. If he did not step out, the air stench made sure to remind him where he was. Sometimes the wind would tease with a bit of moist air that plastered the lips of whoever it hit.

“Today we have to bath quickly and hike to town. It’s your day to discover for yourself how dry this Joburg is,” said Mzala, while moving to pick up a dish that served for everything to do with washing—from plates to body wash.

“Maybe you have your luck; we have to just try,” added Mzala. “Luck, what for?” he thought. He felt his hope billow when he thought of his degree. He would not need any luck; graduates do not need luck.

Mzala did a quick wash of his face and the “pressure areas,” the armpits and the valleys of the groin, before throwing the water away and signalling he too have a quick bath. The “quick” part of the bath was on speed and attention given to the bathing; otherwise, this piecemeal bathing was a daily thing. In Harare there were no bathrooms, the best you could get was a twenty-litre bucket. And you had to be careful lest you tripped one of the thousand cables that veined throughout the small shack, making their way to other shacks, carrying illegally bridged electricity. He never wanted to think much of what could happen if one day the wires got crossed, and there was a spark. It was not his place to think that; he was still new to voice concerns.

“Can I disturb you a bit my boetie? Nature calls,” said Vusi softly as he rose from the bed and made for the bucket on the side of the bed. He hated this.

Vusi picked the bucket and made for the centre of the shack, pulled his pants down and went downright to work. It went plop plop into the bucket, hitting the water that was always in the bucket to mimic a chamber. When he was done he shoved his hand under the bed and pulled out an old newspaper which he squashed and wiped with, pulled up his pants and went out to empty the bucket in the sea of shit outside, leaving behind an unmistakably pungent and musty smell of umqombothi churned from his bowels.

He picked up the piece of soap that they all shared. It had slimmed and shrunk to nano sim-card size—the attrition was largely due to Boomba’s afro hairstyle. As for Boomba, his demeanour was always mistaken for insouciance, for even without meaning to he always struck people as unconcerned. He wasn’t one to be easily moved. He remained sleeping on the bed, snoring at intermittent intervals and sending reverberations around the shack. He looked at him, how he lived his life, and wished to have the comfort he exuded and yet prayed not to adopt his means of living. Boomba was the local drug supplier, known around the whole of Harare where he supplied highly potent cocktails of cough syrup even to underage kids without any hint of guilt. If there was any, it hid well in his tufted afro.

When he was done bathing, they made it out—more like a dash—hurrying like men promised a job, or at least, an interview. They made it out to Rumbi’s shack on the other side of the streams of sewage. Even in the clustered outlay of shacks, it was easy to spot Rumbi’s shack. It stood out because it was emblazoned with a large swastika spray-painted on one side of the sheet of metal that walled the shack. In fact, all the shacks in Harare had some peculiar mark on them, some with surnames, others with flags. Their neighbour to the left had three bullet holes as a mark. It was not uncommon to find little rascals peeping through them and then scampering away while trying to suppress laughs. Mzala’s mark was a set of old car plates so cankered it was hard to make out what they read. 

“Homeboys! You boys up for an early run or visit?” she exclaimed jokingly.  It was a dry joke; who would dare visit her with no clear agenda with that jealous bulldog of her husband lingering around?

“No, we are on the rat race; we are here for the documents,” replied Mzala. Mzala had insisted they take the documents to her, arguing that crucial documents could only be safe in the hands of a woman. She did not ask further; she ducked in and came back with a file of documents.

“Good luck,” she added as they turned to go.

There is something about mornings that renews hope, the hope that jaunts up anxiety and throws away fear. He had the step of a man who had a job waiting for him in town, documents firmly tucked under one arm. They went place after place looking for information, checking agencies that promised work and promptly leaving when they were asked for some “upfront” fees. By midday, with hunger gnawing at his insides, his steps had changed to giddy sashays that would have left a cloud of dust trailing behind had it not been for the concrete streets of Joburg.

“I know a place,” Mzala burst out after a long silent street skirting.

“A place?”

“Yes, there is always a job there for anyone looking to work with no complaints. But I don’t know; it’s not for the degreed kind.”

“I mean what’s with all the questions about work permit, ID, and all that? Is an employer also an immigration official this side?”

“A job is a job.”

Deep down some realization was starting to take shape. Good luck was actually good luck.  With what he had learnt that day he felt he really needed luck now, not with all those questions about his identity, work permit, and all that stuff that made him uncomfortable, stuff that outweighed merit in the consideration for employment. He could feel the pinch, and he was getting desperate for a job.

“But, why?” he asked, the stubborn residue of a mountainous hope churning in him.

“Why what?” Mzala was perplexed.

