“I pay R120 a month for my piece of shack floor in Phillipi. There are 15 of us, sleeping like animals on the ground. But I never complain; every night I lie down, I think of my five kids back in Harare.”
Patience Moyo (52) is one of hundreds of Zimbabweans flocking into the Cape Town townships. Most are women, Moyo says, and many are professionals or others who had well-paid jobs until their country’s economic meltdown.
The women arrive carrying big plastic bags filled with knitted tablecloths, sitting-room seat-covers, home-sewn clothes and cotton curtains, which they sell door to door in the townships.
In Phillipi and Guguletu I met a Zimbabwean schoolteacher, a nurse, a hotel chef and two secretaries. All left their homes and children to make money for groceries that they can’t get, or can’t afford, in their own country.
Until four years ago Moyo was a maths teacher in a Harare high school. As with thousands of other Zimbabwean civil servants, her salary has been rendered almost worthless by hyper-inflation.
Explained Moyo: “My husband is a qualified electrician, but he’s got no work and I couldn’t find him any in Zimbabwe — we looked everywhere. We’ve got five kids and we’ve got a nice big house in Harare. But we’re starving there. We can’t afford even basic foods any more.
“Apart from teaching kids maths, the only thing I can do is knit. I started knitting tablecloths to sell, but people at home don’t have the money. That’s why I came here.”
It is not something she enjoys. She and the other Zimbabweans hate the high crime and the xenophobic hatred they encounter in South Africa –mainly from young people. “Every day people shout ‘kwere-kwere’ at us. Lots of people say they like my things, but they won’t give money to kwere-kweres from Zimbabwe. It hurts me but I say nothing because I’m so needy of their kindness and money,” Moyo said.
South African women are the most sympathetic. “They know we are desperate, that we are also mothers and that we don’t want to be here,” said 43-year-old Sylvia Khumalo, who shares a backyard wendy house in Guguletu with 19 other Zimbabwean women. Slightly smaller than a single garage, the house has no ceiling… Read More M&G
Patience Moyo (52) is one of hundreds of Zimbabweans flocking into the Cape Town townships. Most are women, Moyo says, and many are professionals or others who had well-paid jobs until their country’s economic meltdown.
The women arrive carrying big plastic bags filled with knitted tablecloths, sitting-room seat-covers, home-sewn clothes and cotton curtains, which they sell door to door in the townships.
In Phillipi and Guguletu I met a Zimbabwean schoolteacher, a nurse, a hotel chef and two secretaries. All left their homes and children to make money for groceries that they can’t get, or can’t afford, in their own country.
Until four years ago Moyo was a maths teacher in a Harare high school. As with thousands of other Zimbabwean civil servants, her salary has been rendered almost worthless by hyper-inflation.
Explained Moyo: “My husband is a qualified electrician, but he’s got no work and I couldn’t find him any in Zimbabwe — we looked everywhere. We’ve got five kids and we’ve got a nice big house in Harare. But we’re starving there. We can’t afford even basic foods any more.
“Apart from teaching kids maths, the only thing I can do is knit. I started knitting tablecloths to sell, but people at home don’t have the money. That’s why I came here.”
It is not something she enjoys. She and the other Zimbabweans hate the high crime and the xenophobic hatred they encounter in South Africa –mainly from young people. “Every day people shout ‘kwere-kwere’ at us. Lots of people say they like my things, but they won’t give money to kwere-kweres from Zimbabwe. It hurts me but I say nothing because I’m so needy of their kindness and money,” Moyo said.
South African women are the most sympathetic. “They know we are desperate, that we are also mothers and that we don’t want to be here,” said 43-year-old Sylvia Khumalo, who shares a backyard wendy house in Guguletu with 19 other Zimbabwean women. Slightly smaller than a single garage, the house has no ceiling… Read More M&G
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