Christmas Time

One Zimbabwean, let’s call him Tawanda, has a family of seven to support, all of them unemployed. He was an activist for the opposition (when there was only one MDC), and believed that there was a hope for Zimbabwe. But now he even says he would rather have been in Zanu (PF) “…at least then I would have been able to feed my family this Christmas”. It is sad to see how people have lost hope in Zimbabwe and are now having to hide in Cape Town, like thieves, instead of openly looking for work.  
“I now make wire artwork, even though I am not an artist. I have to do something, I can’t look for work, that’s where they are arresting us. My family is expecting something for Christmas but I am struggling to feed myself.” He is like a lot of our people, suffering and burdened with extra expectation over the holiday season.
I will spend Christmas with him and others in a similar position, but really he and the others would rather spend Christmas working and send more money home.  
While other people are going on holiday, the South African Police Service and the National Immigration Bureau while be working together throughout the holidays “cleaning up” Cape Town, deporting people like Tawanda.  
Tawanda asked me to send his Christmas wishes to “all of Zimbabwe”, he jokingly added he might be going home “if operation Umbrella catches me!”  
n Christmas spirit I would like to shed light on the good that has been and continues to happen. The Adonis Musati project has given hundreds of people clothes, made them CVs and fed about 100 people every week day for the last month or so.  
The Zimbabwe Social Forum contributed a large amount of clothing. The Peoples Church (a church in Constantia) has fed about 100 immigrants every Saturday and Sunday for the last month and recently handed out packs with towels, deodorant, underpants, chocolate and several other “goodies” to 100 immigrants outside home affairs. They have made Christmas for these guys.
Saint Josephs Maritz, a school in Rondebosch, has housed the immigrants for many days in their hall, allowing them to use the showers and toilets and, for more than a month, they made about 500 sandwiches a day, which were handed out to the immigrants at lunch time outside the refugee centre.