EXTRACT
Used by the mining industry, then discarded
OOK here, stop wasting our time,” Mthobeli Gangatha remembers the words, delivered with a cold and cruel indifference that continues to fill him with anger many years later. “Don’t even think of trying to find work through TEBA (The Employment Bureau of Africa) because you will never be able to work again. Just go back home and wait to die!”
It all began going wrong in March 2001 when Gangatha went on leave and spent time in Nkunzimbini, admiring the beauty of the hills where he had herded goats and played games as a little boy. He had always been an active man who liked road running and doing chores around the yard.
But this time he was feeling weak, coughing endlessly and sweating heavily at night. He thought it was a cough that would simply go away. And so in April he returned to Welkom, hoping that he’d fully recover and return to work. But that was not to be: “When I returned from leave, yoh, I was finished. I was very weak.” He underwent the mandatory fitness test for all miners returning to work as he’d done over the past 16 years. But the results of the test brought bad news.
To his horror and disbelief, he failed the medical test that would have seen him return to work. He had tuberculosis, the doctors told him. He was immediately discharged and told he could never work again.
It was 2001 and he was only 37 years old. He’d been a mineworker since 1985 at Unisel Mine in the Free State. On that day, after 16 years of service at the mine, a manager told him he was no longer needed and had to return home and wait for death. “That’s what this man told me,” Gangatha’s voice rises with anger. “He said I should just come back home and wait for death.” He pauses to compose himself... “How do you say that to someone?”
Gangatha doesn’t know the man’s name but he remembers that his face was super dark and that his voice carried with it a cold cruelty…
Even as a black man, who understood the background and knew the suffering of mineworkers better than whites, he showed not even a little sympathy, or that he even cared.
Despite the man’s coldness, Gangatha, fearing that his family would starve since he was the only breadwinner, continued to plead with the man. He asked that, since he could no longer work underground, he at least be given another job where he wouldn’t have to work underground; perhaps do light work on the surface. But the man refused point-blank.
Then Gangatha pleaded that, since he was being discharged, at least let his place be filled up by one of his unemployed brothers back home in the Eastern Cape. This was also turned down. That day, as he left the mine offices in Welkom, Gangatha felt shattered.
He thought of his family back home in the spectacularly beautiful Wild Coast, whose beauty hides the deep poverty and suffering of the people. After giving his labour for 16 long years, and now to be told he was no longer needed and was as good as dead, Gangatha felt lost, depressed and very angry. He had only about R70 in his bank account.
He agonised about what he’d tell his father and siblings, all of whom depended on his measly earnings.
He broke the news to some of his colleagues who came from his district. There was very little they could do except offer comfort and words of encouragement. He then garnered enough courage to call his father back home. The old man was also shattered and confused, and urged his son to come back home.
Eventually, after spending a few weeks in the hostel surviving on the goodwill of friends while sorting out his papers, Gangatha was paid out R29 000 from his provident fund and other benefits.
Gangatha pauses to think. His face is intense and his eyes well up with tears. “It was not good at all,” he says after a long silence. “I felt that now that they had drained my strength. They have finished me; they are now discarding me.” When he returned home, he thought long and hard about what he was going to do with his life. He was too young to even begin thinking of the slow, painful death the supervisor at the mine had cruelly told him to go home and wait for. The money he was paid out was just enough to keep him and his family going for a few months. Once it ran out they would have no food. Walking in the village one day, he noticed an old building which was standing empty.
He also noticed that there were hardly any stores in the village, probably because of the low economic activity. Gangatha spoke to the owner of the building and they agreed on a monthly rental rate.
He then used some of the money to buy stock from Lusikisiki town. And soon, his store was bringing in money and he was once again able to provide for his family.
Luck seemed to be smiling on him, for in the coming months Gangatha managed to rent four more stores around Lusikisiki. He even tied the knot. The couple have a four-year-old girl, and when we met in May 2015 his wife was pregnant with their second child.
But later in 2015 he was left with only one store after having been forced to shut down the other four, which had become unprofitable.
He blames it on the influx of foreign nationals, who offered landlords better rental offers and sold their wares at much lower prices – sometimes even more than 50 percent less. But fortune seems to have smiled upon him yet again.
His yard is a hive of activity, with people coming in and out to buy from his store.
He also runs a tavern where villagers come to quench their thirst and dance away their troubles at night.
His entrepreneurial spirit saw him establish a driving school in Lusikisiki, which he runs with his wife, and he’s hoping to grow the business further. Yet, although he seems to have regained his strength, he is no longer the man he once was: “I can’t do anything now. I can only do light work.”