BY KABUIKA KAMUNGA, MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

Some Mozambicans happily wave at my video camera and shout in an African language.

"They say they'll come back [to South Africa] tomorrow," an immigration officer translates.

It's a cycle. The South African government deports the illegal Africans, who then turn right back and re-enter the country.

During a 7-year period, 900,000 migrants were deported by South Africa; 80 percent of which were from Mozambique. Several human rights organizations say the South African migration policy has not reduced clandestine migration at all.

Elario, a 35-year-old Mozambican man, joins the long line of detainees passing in front of an immigration officer. He hands out his white laminated Lindela ID card, from South Africa's repatriation centre outside Johannesburg. The officer passes the card under a sensor. On the computer screen, a photograph of Elario shows up and the word "Deported" appears in green. The officer keeps the ID.

The detainees are then packed in box trucks that bring them to the train station 5 kilometers away. Some are carrying loaves of bread and 2-liter bottles of water or soda. By the time the sun sets, the Mozambicans are squeezed in the train, sitting three by three on short seats. They are filling up seven passenger cars. When the deportation train starts moving at 8 p.m., the air in the train is already stifled due to the lack of ventilation. All the windows are closed "to keep the train secured," a police officer said.

Trouble in the night

I walk slowly through the crowded aisles. The mere act of breathing in the stuffy air irritates my throat. I understand why the police officers are wearing surgical masks.

During the long ride, I get to talk with some of the Mozambican men.

"This is the third time I am getting deported," said 20-year-old Jerry, who overstayed his 30-day visa, in order to earn $14 per week selling fruits and vegetables. He has been living in South Africa for six years. As soon as he reaches the border, Jerry said, he plans to re-enter South Africa legally with a renewed visa.

Elario, on the other hand, does not have a passport and crosses the border illegally.

"I do my living here in South Africa," said Elario, who is a merchant. He sends money home to Mozambique to support his wife and two daughters. "So the only way to succeed is to come back to South Africa."

According to The Southern African Migration Project, an international network organization, 70 percent of the people in Mozambique have immediate family members in South Africa.

Late into the night, the kitchen staff walks up and down the aisles with trays. They're selling bread, cigarettes, soda and hard candies. A loaf of bread and a can of coke cost the same: $1, roughly twice the price in the local market.

"If you don't have any money to buy food," Elario said, "you should forget about eating."

The detainees are hungry. Many buy bread to fill their stomach. Those who cannot afford to buy drinks have to rely on the goodwill of the police officers to let them go to the bathroom and drink tap water under tight surveillance.

In the middle of the night, the train brakes suddenly. The train manager explains that the overhead cables were stolen and we have to wait for the train company to come and replace them.

It's 1 a.m. The deportees sleep sitting. Some have climbed on top of the overhead shelves and others are lying on the floor between seats. I am exhausted. I return to my compartment and lock the door behind me, happy to breathe fresher air.

The next morning, I find my door unlocked and quickly check my suitcase. The towel covering had been moved. Fortunately I had kept my suitcase locked during the night and nothing is missing.

The train manager hints that there had been some trouble during the night. The rumor proves true. While the train stalled for six hours, 21 Mozambicans escaped.

"It's easy to escape with only three or four police officers at the edge of a car with 80 detainees," said the captain. "The ones in the middle open the windows and jump out."

The captain said his police force is understaffed on this journey. Out of the 75 scheduled police officers, only 25 showed up. Police officers are reluctant to come on deportation assignments since they cannot sleep while on duty and have to face the wrath of their superiors when detainees escape.

The 19-hour-train ride crawls to an end at the Mozambican border. The town of Ressano Garcia appears at the horizon. Mozambican heads pop out of the train windows. The security is relaxed and they can finally breathe in fresh air. Before the train is fully in the station, many Mozambicans jumped out of windows and doors to freedom.

Celebration and home

Freshly deported from South Africa, Nelson Goncalves and Amaral DaCosta Filipe Dunhe celebrate their arrival on Mozambican soil by drinking beer on a mini-van taxi.

I travel with the two young men to the Mozambican capital city of Maputo. The two deportees say they plan to visit their families, then return to South Africa on Friday. Neither Goncalves nor Dunhe has a passport. That's what got them deported in the first place.

"When the police arrested me, I was sleeping in my home in South Africa at 5 o'clock in the morning," said Goncalves, who just had time to put on his jeans and a shirt. "They came in and burst through the door."

The 28-year-old Goncalves did not have a passport to show them. Nor money.

"If I had money, I wouldn't be arrested," he said. "Because I'm supposed to pay the police. It's very simple. Maybe $30 or $40."

This is the second time Goncalves has been deported. He has been working as a master mechanic in Johannesburg, South Africa since 1998. He used to have a passport, but it was stolen several years ago. He said applying for a new passport would cost him six months of work waiting in Mozambique and $70 in expenses.

