By Mmaditaba
Over the long weekend, I travelled from North West to Limpopo, passing thousands of cars heading back to Gauteng.
Queues of beautiful and very expensive cars that stretched for 30 minutes after each tollgate. Mostly children of Limpopo who have had to move to Gauteng for better work opportunities.
You see, we make jokes about it but a lot of Gauteng people are from Limpopo. And I’m talking about people in really good jobs, people who could change the very fibre of Limpopo if they stayed.
They can’t imagine being back to the villages because of the potholes, the lack of service delivery and the memories of childhood poverty – and there’s just no Konka to go flex our bank cards on pay day. Some feel they have no choice but to stay in Gauteng as there are no opportunities back home.
It took 15 years of living in Gauteng for me to realise I was working harder to be in the same position. The bigger my family got, the bigger the apartment we needed, the more we spent on food. The bigger your salary gets, the more entangled you become with the city and the more your conveniences will not let you even think of going home.
But then there’s all that cold love that Gauteng gives. The coldness which drove me back home because I was drowning. A combination of working yourself to death to afford the life you want and a coldness you have to cover your heart in to ignore the suffering all around you.
My mental health in Gauteng got so bad, it was the only thing that could get me to think of returning home. I was pregnant with a very short tolerance for daily life, I was mean and I was sad. I asked my partner to move back to the village with me for my sake and we both left our work and careers for the village.
To start from the bottom in a world that was now unfamiliar to me, which I had left as a little girl, but I knew it couldn’t be worse than that reality.
You see, before you take that giant leap, it seems crazy. My former employer told me: good luck trying to find another job as good as what I had; and my friends asked how would I explain the gap in my CV? But my heart yearned for home. The last place I remembered feeling like myself.
My partner, who is from Rustenburg, said why not, and if he could jump into such unfamiliar territory, how could I chicken out?
It’s been three years now, our daughter is two years old and we have brought a bit of Gauteng to the village. We used the knowledge we had to solve problems in the village. For every reason that you don’t want to live in the village, there’s a business idea to solve that problem.
To get a bit of the gold in Gauteng, you have to sacrifice a lot of yourself. In the village, we’ve had to dig much deeper and much longer but the gold is plenty, the opportunities are waiting to be taken and whatever you build is your legacy.
Imagine if all that capital and brain power moving up and down the N1 to Limpopo could return home and build up the province. The shift is happening, slowly, but it’s happening. In my very rural village, there are now two private schools. The kids I grew up with are doctors and lawyers with practices in the village. Luxury apartment living is popping up on the hills where we used to climb jackalberry trees and Limpopo billionaire Mike Nkuna is building a smart city as big as Sandton City right here in the villages.
King Monada and Makhadzi’s music is playing all over the world. Shudufhadzo Musida was just the reigning Miss SA.
Development is happening, Limpopo is evolving through those who believe in its potential. How glorious it would be if it meant the return of Limpopo’s children. It’s time to come back home, and bring the world back with us.
Image source: Love Limpopo
