Soldiers of fortune

Ugandans making it big in South Africa

It’s that warm summer morning, when it seems like Johannesburg is covered by a slow-moving hot air conditioner, in central Hillbrow, the traders go about calling out to buyers. They warm-heartedly refer to each other as doctor, brigadier, colonel, general, mugagga, Shaba wa Shaba, boss, king, depending on what job one is doing and how he is perceived among the growing community of Ugandans searching for riches in South Africa.

A trip to Wanderers Street in Hillbrow, jerks you into the Ugandan community, doing all sorts of jobs. Here, you find professionals, businessmen, quack traditional doctors, vendors and those selling assorted items.

First you notice the language; Luganda, but they quickly switch to Xhosa or Zulu as a customer approaches.

They go about selling clothes, bags, jewellery, foodstuffs and doing porterage. Then there are those frantically distributing leaflets advertising traditional healers from East Africa.

“I call them soldiers of fortune,” said George Awol, who owns a security firm, Awol Security, in Hillbrow.

Thousands of Ugandans travel by road to South Africa every year in search of employment. When they arrive in the country, either they proceed to Pretoria or remain in Johannesburg but most start as quack witchdoctors or pamphlet-distributing “boys” or “girls”.

Most say the entered South Africa through Zimbabwe, Botswana or Mozambique. Their heart-rendering stories of travelling for several days without food, swimming across rivers and jumping over razor wire at border points and riding on the back of trucks into South Africa is one of determination.

George Awol, has been here for 10 years, he says he has seen many come with nothing but now drive expensive cars and own apartments in several areas of Johannesburg.

“When they come, we show them what to do, how to start life, sell assorted items or distribute leaflets for traditional witchdoctors,” he said.

Awol’s office is just above the Park Station Market, in the downtown area of Hillbrow in South Africa. This market is not any different from Owino Market in downtown Kampala.

The market is located just behind Park Station, a stop for buses from other Southern African countries. This is where the majority of Ugandans sneaking into South Africa first land. in this market, they sell foodstuffs, clothes and electronics from China, crafts imported from Kenya or work in electronic workshops as well.

The chairman of the market is Ugandan. He declines to give me his name but says he is from Namugongo. He has been in South Africa for six years and deals in crafts. Chairman earns R1000-2000 (sh300,000 - 600,000) per day. He is building a house back home in Kira Sub-county.

inside the offices of Awol Security, are two Ugandans, Hakim, 23, and Siraji, 22, who have just arrived. They are semi literate but hope to make it big in future. Siraji and Hakim do porterage and distribute pamphlets for quack witchdoctors. They are paid between R30 to R50 (sh9,000 - sh15,000) per day. From George’s office, located on the fourth floor, one gets an aerial view of Park Station and Park Market and several streets of Hillbrow.

Awol’s office acts as a lodge at night for the many Ugandans searching for a better life in South Africa. “You can’t event get space for your legs in the night here,” said Awol. He is renting a whole floor, consisting of several rooms, which he sub-lets to Ugandans or lets them use them for free till they find their footing.

The cab driver, a Ugandan and an a staunch supporter of President Yoweri Museveni, does not go into specifics but tells me an estimated 20,000 semi-literate and literate Ugandans are working so hard that they drive expensive cars.

Bunya Serebe, is a proprietor of two colleges outside Johannesburg. His company, Zeal-Com Capitals Ltd, also deals in stationery, computer hardware and in his office is an advert for Herbal medicine. He does not go into details about his colleges or company profits, only answering my questions in general terms. Bunya’s office is well furnished and located in the upmarket area of Hillbrow.

He is the leader of the non-professional Ugandans living in South Africa and estimates them to be between 300,000 to 350,000.

Ssegawa is one of the many Ugandans who arrived in Park Station, ready to mint gold in Johannesburg, the city that habours 40% of the world’s gold.

The 34-year-old, a quack witchdoctor, has credited his success in this scam to his unrelenting search for success. From this business, Ssegawa has set up a modern, multipurpose internet café in Johannesburg’s central business district. He drives the latest model of BMW 3 series.

He left Uganda for South Africa seven years ago, after the company he was working for, Greenland insurance, folded. “I was going to Dubai for kyeyo but my friend suggested that we go to South Africa, that it is easy to get a job and fellow blacks would treat us well,” he says.

