Читать книгу The Day I Died - Thembelani Ngenelwa - Страница 5

From Cape Town to Jozi

I made a lot of friends at university and I enjoyed my life there, but my best friend was Khaya Bolosha. We had a lot in common and we both tended to find humour in everything. Our problems seemed to be similar too, especially because we both came from poor families. I remember one year, when I was struggling with paying the residence fees, Khaya offered to share his residence room with me. We shared his room for an entire year. The following year, Khaya had the same problem when he lost his partial bursary and was forced out of the residence. That year I had a room and naturally we shared my room. At the time I secretly celebrated his financial problem because it gave me a chance to pay him back for his good deed the previous year.

By the time he completed his studies we had grown to love each other like brothers and when he moved to Johannesburg, to look for work, we agreed that I would visit any time I wanted.

I did pretty well at my studies, even though finances were tight, and after completing my studies at UWC I was offered a job by the university as an IT technical assistant. The university offered me a job because of my work ethic and the skills I had developed during my days as a student assistant in the university computer labs. However, my contract was going to expire at the end of 2003. I had to apply for other jobs so that when the contract expired I had something to fall back on.

Khaya had looked for a job for two years in Cape Town after he had graduated, but it was only after he moved to Johannesburg that he found a good job. This prompted me to consider looking for a job in Gauteng as well.

I had been to Johannesburg for the first time in 2000. I had gone there primarily to visit my friends Khaya and Siviwe, but I also wanted to see that side of the country and satisfy my curiosity about Jozi.

The first time I had visited Khaya in Jo’burg I had been blown away by the vibrancy of such a big city. I had stayed with him in Goodhope Extension 5 (affectionately known just as Five), an informal settlement just outside of Germiston, and had visited the suburbs on the weekends to see my other friends and former classmates.

Job seeking had not been top of my agenda at the time, as I was still hopeful of landing something in Cape Town, but now, in 2003, things had changed: I needed a good job and I needed it immediately. My father was unemployed as the asbestos factory he had worked at for thirty years had closed down. He had been the sole breadwinner in my family ever since I was born, but the meagre sum of money that he had received from the factory was already dwindling. My mother brought in some money by selling fruit and fast-food snacks at a local school, but it wasn’t enough to sustain a family of seven. I had vowed to find work and put an end to my family’s sufferings. I knew their expectations and I wanted to meet them.

I had decided to ask for three weeks’ leave at the end of September 2003, so that I could visit my friends in Jo’burg and look for a job. I am a person who really believes in loyalty. I was loyal to UWC – after all, they gave me my very first pay cheque – but staying in Cape Town hadn’t turned out to be the right option and I had to look elsewhere. I was more than ready for the journey.

I went to the Bellville train station with my girlfriend, Cynthia, who had bought me a ticket the previous day. As we hugged she whispered, “Good luck, take care of yourself.”

Then she turned away and didn’t turn back as she left the station; she didn’t want me to see her in tears.

Inside the train I shared a compartment with five other people. I was the only stranger among them, but they tried their best to welcome me and make me feel at ease. They were a gentleman in his early forties and his wife, a guy my age, a boy in his early teens and a lady in her early thirties. I sat next to the window to enjoy the view and get some fresh air.

I had bought two magazines in Bellville to prepare for a twenty-seven hour journey to Johannesburg, so I wasn’t worried about being bored, but with five other nice people in the compartment I had absolutely nothing to worry about, least of all boredom. The compartment was filled with their fun and laughter and very soon I started chatting to them. They were all on their way back to Pretoria; they had been in Cape Town for a family holiday.

The journey was long and tiresome, but we kept ourselves entertained by singing. I was burning with anticipation and, to ease the tension, I was frequently on the phone to update the guys about my journey.

Each station we stopped at brought more eagerness and excitement, but it was only late the next morning that the stations began to become more frequent as we neared Jo’burg. As midday approached I looked through the window when the train slowed down and saw Randfontein station. At that moment I felt even more excited because I knew that we would soon be arriving at Johannesburg station.

As we approached Johannesburg I began to see some familiar places. I could see the skyscrapers from a distance. “Jo’burg, here I come,” I thought quietly to myself. I couldn’t help smiling.

It was around two in the afternoon when the Shosholoza Meyl train finally arrived at Johannesburg Park station. The station was just as overcrowded as the last time I had been there and people, as always, looked very happy. Jo’burg was warm and sunny; it was the perfect spring day. I stuck my head out of the window to get a better view and the air blew on my face coolly as if to welcome me. We were finally there.

After stopping briefly at Johannesburg station, the train pulled off once more and headed for Germiston and the East Rand.

When the train got to Germiston station I peeped through the window to try to spot the people who had come to fetch me. You must remember that the last time I had been in Johannesburg my friends were staying in a shack in Five. Since then they had moved to a flat in town and somebody would have to be at the station to fetch me and to show me where they stayed. Still looking through that train window, I heard a familiar voice calling my name. It was Zolisa, one of my friends from Germiston. I noticed that he had picked up a little weight but other than that he was the same old Zolisa with his ever-expanding bald patch. He was in his early thirties but had the energy of a twenty-year-old. He was with two other friends that I didn’t know at the time, but I soon learnt that they were Khaya’s friends whom he had told me about over the phone. One was particularly short with long ears and big eyes. The guy was slightly built but looked very strong. His name was Bongani; he was about my age, but with a lighter complexion than mine. The other one was bigger than Bongani but looked younger. He must have been in his late teens. His name was Dumisa.

As we walked together from the train they kept making jokes and asking why I had picked up so much weight. Here we were, strangers, but chatting as if we’d known each other for ever. We just clicked from the moment we met. It was a meeting of like minds and characters. I quickly figured out that Khaya had told them about all my tricks and habits because they asked me about the things that I did while Khaya and I were still living in Cape Town. The guys had never been to Cape Town and they were eager to know about life in the Cape because the only things they knew came from watching television. As we walked I told them about the beauty of Cape Town.

They took me to a tall, pink block of flats on Station Road called Pirrowville. It was a beautiful new block and Khaya’s apartment was on the ground floor. I was struck by the contrast between the apartment and the simple shack he had lived in at Five. It was a big change and though I was impressed by the new place, I also knew that it would never be the same as the township life that had become so familiar to me while I was living in Five.

When Khaya arrived from work that evening, he was just the same old Khaya. He was exactly the same height as I was, of an ebony colour and a gym enthusiast. He had a boyish voice and would laugh every time I tried to dance – he thought I was the worst dancer ever and he was not that far from the truth.

Khaya was sharing the flat with Zolisa and Bongani. Khanyisa, Khaya’s younger brother, was also staying there while the schools were on holiday. After the others went to bed Khaya and I chatted until early in the morning, updating each other about the changes in Johannesburg and Cape Town and making plans to reintroduce me to Jozi.

The following day was a Saturday and no-one had to go to work. We visited shopping malls and went to a party in one of the flats in town. It was so good that I didn’t miss Cape Town once.

The whole first week was filled with humour and excitement, but even though there was a lot of partying I didn’t once forget what had brought me to Gauteng. I would buy a train ticket into town every day and visit all the employment agencies, drop my CV and sometimes approach Human Resources managers directly. I had to find a job and I had to find it immediately. Every single day presented its own challenges as far as job seeking was concerned, but there was no way I was prepared to go back to Cape Town without the good news my family needed to hear. I was going to do everything it took to find a job and even though I was really enjoying the life in Germiston, without the worry of waking up in the morning to go to work, it was all about getting a job.