It is the middle of the month and the buses headed from Zimbabwe’s Bulawayo to Francistown, the border town in neighbouring Botswana, 160km away, are leaving half full.
But vehicles driving in the opposite direction, back to Zimbabwe, are overcrowded. That is because traders, mostly women, are returning home.
They cross the border at the end of each month to sell an assortment of items including cigarettes, spirits and wood carvings.
What drives them is the desire to earn the pula, the stable Botswana currency that fetches a good rate on Zimbabwe’s thriving parallel market for foreign currency.
For those enterprising enough to get hold of it, the pula — like other hard currencies — is making the difference between sustaining a family and sinking into poverty.
As Zimbabwe’s political impasse worsens the humanitarian and economic crises, runaway inflation of 500% has rendered the local currency literally worthless.
However, not everyone going to Botswana has items to sell. Some go in search of part-time employment as domestic helpers, construction hands and even cattle herders.
Up to 20% of Zimbabwe’s population is estimated to have sought sanctuary and a living wage in neighbouring countries. Even struggling Mozambique now has an estimated 400 000 Zimbabweans.
Botswana is one of the popular destinations for the very desperate who use any of the various footpaths mainly along the 100km-stretch between the smaller border posts at Mphoengs and Maitengwe.
One such border jumper is Morris, who lived about 200km from the main border post, Plumtree.
Since August last year the 23-year-old had sneaked into Botswana three times. Save for his last trip last month when he secured a job on a construction site, he had been nabbed and deported before securing employment.
Botswana’s immigration authorities say they cannot cope with illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe who are arriving in ever-higher numbers.
Estimated at more than 60 000, the flood of illegal immigrants threatens to overwhelm the country’s population of 1,7-million.
Recently, the state built a new detention centre for illegal immigrants near the border with Zimbabwe. However, the government is also thinking long-term.
In October last year, the authorities began erecting an electric fence meant to protect Botswana’s key livestock industry, recently hit by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease traced to Zimbabwe.
The 500km-long fence is also aimed at keeping out border jumpers.
Although Zimbabwe voiced its disquiet over the fence, accusing Botswana of seeking to create a Gaza Strip, authorities in Botswana hope it will keep out border jumpers.
For now, however, Morris says slipping into Botswana is still possible.
”They haven’t switched on the power so people are still crossing illegally,” he said.
Police in Plumtree said on each week day Botswana prison trucks spew a minimum of 80 Zimbabwean deportees at the border post. The figure is expected to swell threefold because during the festive season the Botswana government will step up patrols.
In the past, deportees were fined or detained on both sides of the border. But now they are seldom charged in Zimbabwe. Officers say this is because the Plumtree courts and police lack the necessary stationery.
But this is unlikely to elicit sympathy from Botswana and has undoubtedly further strained relations between the two neighbours.
”Do you need stationery to charge someone?” said Moshe Setimela of the Botswana Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs.
”They won’t charge them because it’s their own people and they understand the situation that they are running away from.”
Among those classified as border jumpers are traders who have involuntarily over-stayed in Botswana while awaiting payment for items sold.
Tafadzwa, a bus conductor who travels to Francistown daily, said many passengers successfully jump the border back into Zimbabwe to avoid paying a fine of 10 pula (about R14) for each day overstayed.
Although Botswana is a close enough destination for daring Zimbabweans intent on escaping growing poverty, 22-year-old Eriphas says he would rather go to South Africa where, he said, there are better prospects and less xenophobia.
In Botswana, the deluge of Zimbabweans has caused tension, with the Tswanas blaming the ”Makwerekwere” — as Zimbabweans are derogatively known — for the upsurge in crime.
In Zimbabwe the press regularly highlights the misfortunes of fellow nationals in Botswana. A local man was recently reported to have died in a prison fight. Another was shot by the police while three others were said to have been poisoned.
A month before, authorities in Botswana buried 12 unclaimed Zimbabwean bodies who had died in unexplained circumstances.
To Eriphas, Botswana is an unwelcoming place with relatively few opportunities.
As a member of the Johane Masowe Apostolic Church whose female flock is identifiable by flowing white robes, Eriphas says fellow sect members will help him pass through the South African border post.
”We have been trading for a long time, We know the techniques of crossing into South Africa without a passport,” he said.
To curb the influx of Zimbabweans, South Africa — host to about three million Zimbabweans — has just announced more stringent visa requirements. Locals are required to pay a surety cash guarantee of R1 000 or the Zimbabwe dollar equivalent.
Previously, Zimbabweans were only required to deposit the equivalent of about R350 before travelling to South Africa.
The South African High Commission says Zimbabweans willing to pay in foreign currency must show proof that the money was sourced from a local bank — a tall order in a country where most foreign currency transactions take place on the parallel market.
For the growing numbers of hungry Zimbabweans, however, the desire to cross the border is often so compelling that no risk seems too great and few barriers impenetrable. — Sapa-IPS