We are going to South Africa to look for work. Our country cannot give us work. Our corrupt leaders are digging early graves for the people. People are starving like church mice. Before they bury us all alive, we must escape and let them eat each other and bury themselves. Home is where your hopes and dreams are realised. But you cannot make other people’s home your home. You must make yourself a home. If your home has become a dungeon, no one can stop you from fleeing to another welcoming home.
We are in a red Toyota Hilux bakkie with a white canopy. We are twenty in total: one woman, three madalas and the rest are young men – so young, they still smell of their mothers’ last breast milk. We have paid the transporter dearly. Some have sold our parents’ lands and some cows to finance this journey. The transporter has promised us that he would get us jobs once we arrive at his base in Honeydew. He has lots of connections with Indian merchants. The woman’s husband who works in Benoni had asked the transporter to bring him his wife. They agreed that the husband would pay the transporter when he brings him his wife in one piece.
The woman sits in front with the driver. I sit against the back of the bakkie’s cabin, and I can see them clearly through the ventilation window at the back. The bakkie gurgles out a cloud of smoke as it labours up the road. The driver’s face lights up as his hand advertently gropes the woman’s clothed thigh when he shifts gears. She ignores the groping.
At the border post, the transporter jumps out and greets the Immigration Officer with a slab of banknotes into his hands. The officer’s smile cracks his face and he quickly shove the money into his blazer and opens the gate as wide as possible and waves us in.
Somewhere in Limpopo a left rear tyre pukes out its stool. In alarm we hold each other tight like a pair of scissors. Luckily, the driver stops the vehicle carefully. We jump out like water from a burst pipe. It is pitch-black, in the dead of night. The driver says he cannot change the tyre, he will change it in the first light of day. It is hellish hot, and we scatter away in groups. A few head for the nearest bush to relieve themselves, others sit down and use their bags as pillows and sleep. The transporter is sitting with the woman in the bakkie. He offers her some drinks to loosen her tongue and burn her desires. As night thickens, the snoring of the people outside swarms the vehicle. The transporter pulls the woman to his chest and feels her breasts, a sensual shock runs down her spine. He drives her hand to his prick. He pulls his trousers to his knees and lets the woman sit on him and gobbles her cooze until the first light of day.
Finally, we arrive in Honeydew at noon. Those who have relations in Jozi phone their relations to fetch them and those who do not have any relation stay at the transporter’s base. The rest of us disperse like birds upon a stone flung from a catapult. At last, the transporter takes the woman to her husband in Benoni.
Forty minutes later, the transporter arrives at the woman’s husband’s home. The husband, a tailor who is busy sewing a dress has seen the bakkie through the window. He sees his wife jump out of the bakkie, looking gorgeous in her Malawian traditional outfit, a small bag slung over her left shoulder. The transporter walks over to the door. Before he knocks, the husband swings open the door, a huge smile on his face as his eyes feast upon his wife.
Deal done, says the driver to the husband.
The husband fumbles in his pockets for money.
The wife shoots up her hand and says:
Before you give him that money, let me tell you what he did to me all the way from home.
The driver turns back and jumps into his bakkie and rushes off.
I think what the transporter did to you does not matter now, says the husband:
That moron has saved us some bucks!
Come inside!
Nixon Mateulah was born in Lilongwe in Malawi and moved to South Africa in 1996. Running Home is a fictional memoir based on his experiences when arriving from Malawi in South Africa during the early years of the South African democracy. He has published a number of short stories and poems in various online and print publications.
