that‘s R1,825. Better than nothing, isn’t it?” At every stop hawkers emerge from the shadows like ghosts, carrying six-packs of beer to sell through the windows to men deep into serious card games. We see guards at regular intervals: Some serious in neat blues and ties, carrying bedding and making sure no one’s smoking. Others, like the conductor, are blind drunk and grubby. We learn who to avoid and who to ask for water when the three bathrooms run dry. Mosquitoes have invaded the carriages in thick clouds, hovering high in the corners when the train comes to a standstill and disappearing miraculously when we start moving again. We settle down for the night. Sis Jean is reading her two romance novels. One with a blond heroine on the cover staring lovingly at a buff and tanned hero who’s a dead ringer for Ridge in The Bold, and the other with a voluptuous redhead bursting out of a velvet bustier. She switches from one to the other every chapter. “Why do you read two at a time?” I ask, more interested in why she reads them at all. “Otherwise I get bored. They’re not very interesting,” she explains without looking up. Unable to sleep I go in search of tea. The dining car is not a happy place. There is no stock and the Formica tables are empty. In fact, the entire car is empty except for the tall, thin cook standing forlornly in a corner, smoking a cigarette and staring down sadly at the carcasses of three raw chickens. “Closed until six tomorrow,” he says. The night passes in a rumble of brakes, mosquito bites and dreams
of quiet. At daybreak, everyone starts rushing around as if they were late for church – although there’s still six hours to go before we hit Musina. Sis Jean wants something to eat, so it’s back to the dining car. She raises her eyebrows in disapproval at the cigarette hanging out of the chef‘s mouth. “Good morning. Now put that cigarette out, it’s unhygienic. What can you offer us for breakfast?” “Eggs and bread,” says the man, throwing his half-smoked Gunston out the window. We order food and tea and return to our seats to perch on the pile of blankets and wait for breakfast: Me, Orinah and Jean. The bush slides past the window. There’s been rain and the river is flowing strongly. The leaves on the mopane trees are a bright, luminous green and the surreal trunk of a baobab marks the horizon. “The upside down tree,” I tell them. “Really?” Sis Jean looks indignant at the whimsy of it. Ever practical, she explains the many uses of the leaves to me – medicinal and culinary. Talk of food gets Orinah so excited she puts her Bible down and breaks into an animated explanation of an acha dish prepared with baobab leaves. The train is quieter now. Most of the passengers got off at Polokwane and Makhado, leaving a handful of Zimbabweans with a trainload of luggage to make the final trip to the border. Everyone’s tired and irritable and by the time the train rolls into Musina station and the jostling starts, tempers flare. The third class carriages are a least a kilometre from the platform and passengers struggle across the gravel to the gates. More guards wait to scream, prod and push. Outside the gates, taxis hoot, money-changers haggle and the smell of tripe clings to the air. For those going on to Harare, it’s the start of another day of heat, noise, chaos, bullies and wondering what happened to humanity.
THE END OF THE ROAD • Musina is the northernmost town in Limpopo province, near the Beit Bridge border post between South Africa and Zimbabwe. It’s the main entry point in Africa into South Africa. • In a feature in the Daily Maverick in November, written after President Mugabe stepped down, Craig Smith, founder of a
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firm of migration lawyers, said that, depending on how the situation unfolded in Zimbabwe, either more Zimbabweans would come into South Africa, or those here would return home. “If it’s non-violent and it presents economic opportunities, we might see some Zimbabweans going back home, and if it
turns violent, we might see a new influx of Zimbabweans into South Africa”. He believed Zimbabweans living in South Africa would only leave if they could not find jobs here, and that the transition in Zimbabwe represented economic opportunities. “Right now it is difficult for anyone to predict.”