20091221
thenational

JOHANNESBURG // As the temperature rises towards the peak of the austral summer, one of Africa’s major modern migrations gets under way: the return of the Zimbabwean diaspora to their homeland for the holidays.

No-one knows exactly how many Zimbabweans have fled the destruction of the country’s economy under Robert Mugabe, but estimates for their numbers in South Africa – the most popular destination, with the United Kingdom and Botswana some distance behind – range from one million to three million.

Despite the formation of the unity government with the former opposition Movement for Democratic Change this year, which has seen hyperinflation arrested and the beginnings of economic recovery, albeit from a desperately low base, thousands are still crossing the Limpopo every month in search of work and money.

But as Christmas and New Year approach, vast numbers of people pack into long-distance minibuses and trains to make the reverse journey north from Johannesburg and return to their families. It is by far the busiest time of year for operators on the transport artery, demand for whose services is so high that prices can double or more, to 180 rand (Dh87) for a train ticket to the border at Musina, or 600 rand for a bus ticket direct from Johannesburg to Harare, 16 hours away, plus two or three hours or more for frontier formalities.

Every day, as the evening departures approach, the waiting area at Johannesburg’s Park Station is packed with northbound passengers, many surrounded by vast piles of luggage, while a street away, motor vehicles fill up rapidly with people bound for Zimbabwe’s major cities.

“I’m going to see my family,” said one bus traveller, Tanzwa Nazvo, 32, from Harare. “That’s my home, every other person from my clan or my family is there.”

He has been in South Africa for a little more than a year and works as a driver, even though he is a trained firefighter. Employment restrictions in the country mean it is typical for skilled immigrants to have to do less than they are capable of, and stories of doctors or engineers working as gardeners are common.

Nonetheless, Mr Nazvo said, “there’s something to do here better than back home. At least we can buy something to eat, something to wear. It seems things have improved in Zimbabwe except it’s difficult to get money there.”

He added that members of his family were among the victims of the political violence that engulfed the country last year as thugs loyal to Mr Mugabe beat, displaced and killed opposition supporters, eventually forcing the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai to pull out of a presidential run-off.

Some of Mr Nazvo’s relatives were still unable to return to their houses, he said. Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party had built its political foundation on the struggle for independence but, he added: “Nobody realised that foundation was going to destroy us.”

Mr Nazvo still regards Zimbabwe as home – “We can’t shift our homes or our cattle to South Africa” – but expects it will take years before the economy recovers sufficiently for him to be able to go back for good.

“It’s going to take a long time,” he said. “We don’t know because of all these political things we are not involved in but that have affected us, because everyone has been a victim, from the top brass to the least. It has affected everyone from the president to the lowest person.”

His “proudly Zimbabwean” wife Tatenda, 28, added: “We thought with that agreement [between Mr Mugabe and the MDC] things are going to be better but they are still arguing, so for us we don’t know when things are going to be fine. I don’t trust [either of] them. I don’t trust anybody.”

Fear is a constant background for many Zimbabweans in South Africa, where those without official papers are liable to be rounded up for deportation at any time, and their presence is resented among the urban poor.

There have been spasms of xenophobic violence, including an outbreak last year in which scores of people were killed.

Mrs Nazvo believes that a lid is being kept on the tensions until the World Cup finals next June, and “after that it’s going to be a disaster”. They may, she feels, have to flee again. “We can always go to Botswana, we can always go to Tanzania.”

“I didn’t like it in South Africa,” added Patience Musoni, 21, who was going back to Harare after studying marketing and management for 15 months in Johannesburg.

“They are racist. They don’t like us and I think they feel threatened.” She believes she will be able to find a job once she graduates “because there are people starting businesses”.

But Betty Chakahwata, 49, pointed out that while shop shelves are now well stocked, goods are extremely expensive. Half a kilogram of mealie-meal, the corn flour that is the region’s staple food, cost 12 rand in South Africa but 65 rand in Zimbabwe – the rand is now legal tender and the dominant currency north of the border, so the comparison is direct.

“It’s a little bit better because the shops are open for groceries. But if you have got 10 rand here you can buy something to eat and in Zimbabwe it’s impossible.

Like many Zimbabweans, she makes a living as a cross-border trader, bringing bedspreads, seat covers and brooms south and returning to her home in Budidiro, a suburb of Harare, with finished goods such as clothes, shoes and bags. “It’s the old one who is making things impossible,” she added, declining to speak Mr Mugabe’s name.

Zeph Snake had no such qualms. A Zanu-PF supporter from Bulawayo, where he has a car repair business, he said: “He liberated us and he has given us the opportunity to stand on our own two feet, opportunity no other man has given us.”

He saw no irony in his compatriots’ presence in South Africa. “The problem is not Mugabe, the problem is the people. We don’t understand what he is trying to make us understand. We are not migrating because of poverty,” he insisted. “Migration has always been there. It’s good for people.”