It's cheaper for him to enter South Africa illegally, he said. Besides even with a passport, he could only get a 30-day tourist visa. "You can do nothing in 30 days," says Goncalves, who needs three or four months of work before he can afford a trip back home.

I visit Goncalves' s home on the outskirts of Maputo the next day. He built his house out of bamboo-like sticks for a total of $692. It took him two years to save that money, working as a mechanic in South Africa.

"You see now I'm here in my home and I have nothing to do," said Goncalves, father of three. He believes he would end up stealing if he stayed home, watching his kids go hungry. "I have to go back because I don't have a job here."

Goncalves is desperately looking for money to return to South Africa.

"I have to sell my cell phone," he said. "I can sell if for maybe $20 or $25. It's not enough to get to Jo'burg, but I have to try to go."

He hopes to get the rest from his friend Dunhe.

We go in search of Dunhe the next day. We walk through narrow roads and paths between corrugated steel shacks. Dunhe's grandfather serves us a bottle of Raiz beer in his tool shed. We sip the beer and eat salty peanuts while we wait.

When Dunhe appears, I barely recognize him. He is wearing a black muscle shirt and tight blue jeans encircling his slender legs. Black sunglasses complete his bald shiny head. He is no longer the deportee from the Lindela train, but a stylish 25-year-old Mozambican man.

Dunhe could have been a professional football player in Mozambique, but prefers to be a plasterer in South Africa. "I'm supposed to be looking for money first," he said. Dunhe joins the bulk of undocumented Mozambican men in South Africa, whose primary occupations are construction and car repair.

Dunhe was arrested with his $140 pay in his pocket. He chose not to bribe the police because he wanted to get deported and thus get a free ride to see his family.

That is why the government stopped deporting people during Christmas season. People used to present themselves to immigration officers for arrest and deportation to get a free ride home for the holidays.

In the midst of beer, cigarettes and heavy-metal songs (Dunhe' s favorite music), Goncalves and Dunhe plan their return trip.

Anticipation and home away from home

"This is South Africa. You go this way to enter. And we go that way. Very simple," said Goncalves to me, as he traces imaginary lines on the cement floor. "You'll wait for us in Malelane [in South Africa], at the gas station."

I'm still nervous. So Goncalves describes his previous illegal entries to show me how simple it is to "jump the border," meaning to cross the border illegally.

"I go in the taxi to Ressano or Busina (border towns in Mozambique). In Busina, I cross the border walking. If the Mozambican police approaches me, I give him $3," he said. "I need maybe $40; $20 for the taxi [to Johannesburg], nother half to pay the police."

There are several methods of crossing South Africa's border clandestinely. Some climb the electrified fence. Others swim rivers. Others yet dodge lions in the Kruger National Park.

As Goncalves lives close to the border, I spend the night in the living room-kitchen of his two-room house. There is no water, no electricity and the toilet is a hole in the ground.

Goncalves ends up not selling the phone. His wife refuses to let go of it; it's her cell phone, after all, she said. Fortunately for him, his friend Dunhe agrees to pay for his transport.

The two men are holding a couple of bottles of beer in their hands "to give us courage to cross the border," Goncalves said.

They carry nothing else. Most of their clothes are in South Africa. Besides, they will need to travel light to jump the border.

They leave me at the border control at 12:45 p.m. We promise to meet in Malelane in an hour. I watch them walk away in the heat, taking long gulps out of a large water bottle. Next to them is a man who introduced himself as Miguel. He seems to be glued to their heels.

The immigration line is long. When I reach the front of the line, I watch corruption in action. The South African immigration officer pockets tightly folded bills after stamping exit stamps on a half dozen passports a man brought him. This means the passport owners have left South African soil legally, without ever doing so physically.

Nearly four hours later, I arrive in Malelane, South Africa. Goncalves and Dunhe are nowhere to be seen.

It turns out they had run into a complication.

At the Mozambican border, Miguel had insisted on guiding them through, Goncalves explained later on. His business is to smuggle people into South Africa. When they refused his services, Miguel got angry and warned a South African soldier of their intent to cross illegally.

"How can one soldier hanging out with bad boys say, 'You come here! Give money'?" Goncalves wondered.

After taking their money, the soldier let them go. Goncalves and Dunhe climbed the tall, wire-fenced border, which fortunately for them did not have the electricity turned on yet.

"We waited at the border gate the whole Friday to get a lift," Goncalves said.

They finally got a ride, promising the driver they'll pay him $30 each in two weeks.

"I'm home," said Goncalves, in his corrugated metal shack on the outskirts of Johannesburg.

That's what matters to him.

January 2007

8-Mar-07 | 3:36 PM
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