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Freedom: having nothing to lose
Justine Gerardy, Independent Online
November 17, 2007

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20071117093153631C374883

Forced migration is not pretty. Even in a church. Meagre possessions are packed into hawkers bags and tattered luggage. Unwashed bodies squeeze into crannies in search of a scrap of privacy and long queues of people wait for a splash of cool, running water. It's cramped, smelly, and lonely.

But for those at the Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg, an inner-city stairwell is the best available option in the search for a better life.

By 10pm, anyone visiting the church is forced to clamber, muttering apologies, over the bodies packed up against each other on the stairs, passages and any unoccupied floor space.

And there are new arrivals daily, with anything from 1 200 to 1 500 people sleeping inside and a few hundred more outside each night. Most are Zimbabwean, with accountants, teachers and nurses bedding down next to security guards and cleaners.

The choir vestry has been set aside for the vulnerable. Now the room is crammed with mothers, toddlers, wrinkly newborns and a handful of married couples.

Privacy is all but impossible. Sitting in a makeshift cubicle fashioned from a cupboard door are Fred and Grace Chimuti who used to live in a two-bedroom flat in Harare.

"It's quite a shock - we didn't expect this," said Fred, a tall and eloquent accounts clerk, who seems to capture the confusion of displacement.

"We thought everything would be rosy in South Africa, but it's the other way around. It hasn't been easy."

The first stop for most migrants is Park Station, where the cavernous, bustling waiting room acts as a transition zone until alternatives or work are found.

"I could never sleep in the streets - I had nowhere to go," said Juliet Shumba (41), who spent nearly three weeks on the station's bolted-down chairs. No lying down, even sleeping, is allowed but at least there is security, bathrooms and a roof above.

"It was very tough," said Shumba, who used to work in marketing.

"I thought it was easy - that you could move around and get a job.

"But the more you moved around, the more dirty you got and the less chance you had to get a job."

Apart from the harsh reality of immigrant life - a R5 wash at a public bathroom is often unaffordable - there is the additional stress of not meeting financial promises to families back home.

When you come this side and there's no job. It's really difficult."

Shumba helped start a clinic at the church, which is attended by doctors once a week.

One of the patients is Mukudzei Madondo, who was robbed and beaten up by thugs when crossing the border.

"They gave us three options: sleep with us, give us money or give us your passport," she said, pointing to the scars on her legs.

The 27-year-old was eventually forced to arrive in Joburg wearing her nightie after her sole remaining pair of jeans were too muddied from when she was thrown into the river.

Madondo spent two weeks in hospital, but now only has one purpose: "When I recover, I have to work because my family in Zimbabwe depend on me."

In Bishop Paul Verryn's cluttered office is a pile of qualifications that belong to the migrants. On a bookshelf is another pile of applications - each requiring a fee - to be sent to the South African Qualifications Authority for evaluation.

The bishop strongly believes the Zimbabweans, and their multiple skills, should rather be seen as an opportunity, not an imposition.

Migrants teach adult literacy to South Africans and many of the teachers are maths and science specialists - skills desperately needed in South Africa.

Some of them have applied for asylum, an arduous, backlogged process, with no refugee reception office processing new arrivals in Joburg, but others choose to take their chances as illegal immigrants.

Reasons for fleeing are either economic, political or both. "Life is better than in Zimbabwe," said Ronny Masina.

"We can make money to survive and send salaries home. It's different to our country, where you can't even feed yourself."

Verryn interviews every person that stays in the church and briefs them on the house rules.

Support staff then sign them up for programmes and help them find a sleeping spot.

The new arrivals are tired, often ill and traumatised, especially the women, who can face gang rape or robbers on the trip south, said an asylum seeker, Alpha Zhou (42), a former teacher who works in construction and volunteers at the church.

The migrants range from a physiotherapist to a teenager with an amputated right leg who desperately needs a new prosthetic limb.

"It's a diverse community - a cross section of the Zimbabwean community," said Zhou.

"Space is one of our major problems. It's very difficult for the bishop not to admit people.

"At the same time, it's difficult to administrate and accommodate them. It's tricky."

Verryn said the influx began when it was noticed that those needing help were not street dwellers or streetwise and were being hurt on the city's streets.

Nearly 6 000 people have been sheltered in two years.

Not all are Zimbabweans. There are Mozambicans, Ugandans, and South Africans. Earlier this week, a Zambian mother gave birth in one of the toilets.

Everyone is encouraged to leave the church during the day to discourage a rut of dependency, and to have a wash and to seek work. The building is then cleaned and rendered functional.

The concentration of people in an uncomfortable, confined space does not come without problems - as seen in Verryn's office where a few plastic buckets contain the remains of the church's pipe organ.

It had been stripped for scrap metal.

Recently a gun was confiscated and there have been two alcohol-related murders and occasional conflicts between men and women. Unknown people have broken into the building and randomly beaten migrants with steel rods and - to top it off - the sewerage system seized up last week.

Yet despite the testing environment, the building operates a creche, a pre-school, adult education classes and chess, karate, soccer and book clubs. A recorder group gave their first mini-concert last Friday.

The church itself has five services on a Sunday as well as daily and evening services. The migrants are expected to attend the evening service every day as part of the house rules.

"That people manage to co-operate as they do is sheer testimony to their humanity," is Verryn's view.

Utility bills have doubled - despite no real cooking or washing facilities. Some are unhappy about the hordes and the bishop admitted to getting flak from his congregation.

This week, a shocked caller on radio told of a naked man washing in the bathroom. The lingering residue of densely packed humanity is also often raised.

"The quintessential nature of the church is to open its arms to the poor, but the poor don't come in neat little rows," said Verryn. "When poor people come, they do come with the struggles for drinking water or for a bar of soap to wash."

"It's another way of doing church and giving a little bit of authenticity to who we are.

"It's an opportunity to insist on the dignity of every human being and to say people are made in the image of God.

"The poor are not a burden and we imprison ourselves if we see them as such."

Hazel Mazilawa sleeps with approximately 60 other women in a room at the Methodist Church in the Johannesburg CBD. The Church has an "open door" policy and houses in the region of 1 500 homeless people every night. Space is limited and they sleep wherever they can. Most are Zimbabwean refugees.

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