Boertjies
is mos dom
"I
would like to announce ... the new level of the minimum wage for 1 March 2013
to 28 February 2014 be pegged at R105 per day for employees who work nine hours
a day or R11.66 per hour, R525 weekly or R2274.82 per month,"
It was a
quiet morning on most farms, we were all doing business as usual when the
phones started ringing, “Did you hear what the Minister Said?” “What are we
going to do?” Like a mother standing over her Child’s limping body, we all
stood on our farms shocked, outraged, disappointed. I slowly got on to my quad
bike and drove off to one of the most farthest points of the farm, from my
vantage point i looked out over the years of hard labour, the changes that
happened and part of my life’s legacy. Is this the end? Do we have to move on
and trek like our forefathers, is Mozambique the new frontier? I saw
the workers on the tobacco field; I grew up in front of most of them. Some grew
up with me. These are the people who helped build this farm. I have an obligation
towards them. My feelings and emotions were at breaking point when the phone
suddenly rang.
“We have a
meeting tomorrow at 6 pm” It was the Chair Person of our Farming Community.
“Please let everybody know about the meeting.” With that we rang of. The days
passed with mix feelings. What can we expect will there be any answers? I will
have to use a bit of deduction and I will need some skill to read the person’s
body langue. With that we all set of for the meeting, lies were told, truths
were hidden and hypocrisy were wide spread. Thinking back, more than 6 meetings
just to get answers, we were none the richer and poorer than when we first
heard the news. Our final meeting were held in Groblersdal. We left early
the morning to avoid most traffic in the capital city of Pretoria; there was an
indescribable silence in the car as we drove through mountains and open
valleys. Will this meeting hold the answers that we are seeking? Each one of us
was trapped in our own thoughts. The meeting came and went with no answers.
On our way
back I opened up my kindle to read a bit, I flipped through the books, The
Devine Comedy by Dante, to heavy now, I searched the Bible to heavy now I
thought. I closed my kindle thinking of a verse in Habakkuk, trying to
correlate that with what Dante had written about in the 1300’s. Was their time
so much different from ours, Habakkuk and the Israelites had to face the
fearsome Challdiers, in Dante’s era it was the dark ages and the church used
hypocrisy to rule. How much do we differ from then? the mountains and valley’s
passed and my thoughts were running over the open fields. In the end I
decided that we shall comply with the law of the land. I have an obligation to
my workers.
After all
was said and done, I looked back over the past two weeks and realised how we
would use another person’s suffering and make a profit out of it. In Afrikaans
we have a saying “Die een se dood, is die Ander se brood.” Have we stooped
so low, have we learned nothing from history, or do we just use history to make
our fortune out of those who have no answers. In each meeting a person came
forth and said they will help us with this and that, but at a price of course.
Wel dis die wet van Transvaal.
The final
bell has rung we have entered a new era of wages, comply or not. As I sit here
I’m thinking of a great singer Koos Kombuis he wrote a song about their
domestic worker when she died. Will our Kytie stay, she was always just
there. Will there still be Mielie pap in the morning?
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