AS Winter’s icy grip tightens, most of us bring out the extra blankets, dust off the heaters and take shelter indoors.
For those who live in poverty, these comforts that we take for granted when the colder months commence are not so easily accessible and many suffer through the plummeting temperatures of winter throughout the country. Vryheid is no exception.
“I don’t like to ask people for money,” says the homeless man at the bus stop, “but I get hungry sometimes.”
Mduduzi Comfort Mkhabela describes himself as an “uneducated man” but converses courteously, an evidently humble individual, perhaps more insightful than he, himself, even realises. He took up ‘residence’ at the bus stop near the intersection of President and Mark Streets approximately four years ago, after relocating from Paulpietersburg, where he lived with his father, to Vryheid in search of employment. He claims that he was promised accommodation by the municipality however, at the time of going to press, we had not yet received a response to confirm nor deny his claim.
During our conversation with him, Mduduzi informs us that, although his birth certificate states that he was born in 1963, his actual year of birth was 1967, making him 48 years old. His eyes light up as he speaks reverently of his ancestors visiting him in his dreams, his culture and heritage clearly of great importance and deeply entrenched within his mind.
Overlooked by the system and society, Mduduzi has been removed from his spot at the bus stop several times, but returns habitually, building a fire to keep warm when his few blankets are not enough to keep the brutal and merciless winter chill at bay.
