“If I close down, my siblings and I will starve”

A resident of Hlanganani RDP township in the Collins Chabane area, Bornwise Maluleke, waited patiently in the shade of a tree inside his small yard for customers to trickle in on Friday. Looking at the outside walls of Maluleke’s RDP house, one can obviously see that he is a barber – the walls are adorned with stunning illustrations of haircuts.

“I know there’s a 21-day lockdown period which is in operation countrywide, but for some of us – who solely rely on small business ventures like mine for a livelihood – not opening our business is a matter of life and death,” he said when interviewed.

Maluleke stays with his five siblings, and he is the sole breadwinner. Apart from operating a barbershop, he runs a small pay-for-use recording studio right from his RDP house, and he also rents out a music sound system.

“There are no activities, which means that there’s no business for me as a music engineer and sound system hirer,” he said. “The only business which remains in operation on my side is the barbershop.”

He said that he had not closed his barbershop for a single day after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement of the lockdown but added that he was not doing that out of disrespect.

“I live in an area where, if you steal from someone else, you get stoned and burnt to death,” he said. “What if, after I fail to provide for my siblings, one of them goes out to steal to dissipate the cramps of hunger inside his stomach, and they catch him? Will they not stone him to death and further come to torch my house, as if I am the one who sent him to steal?”

He pointed out that it was an oversight from the side of the government to declare a lockdown without first evaluating the impact on less fortunate people such as he and his siblings. He reckoned that plans to assist them with food should firstly have been put in place.

“I won’t speak lies and say that the President is wrong. He’s totally right to place the country on lockdown, but somehow it’s affecting some of us,” he said. “There’s nothing to do apart from remaining strong for the remaining days and hoping that things return to normal. I am not making much money now from my business. Sometimes a day or two passes without any customer coming in for a haircut,” he said.

Maluleke said that he had only a mixture of methylated spirits and Dettol anti-bacterial wash for hand sanitisation when a customer arrived. “I can’t afford all those other expensive chemicals (sanitisers) from the main shops in town,” he said. “I care for the customers’ health as much as I care for myself and my siblings,” he said.

Date:12 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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