/ 25 October 2013

MDC makes little mark in Jo’burg

New citizens: Queues of immigrants wait outside the home affairs office in Pretoria.
New citizens: Queues of immigrants wait outside the home affairs office in Pretoria. (Madelene Cronjé)

The country's largest opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), continues to cry foul over its defeat in the July 31 election, but Zimbabweans living in South Africa appear to have little sympathy with the party or its politics and just want to get on with their struggle for survival.

Statistics of the number of Zimbabwean nationals living in South Africa vary, but estimates place the figures at between 1.5-million and 2-million. Only 300  000 of these took up special temporary residence permits offered by South Africa in 2011.

Michelle Mpofu, who looks as though she is in her mid-20s and is a trainee waitress at a restaurant in the Rosebank Mall, says she sees no reason to go back home.

"I just started a few weeks ago on this job, it's not a very busy place, but it does have regular customers," she said.

Mpofu, who last visited her home in Nkulumane 5, a township in Bulawayo, in August, now lives in Yeoville and is adamant she will not return to Zimbabwe for a while and will spend Christmas in Johannesburg.

Mpofu does not care too much about the politics at home, but, with a hint of sarcasm, points out that the opposition has lost three times in a row.

Trying to make a living
"I'm now just trying to make a living here in South Africa, there are challenges here and there as things haven't yet come together. But it's better than just being at home and doing nothing," she says.

Langton Zimunya works as a receptionist at the Westford Hotel, in upmarket Sandton. He recalls his first time in Johannesburg, in 2010.

"I had a cousin who lived in Randburg, who took me in, so I was not entirely exposed to the difficulties of trying to settle in Jo'burg," he says as we drive past Hillbrow in the white VW Jetta he owns and hires out for tours.

"I can now also speak Zulu. I had to teach myself Zulu because, being a Shona, I was abused and ridiculed by the Zulus here over my language, which they couldn't understand," he says, proudly.

Zimunya, originally from Norton on the outskirts of Harare, says he was last home in December and, like many others, did not return to vote in either the constitutional referendum or the election.

"There was no point. Our bosses wanted us to go back and vote, but it was obvious that they [Zanu-PF] were going to win. I have been following the politics back home, but from a distance now. It's time to move on," he says.

Family first
Top of his agenda now is caring for his wife and son, who live with him in Honeydew.

At OR Tambo International Airport, Wilbert, as he identifies himself, works as a waiter at a fish restaurant.

Shoulder-length dreadlocks make him stand out from his colleagues. Wilbert says he doesn't enjoy his job but needs the money to make ends meet.

"Every day is a hustle and we are just trying to survive," he says, between taking my order and laying down cutlery on the table.

Wilbert, from Nketa, a township in Bulawayo, says South Africa has been his home since 2009.

Asked to share his thoughts on the MDC-T's poor showing in the elections, he pauses, shrugs his shoulders and says, "They [the MDC] need to just get a new life."