BLOG POST: Pandemic Stories: Conversation with Miss Sibongile Mkhize*

*Not her real name. 

Covid-19, lockdowns, the loss of income has hurt both famers and farmworkers. Sibongile Mkhize shares her life journey. She talks about being laid off, being responsible for an extended family and the disappointments of failed state social support.

On the first Monday of the month, March, 2021, at 10.00am sharp, I arrive at the Agripark for a prearranged meeting with Sibongile, a farmworker- she insists that I call her by her name. “Nobody calls me Miss,” she says, “they use nicknames and the farmer I work for calls me Sisi.” The Sedibeng Agriparks is situated to the south of Joburg, bordering Eikenhof. Agriparks are part of the Department of Rural Development and Land Reform’s programmes to stimulate agriculture by providing the physical infrastructure required for transforming industries. We meet just outside one of the several tunnels ahead of the open field car park. As we finish our one-hour long meeting, initially schedule for 45 Minutes, 37-year-old Sibongile tells me, “We’re not talked about as essential workers, not recorded or documented.” She adds, “we have got to make sure that people eat, Isn’t it?” She asks me without expecting an answer.

I am interviewing Sibongile on the impacts of Covid-19 on food systems, how she was impacted, and her personal experience during the different levels of lockdown. Sibongile agreed to talk anonymously, “angeke wazi” (you will never know) she says. She is originally from Limpopo province and first came to Joburg to join her domestic worker mother and hopefully to find work. The transition to Joburg has not been without its own challenges, she still goes back to Limpopo, not as often as she would like, though. It is both easy and less expensive to send money home rather than waste it on public transport.

As we talked more people streamed into the Agripark. They come from a wide cross-section of society; some are government officials, others are farmers, farmworkers, and traders. They include the young and old, walking in, there is talk and laughter. Sibongile tells me, three years ago when she first came, there were just a few of them. The numbers have grown. Most people at the Agripark wear masks, but some masks cover their mouths and not noses. Others wear the masks below their chins and a few carry them in their hands. Social distancing is not strictly observed neither is sanitising. Perhaps it is the nature of the work environment.  As she sees me watching, “Correct, it is no longer safe,” Sibongile answers an unasked question. She comes five days a week to work in the greenhouse tunnel and adjacent garden where she grows spinach and pepper-bells. She does not go to the market, “the farmer” – that is the owner of the tunnel - does that. She does not know how the market works or the prices of what she grows.

Today, I left my three children with my mother but my boyfriend is home, too, she says. “Did I say three? Its four with my sister’s little boy”, she adds. “I cannot risk to bring my children here, even the one I’m breastfeeding. I’ve got to work, my boyfriend is unemployed, his unemployment is not due to covid-19”. My mother receives a government grant (SASSA), I also get a grant for each one of the children. She hopes that her mother would receive an additional grant as a caregiver, at the time of the interview she had not received any. “I have applied for the Covid -19 state’s social support grant, I’m still waiting” she says.

Of course, she would do more with a little more money from the farmer, everyone is struggling, you know. She explains how she has to walk a long distance to work and back home, transport money has become expensive for her. She and other farmworkers walk in small groups both for company and security reasons. The local streets are tough for any individual walking alone. She takes spinach and pepper bells home to cook for her family a basic relish to eat with the porridge. A lot has changed with Covid. Sibongile says she now eats less meat; “prices have gone up and we had to adjust”.

“I’m a bit relieved now, during the first lockdown I felt we were being punished by our government, I could not come to work to earn a living”, she says. She had to stop work for some time and came back as soon as she got a permit to travel to work. She is grateful that people fought for their right to return to work. She fears a more stringent lockdown will destroy their lives, “government must talk to us first before announcing new measures, it us who suffer most” she says.

I ponder the often controversial debate about how closing down the economy to avert the virus spreading risks setting back the fight against poverty and unemployment, especially for the hardest-pressed women in informal trade.

I intend to use this blog to tell pandemic stories about farmers, especially black farmers and workers, as frontline traders, their struggles for recognition or exemption as essential service providers, about serving people and serving society. A run of short interviews will tell the stories of the Covid-19 crisis from the perspective of black frontline farmers and workers, to ensure their contribution to society and saving life is not erased after lockdown. I opted to provide a lot of space to what they said, where the interviewees’ words provide the text of the storylines, to get the story straight from the farmers and workers themselves.

I mean to engage with issues and accounts that really reflect their reality of daily life and experiences. Hopefully, brings vision, narrative and a breadth of experience, which will lead positive change and take the farming sector to a different development path.