LIFE AS A FOREIGNER TOUGH IN SA

Sir,
Many people resorted to leaving the country to search for better life in South Africa in the past five years. They were tired of living in poverty, as there are no job opportunities in Eswatini. When they left, most of them took advantage of the fact that our borders are porous, so they do not have to use a passport that restricts their visit. However, I want to warn them that life is not the bed of roses that they think it is there. I once spent a year there hoping that I would struggle for a month two, and find a job. I was hoping that at the end of six months I would come back home loaded and buy lots of alcohol for my friends. However, this was not to be. The cousin that I was staying with got tired of feeding me and started putting pressure on me to do something. I was even tempted to steal, but could not, because I was afraid that South Africans would burn me alive if they even caught me in the act. Life became sour. I started lacking shoes and proper clothes, as I had spent over five months without a job. I hooked up with people who employed me as a concrete mixer (daka-boy) and under paid me because they knew that I had no SA identification documents. Someone advised me to fall in love with a Xhosa woman and live with her. I found one but my life became miserable because I was not working and she was a cleaner. She also refused to live with me and the relationship just crumbled in a matter of weeks.

Shack

We stayed in a shack at Kokotela, near Orange Farm, but I could feel that I was a liability because I neither had a job, nor resident papers. Sometimes I would lack even money to buy food. When coming across a police officer, even at a road block, I would panic all the time because I feared being arrested and deported. I would get comfortable after meeting another liSwati, but I later learnt that emaSwati didn’t want to be associated with their country. This is because they spoke the Zulu Language and would had told the people they live with that they are in fact Zulu. So if I kept hanging around them. I would have  attracted trouble. Every day was hope for a better job, but there was nothing. I just kept on doing odd jobs, which were only enough to give me money to survive for another two or three days. Sometimes I would go for weeks without such a piece job. At one time I bought guava juice and tried to sell it in the streets during hot summer days. However, I did not make enough money and decided to quit. One day, I came to my senses and decided to come back home because I was doomed without an ID and a job in that country.  Life is better in Eswatini, because I have relatives who can pick me up when I am down. I am warning people who have taken a decision to go to SA without money or a source of sustenance to think twice about it. They could ruin their lives.

HP Mhlungu




 

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