They have no choice - they have to queue together

A man standing at a marketplace on a hilltop looked down at the snaking queue at Hubyeni Complex at Elim and whistled softly in shock and distress, shaking his head.

“This fills me with fear. Lockdown was meant to manage the possible spread of the coronavirus, but now here people, including the elderly, are lined up at the chain store supermarket to get some groceries. It is just because they have no choice,” Mr Thomas Mathebula said.

He said that he understood the purpose of the lockdown and that hearing Minister of Health Dr Zweli Mkhize say that the ministry was observing that the increase of new infection cases was below what the department had initially projected was heart-warming.

“The Minister believes that this lower-than-expected infection rate can be ascribed to the restrictions they placed on movement and border crossing,” Mathebula said. “Yes, about border-crossing restriction I fully agree; but when it comes to local-movement restrictions, this is another thing to look into. Where are those reported new cases collected from? I mean the tests, because here is a congestion of poor people who are all in a long queue to Spar Supermarket and they risk spreading infection to one another.”

Mathebula felt that Covid-19 tests should be provided for all people who would like to test, and that it should happen at no financial cost. “We are listening to the Department of Health’s projects on the radio of sending health workers who will conduct tests in the rural areas as well, but which are those rural areas?” he said. “Are we included?”

He added that he feared for a situation where the government might declare a “shutdown, because we are not so sure what the government’s next move or decision will be right after the 21-day lockdown”.

“Just looking at this kind of congestion at our main supermarkets and ATMs, I pray that the government does not think of a shutdown, because it will only affect the majority of the poorest of the poor,” he said.

Ms Matimu Khosa, a mother of two children, said that she had to stand in the ATM queue for three hours on Monday, so she could collect her social grant. “By the time you get to withdraw the money, you are drained and hungry, but you stare at the longest queue at Shoprite and your spirit dies in you,” she said. “If it had taken me three hours to withdraw money, how long would it take me to get into the shop and stand in another queue to the till?”

Khosa said that she had walked to join an equally long queue for the taxi to her village of Chavani. “I had no choice but to buy my groceries at the local spaza shop, where things are expensive – which only means that the R880 social grant had not helped that much this month,” she despaired.

Rufus Mugwena, who spoke from his home at Mpheni village, said: “People should stay at home and stop going on a spending spree, because that is where they will pass on the virus to one another. There are people who would go to town and risk their lives and those of loved ones just to buy some luxuries. Why can’t they stay home and share the little that they have, and then only after lockdown will they continue to stock up their fridges with delicacies and more meat?”

More people who spoke to Limpopo Mirror at Elim said that they had only one prayer in mind: for the 21-day lockdown to come to an end quickly, so that life could get back to normal. However, so far, what will happen at the end of 21-day lockdown, whether the lockdown will be declared over or extended, is not clear.

Date:11 April 2020

By: Tshifhiwa Mukwevho

Tshifhiwa Given Mukwevho was born in 1984 in Madombidzha village, not far from Louis Trichardt in the Limpopo Province. After submitting articles for roughly a year for Limpopo Mirror's youth supplement, Makoya, he started writing for the main newspaper. He is a prolific writer who published his first book, titled A Traumatic Revenge in 2011. It focusses on life on the street and how to survive amidst poverty. His second book titled The Violent Gestures of Life was published in 2014.

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