The Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden was founded in 1982 and one man who played a vital role since its opening is still working at the garden – 32 years down the line.
The remarkable man is Elson Nemalili and he wasn’t expecting his life to change while he was busy playing a game of morabaraba at the foot of the Soutpansberg in a small homeland called Venda in Limpopo at the end of 1981.
Standing next to a tractor opposite the workshop in his overalls, Nemalili tells the story of how he ended up at the garden and his life’s journey.
“I was still a young man of about 28 years of age when I first met Peter Chaplin, the original curator of the botanical garden. Chaplin arrived dressed in his safari outfit and he was looking for 12 workers to come and work on a piece of land that was part-farm and part-bush-veld. I had to pack up immediately, myself and 11 other workers left on the back of a large truck, uncertain about where we were going as I never went [south] to Transvaal before.”
“We arrived at a farmhouse and a heavily bushed area that had a beautiful waterfall. Chaplin explained to us that it was his vision to turn this uninhabited piece of land into a botanical garden that people would want to pay 50 cents entrance fee to come and visit.” Nemalili smiled and repeated his sentence, “50 cents entrance fee.”
“I used to be a truck driver for Chaplin, so I had to go and fetch the truck early in the mornings to go and pick up the workers in Kagiso Township. The funny thing is, I had to walk 20km to go and fetch the truck then drive it all the way back to the township to go and pick up my colleagues.”
Continuing with his truck escapades, he explains that the botanical garden used to be a heavily bushed area with little or no trees so the workers had to make a plan to plant trees there. “We took the truck and we went as far as Nelspruit and Bloemfontein to collect trees for a week at a time and then we would bring the trees back to the botanical garden and plant them. Every tree has a story to tell about where it came from and I think it adds to the unique character of the garden.”
He said that during these first years, he saw his wife once a year when he went to visit her in Venda and he frowns when he tells the story about how the police showed up one night and arrested his wife because she didn’t have a work permit to visit him in Transvaal.
“The garden became my life and I did everything from laying out the grass, patch by patch, to fixing the tractor and other equipment when they broke down.” In 1994, he was appointed as the workshop manager, overseeing the workers and teaching them everything he knows.
Spokesperson Ronnie Tshabalala said, “Nemalili is as part of the botanical garden as the waterfall is. He will be retiring in two years and we thank him for his hard work and dedication, it helped to make the gardens as successful as they are today.”