“When I got here, things were different; no one could employ me, even with my degree in accounting,” he remembers. Determined to make ends meet, Ssegawa got involved in the witchdoctor scam, first working for a lady who exploited him. He then moved to another, after which he and three other friends set up their own clinics. After a year, the three had made enough capital to enable each start their own business.

“I now own three ‘clinics’, from which I earn between R1,500 (R450,000)-R3,000 (sh900,000) a day. I employ 40 people, paying each R50 per day,” said Ssegawa.

He, however, says he feels bad for all the people who sit at a filthy table for hours, sometimes a day, feigning an intercession with spirits. Pain in this trade comes in many forms. There is the loss you feel about living off of the dregs of a societal illness. Then there is the moment of clarity when you realise you have become just like the old, sad men that you ridiculed in your younger, luckier days.

Then there is the anxiety explaining to your family what the source of your money is. “There is a sweltering unease that comes from watching loved ones twist uncomfortably when you give then a gift with the spoils from the scam,” he said. But none of the scam’s daily guilt is intrusive enough to force him out of the business. What is more, all of the inner indignity is cleaned by the huge profits.

“But what do I do? I am searching for a solution out of poverty and unemployment.”

Ssegawa does not believe in the herbs he sells. “What I do is to only play with a person’s mind.” When things don’t work and he is threatened by a client, he moves shop to another location. The front desk of Ssegawa’s clinic is neat. On the wall are pictures of backcloth and traditional artefacts. The examination room is dimly lit, and a mat is provided for clients. Unlike in Uganda, here the traditional doctors dress in suits and operate from very neat ‘clinics’. Similarity only comes in when a client has to be cleaned with certain herbs, remove shoes before stepping on the ‘holy’ ground and the dims lights or none at all.

Like him, many Ugandans are involved in this business. Bunya Serebe, a proprietor of several colleges in Johannesburg, defends them, saying it’s the only way out for those who end up conned in South Africa or seeking for a better life. This business has found fertile ground in the highly superstitious South African communities.

They believe that ancestors guide and protect the living through traditional healers. Due to these superstitious beliefs, sangomas (witchdoctors) are considered to be holy men and women who can bring good luck to their communities and chase away evil spirits.

As a result of this respect and the incentives that come with it, foreign traditional healers have flooded the market promising the highly superstitious Southern Africans heaven on earth. Ssegawa tells me they claim to have powers to cure all sorts of illnesses, make the poor rich, bring back lost love, win court cases, win the lotto or predict the future. Due to their aggressive adverts and alleged expertise, traditional witchdoctors from East Africa are now considered the best in the business of sorcery.

They are paid consultation fees ranging from R30 (sh12,000) to R60 (sh24,000) and clients are charged according to the problems they present. The healers demand to be paid in cash and cars. Since it is taboo to question traditional healers, they exploit that.

The Ugandan traditional healers rent rooms in towns for their business and you will always find them in groups. For those who sell the herbal medicine, they get it either from Uganda, Zimbabwe or rural South Africa.

Further shielding Ugandans in this trade is the South African law which recognises traditional medicine and it is common to find certificates hanging on the walls of these clinics, claiming they have attended traditional medicine courses in Uganda and other East African countries.

But this group has considerable wealth, with the majority driving expensive models of BMW cars, living in lavish apartments and putting up huge structures back home. They, however, do not want their identities revealed.

They give themselves titles such as Doctor or Professor Sula, Ndugu, Shaba Shaba. “I change names depending on circumstances,” said Ssegawa. Two hundred metres from Segawa’s ‘clinic’, located on Wanderers Street, is an internet café packed with students and other users, who I later learnt were mostly Ugandans. The students play computer games, chat, email and check on the latest news from home.

I asked them if they are skilled at using computers. “Of course, we are good,” says a student. Michael, 14, is a son to Ugandan parents who have lived here for eight years now. His parents, he says, own a college.

Minting gold
The café assistant, a 27-year-old university graduate, with a degree in social sciences, fills me in on the mentality of Ugandans working in South Africa. “The truth is, everyone here works hard, and they are here to make money, whatever it takes,” said Sherlyn Birungi.

“My boss is rich, his brothers and sisters are rich,” says Birungi. “They don’t worry about anything.” Her boss, she says, doubles as a witchdoctor and his sister owns a beauty salon and a restaurant.

Hillbrow is one of the most dangerous places to live in but a burgeoning business and professional class and the offspring of both groups — is only getting richer, more powerful and less accountable in this neglected part of South Africa.