“I mean what’s with all the questions about work permit, ID, and all that? Is an employer also an immigration official this side? What happened to merit? Which should come first and foremost?” He had a pained look on his face—a combination of confusion, desperation, hunger all in one.

“As a foreigner, graduate or not, you have to start from the outer lane. It’s not easy at all. You have to note that this is not our home; we cannot make demands here. All these people you see here have some qualification, some skill they trained for, but look, look around. Most of them are vendors, selling tomatoes, sweets, cigarettes and all that. Take heart, things will work out just fine.”

He was a man with a degree, almost kaput, desperate as one selling perishables. He had no choice and no power over the situation. He now walked behind Mzala, no longer as eager as he was in the morning, wondering what job there was that Mzala had talked about. But, what kind of a job could there be in dimly-lit, long, and draughty basements?

THE NANNY

Bring back lost lover.

Penis enlargement.

Hip enlargement/Vagina tightening.

Win lotto.

Abortion pills.

Fix all problems.

Call +27….

She re-read the poster again, shook her head in disbelief, and was about to walk away when someone interrupted her.

“Utter nonsense all that. You go there, and you will come back an asymmetrical watermelon with one oversized hip.”

She simply laughed, imagining walking with an oversized hip—a human duck walking, sashaying, gyrating, flesh jogging side to side.

“I am Cynthia.”

“I am Mercy.”

That was the start of their camaraderie, a friendship forged in the streets of Joburg and galvanized by a shared precarious stance to everything Joburg offered. Joburg is a place where a stranger asking for a cigarette light is not to be entertained: they could be the stranger one minute, the next you are their victim. It is a place with a pulsating pace of living, from throbbing music in the taverns to the honks of the taxis that are the pulse of the city. Nothing is as innocent as a pigeon on earth, but the Joburg pigeons feed on human blood that stains the streets from whatever violence happens at night. They are not to be trusted too.

“One day I saw a man, an old man so inebriated he jaywalked from one end of the street to the other end, and then flash, that same old man became young, snatched a phone from some lady, and fled down the street.”

“This place is hell! You know there is this place down on Rissik street with a big swallow hole for dumping babies. Who does that? Who formalizes baby dumping?”

“So, what exactly were you looking for on those posters?”

Cynthia was the inquisitive type, question after question, mostly whys: why do you think this place is so full of foreigners? Why, oh you a foreigner too, but why? You don’t look Zimbabwean.

“I am looking for a job, a better paying one”

“Does this mean your current job doesn’t pay well? Why, you said you have a degree? Oh well you’re a foreigner.”

They chatted and chatted, exchanged numbers, got to chat on WhatsApp talking problems: men, money, crime, politics.

“Who knew a whole honours degree in psychology could just be summed up as papers. ”

“I got you a job, Mercy. As an au pair. You see with that degree it means you know a lot about childhood development and stuff. So, there is this couple nie, I don’t know where they are from, Japan or something. So long as they are not Indians, you will be fine; those ones are slave drivers.” The call cut off abruptly. She simply smiled; none of Cynthia’s calls had a hello or a goodbye; she always had airtime problems. But in one minute she spoke a load-full and gave the receiver no chance for dillydallying.

So long as they are not Indians.  That teetered on the brink of hate or racism but that was Cynthia; her mind was on a lane of its own. You don’t look Zimbabwean. That could be xenophobic in some contexts, but she didn’t mind; she knew her friend did not mean harm. The real meaning or intention of words comes with territory anyways: a voetsek with a smile and pat on the back is innocuous while one with an angry face, loud, or in undertone cuts deep.

The interview for the job was a full scan inspection, a body check of all visible patches of skin in search of tattoos.

“Tattoos no, any? See, me I have not any. Tattoo is bad, Maarci, scare kids, teach kids Satanism.” The employer turned her left and right, checking. She felt that if she could have her way, she would have checked even the valleys.

“No tattoos, madam.”

When she tried to hand her her resume, madam shook her head frantically.

“Papers here not necessarly okay; you want job; I give job to you.” And that was it. She started work on the same day, no discussion of wages, just the description of her duties.

“The kids, teach them English.”

“You keep house kirin, okay?”

“You walk for the dog, outside in the park.”

She listened to the Magna Carta of housekeeping with half a mind. The other half was far off, traversing the world of possibilities. Who knew a whole honours degree in psychology could just be summed up as papers. Part of the present mind did lip service with “Yes madam” whenever madam looked her straight in the eyes. 

But she couldn’t be more wrong if she thought that things couldn’t get any more twisted. Three days into the job, she woke up to find a gentleman in the lounge with madam, apparently waiting for her.

