This n that with Maluphosa - The Xeno at the Hospital

Last Thursday night I was at Johannesburg Hospital with a friend when a couple with an obviously ill baby arrived in an ambulance. They were in obvious panic as the baby fitted and groaned continuously. 

The only male clerk on duty, a big man with the step of an arrogant, known hater, looked at the baby and thought the baby was disgusting. He looked at the mother and asked, exasperated, "Where do you come from?" "Soweto"; she sobbed, "That is where I was born".

"Give me your id book.'

 I don't have it here; there was no time to think about such things; we have an emergency in our minds and hands. My baby is dying.' She is almost hysterical.

"Well, the rule here says no id, no treatment".

"Even in emergency cases".

"Well, it does not say anything about that. Give me your id or - - -, next!" The meeting  was over. The parents had to walk back to Hilbrow to fetch their ids, leaving their little baby with a companion.

"These kwerekweres ride on crocodiles' backs just so that they finish our files and medicines and food. When they are ill, why can't they just go back to be treated in their god-forsaken countries? He said to his neighbour, a thin dark woman in her early forties by the look of it. She looked the list interested in what he was whining about – perhaps tired from the monotonous song about foreigner this, foreigner that and foreigner the other.  She had seen and heard enough to last her a lifetime, and beyond. "Inja zika Mgabe." The big man kept swearing. The lady on his left commented indifferently; "Even that Mgabe flies here for treatment; so what do you expect these people to do?"

The dark woman to his right was hyperventilating, "Do you have children?"

"Of course I have."

"And have they ever been ill?"

"Yes, but not as badly as these kwerekweres we see packing our hospitals."

The poor woman saw that she was fighting a lost cause. But she asked, trying hard to calm her nerves; "What would you do if your child died in the queue, like that little boy you just chased away?"

"I am only following the rules here, and I think it's time you did so too."

"I do, you know but I use my discretion too – common sense. We are here to treat people and not their identity documents."

The big man was trying to hide his panic about the supposedly dead baby. He did not want all those in the waiting room to see he was scared. He came out of his cage of a glass window and walked stealthily past the boy and his aunt, bending down to ‘tie' his shoe lace while his overly glazed, abnormally dilated eyes were trained unblinkingly on the small package that lay limp on its aunt's trembling arms. Perhaps he saw the linen see-saw and was assured the baby was still alive, for now. But he still wanted to show his ‘tough-guy stance', went out and came back with a burger the size of half an Albany loaf, which he munched at as if it was his first meal after a fast lasting forty days and forty nights. He was back at his desk when the boy's parents arrived back from town with their ids. But his stubborn prejudice told him that he had no duty attending to them. He nonchalantly pointed them to the next counter. Still, he came around to check if these were real his countrymen. The dark woman appreciated the grav
ity of the situation and asked no questions.

Meanwhile, a group of women, all victims of the big man, had gathered around and started comparing notes.

"I have been there five times now and have been chased away the same number of times. He thinks my asylum paper is a fake", she said, looking at two ‘fake' asylum papers displayed in front of the big man's window.  "Why?"

"A mere, over-officious Clerk doubling up as home affairs?'

"Yes, he thinks he is home affairs. I heard him threaten that injured boy over there with arrest for presenting him what he said was a khuph'ufake."

"Yeah. Phela lapha anyone who has a right to ask for your id can act so weird you'd think they are either secret police or home affairs."

"But that huge woman seated there refused to sign the forms the big man gave to him. It was about payment of a certain sum of money, and the woman said she'd never seen five thousand rands in one place all her life. She can not sign an agreement she knows she will never fulfill."

"And so?"

"And so she refused. But he gave her the forms anyway and told her to join the next queue."

"Is she a local?"

"Yes, Pedi or Venda or Shangaan but ngu mlocal."

"Umlayile."

 "And wena?" She asked of the aunt with the baby, at the moment fitting non-stop in her arms.

"There is the mother of the baby by the window. She was chased away for not having her id on her." "Yes, and do you see those huddled in that corner? They are accompanying that man in that bed. He is so ill he is confused and keeps shouting obscenities at anyone who dares touch him. He was vomiting profusely when they brought him here in an ambulance. But now when he is not vomiting or shouting, he is epileptic. You can see he has a few hours to live. But the big man insisted on his relatives bringing his id before he could open a file for him."

"And he doesn't have?"

"No. Looks like he has been on police wanted list and someone was using his id. That someone is in prison now as him. So chances are he will never have an id again."

"I wish he was local.'

"Yes he is. But the big man says he might have learnt some languages here and will not open a file for him until there is proof that he is whom he claims to be."

 "Yeah, labo abakuzwe esikuzwayo."

"Shhh. One of them cautions as two policemen wearing blood stained gloves go past.

"I have never seen a man so evil; a man who is not touched by the death of a small innocent baby and who would deny pregnant women treatment because they do not have an id?"

"Did he also chase pregnant women away?"

"Yes, the one wriggling on that bench over there", she said, pointing towards the door. "Can you see the blood in her dress? I hope she gives birth there, ikhawule le chimpanzi embi". The other one laughs, "Kanti vele kulechipanzi enhle? The third one, who seems to have only one question throughout this conversation, would want to know if she is local.

"No. She is a shona. And the big man was saying, did you run away from your country to give birth here?"

"What a dim-witted question! Do we have do put our lives on hold because asikho kithi and because there are perpetual, useless mourners like him? The loser!"

" Phela laba abantu bayasizonda singazikhohlisi. I remember how I used to like their gospel music, especially abo Rebecca labo Deborah. Even labo Brenda labo Yvonne. I no-longer believe any of their words about god's love and all that other nonsense. These are the typical sheep in wolves' skin." "Hahaha. It's the other way round – wolves in sheep's skin."

"Yeah, that. In our church, the Pastor is a local man and most of his congregation is foreigners. But he was the ring-leader in attacking foreigners recently. He said they took away his peoples' businesses, when he does not even have a table from which to sell fruits."

"Uzawathengiselani ama fruit when he makes so much money from his scam of a church! The scum-bag!

"My husband has since stopped going to soccer matches when his favourite team is playing. He says let these people keep their teams and he will keep his Highlanders."

"At that moment another ambulance crew arrives with two white men accompanying what seems like their garden boy. He was attacked at home by two Zulu speaking criminals, they claim. And the big man thinks it's Ndebele from Zimbabwe. "They are all criminals, these foreigners," he judges.

"But am sure the doctors will treat anyone who comes here, id or no id. And the clerk will open a file for anyone id or no id if they have esincane, like he did with that couple over there. I saw them shove what looked like a fifty rand note in that file the man is carrying.

"Are they local?"

"No, they are from Nigeria."

"Agh, this corruption! Izasiqeda. Yikho bethi money speaks all the languages of the world. I know none of the languages in this country but I have bribed my way through police road blocks manned by men who speak almost all of them. In the end angazi ukuthi is it them or me that is corrupt."

Well, it's time to hit the sack and I have to leave these women to their gossip, and the big man to his unprofessional, xenophobic  conduct, and am thinking, corruption or xenophobia - either way, no one wins. Ngiyabonga mina.

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Clerk Ndlovu <clerkn35@gmail.com