“Doctor here make sure no sickness, you know the AEDS.”

“AIDS? HIV?” Her eyes went wide.

“Yes that. Not good for the kids. Check you fit. Foreigner is no good because of too much AEDS.”

The test was quick, and she was not told the results. She overheard the good doctor talking to madam as they went down the corridor: “She’s clear.” Madam did not bring up the issue again.

There is that telepathic sense that tells when one is being watched, the kind of sense that gets one on flight mode. But she assured herself that she was not going to flee, not until she got paid at least. But that feeling made her uneasy. She could feel it this morning as she hoovered the carpet. She could really feel she was being watched, too closely.

She turned suddenly.

So long as they are not Indians.

“You very fine one Maarci hey. You have boyfriend? Not allowed here, okay?”

Jimmy’s eyes were fixated on one spot even as he spoke—there on the groin region. He moved close; his eyes fixated still. He leaned in to grope.

“Sir, stop that!”

“No sir, you can call me Jimmy. Madam no need to know, okay?’

She pushed him, pulled away from his grip, scampered out of the room, and locked herself in the bathroom. Adrenaline coursed through her veins as she punched her phone frantically searching for Cynthia’s number. Her mind picked this and that, trying to piece together a lot of things.

So long as they are not Indians.

When Cynthia finally picked up the call after several rings, she didn’t waste time and went straight to the matter.

“Chommie, what happened to the previous nanny here? Did you ask that?”

Her voice and breath echoed through the line as she waited for Cynthia to respond. She was on flight mode.

XENOPHOBIA

Days clawed on each other with the slowness of the winter sun plodding on to summer. He sat on the balcony basking in the sun like some reptile, clutching his phone as if it contained the formulae to the most sacred cultural meal. He was scrolling the phone with measured carefulness, then gradual panic, and then edgy paranoia. He could see the trending topic on Twitter that day was them, the amakwerekwere, under #Zimbabweans. This could only mean one thing—another wave of those xenophobic attacks.

Yet he had to be sure.

He leaned closer to his phone, careful not to miss out any hint of the hashtag being just a false alarm—which he prayed for. But the comments got him worried:

Zimbabweans are like locusts; they come in troops and ravage, leaving nothing behind.

These animals need to go back home to fix their country now that their despot Mugabe is no longer there, or we will show them the way home with knobkerries.

Zimbabweans are the very creators of their surly situation. In every election they voted for that Mugabe and then fled to trouble us instead of fixing their mess.

These criminals flood our jails, marry our wives, loot our country; it’s time they go before they overburden our institutions.

This place is a haven for their vices. Zimbabweans are very educated people; they lead fraud syndicates.

The comments touched on politics, social differences, everything. Some were pure hate, some conspiracies. And videos displaying violence did not hold back: some showed how to lynch a Zimbabwean, depersonalized as Zimbo; others showed how to make a “neck tie” for the foreigner, a tyre doused with petrol and forced on a foreigner to wear over their neck. It was obvious that violence was fomenting, swelling, and the rupture seemed very potent that year.

He put away the phone and sank down on the chair in a slump like a tired, defeated man. When would all this end, this violence, this killing, this blame? He was just racking his mind, not looking for any particular answer. Maybe he would have been better off if he had not come to South Africa and perhaps joined his cousin Merjury in America or his friend Julian in the UK.

But here he was in South Africa, and the black clouds were rising—again.

“And it was easy to camouflage himself, for how can one even tell black men apart?”

He remembered the conversation he had with Julian the last time there was violence, when all the looting of foreigners’ shops happened. He shrugged off the thought of ever joining him in the UK, not with the kind of mindset he had. How could he be so unfeeling as to say that the only things that South Africa offered were chicken skins and a pound of weight all juxtaposed with a hail of bullets and sharp knives. That was tantamount to pissing on the memory of all the victims of crimes and injustices perpetrated in the name of cleansing the country of the foreigner. If the UK were to come, he would go it alone.

He stood up, paced around like an impatient man in a long queue,  sat down again and fixed his eyes beyond the blue dome that was the horizon, past the dark tall chimneys in Industrial Joburg, past the mountains of mining residues, into nowhere. It was as if he was looking to locate Zimbabwe from where he sat.

Somewhere in the deep of Joburg, violence was churning, getting swollen. He knew it was coming, slowly, as if it was winter’s last gasp taunt. Waiting for it made it worse. It was like waiting for execution. When it came last time, it had such fury he almost did not know which side to choose—and that’s the whole point of it, this choosing a side, for a side may mean the difference between life and death.  He could always choose the side of locals for he had tried to be deeply acculturated as possible, so steeped he couldn’t be easily picked out. A Zimbabwean when he chooses to be, otherwise he is anyone.

And it was easy to camouflage himself, for how can one even tell black men apart?

Or he could always choose the foreigners’ side. There is always a shade of home, a vestige of one’s background or identity that slips up without any effort even with the best of acculturation in a foreign culture. It could be one reverting to their original language when irked.

He remembered the melee that he witnessed the last time, men, all black, hacking each other, tearing each other apart like ancient savages. He remembered the defenceless women who ducked behind umbrellas trying to evade bullets from where they sold their wares in the streets while marauding hordes of men brandishing sticks, guns, and spears rummaged everywhere, searching for anything foreign to kill, burn, or steal. He tried hard to hold back tears; how could he be crying when little children faced it with such bravery—and confusion. He stood yet again, watched the street empty as if in anticipation of the bloodbath and muttered to himself: “Africa, it need not be like this.”

LOST SOULS

The November rains were ferocious that year, doing the most to scour the streets of blood and residues of the xenophobic violence of the previous months. The xenophobia had died out the way it came—as a rumour. Rumours of it dying down were not easily received; people watched the streets from the balconies, ascertaining the truth of it all. Only a few die-hards walked about.

He too watched from the balcony, a pained look streaking his face. He could see the others as they watched, the fear emblazoned on their faces. The few people that walked about the streets, he knew what they were up to.

This was the pattern of post-xenophobic violence.

He remembered the post-xenophobia experience in a series of vivid and horrible nightmares that kept him awake at night. He knew quite well that the Hilbrow Mortuary would be brimming with corpses at this time—victims of xenophobia violence and many other causes. He could not erase the pictures he had in his mind of a pile of bodies, from young to old in the mortuary waiting for “sorting” like they were something else not human. He remembered how some bodies were being dismembered by those rats the size of babies that were perennial residents of the mortuary. It was imperative to check for your relative at the mortuary first, before the chance to do so evaporated.

He remembered walking in those long draughty corridors of the mortuary looking for his brother and hoping not to find him there. Some people were wandering about in the mortuary, everyday banter all round.

You have to be sure about who you identify. I know of some people who misidentified and picked the wrong body only to find it was a white man at burial. Imagine the cost.

And sometimes you have to be careful; some people desecrate the bodies for organ harvesting, so if not careful you may leave with half a body.

The Government has to stop this incinerator thing for babies. It’s really undignified.

“As far as he knew, xenophobia was like an unacknowledged pregnancy: it was there, unclaimed, unaccounted for.”

He walked in a trance-like state. Every corner was death. If you tried not to hear it from the talk, you would smell it in the pungent odour that filled the place up. And if you covered your nose then you would see it right in front of you, bodies being sorted.  Luckily Jorum was not to be found there.

He knew where to check next; the pattern was simple: mortuary, hospital, police stations. Police stations are to be avoided if one is an illegal; a visit there to report a crime may lead to torrid questioning that may eventually lead to identity verification and so forth. Especially to be avoided is having your fingerprints recorded, for then you will be in the system, and known. It is not good to be conspicuous as a foreigner, especially an illegal, for then you will be an easy pick every month end for every hungry police officer. But well, his fifty rands did the trick, he got all the answers he needed and walked out. Jorum was not there.

When he got to Johannesburg Hospital, he really was hoping to find him there—not a pleasant place to be but this was the last place he could look. And it was better to be here than at Hilbrow Mortuary. The search was becoming frantic now; he asked everybody he came across in the corridors. Some would answer politely that they had not seen any Jorum; others would wince, click their tongues, and mutter bloody kwerekwere, having picked out that stubborn foreign accent of his.

Jorum was not there either.

He shook his head and whistled, wrestling tears that threatened to break bank and pour out in torrents. He looked at all those people down there, some sticking posters to traffic lights and walls and shop windows, of missing people. Those were the hopeful ones.

As far as he knew, xenophobia was like an unacknowledged pregnancy: it was there, unclaimed, unaccounted for. He would never fathom out where all the lost, missing people went to. Where in the world could Jorum be? He could be lying in an unmarked grave somewhere in the belly of Joburg, or he could have been afforded a state burial somewhere in the cemeteries of Soweto, buried by strangers. He longed for closure. He knelt and prayed for all lost souls of xenophobia—and for Jorum.

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Willard Tendai Masara is a Psychology graduate who, like many Zimbabweans, migrated to South Africa in the hope of a better life. He was a member of the Writers Club at university where he would write and sell short stories to other students. He is an independent researcher with particular interest in migration. He is currently working on a novel.