Limpopo - Since the protest over municipal demarcation in the Vuwani area started last week, Rampfumedzi Nditsheni has hardly seen her family.
Nditsheni, who lives in Vyeboom village, leaves home at 3am for the long walk to the peanut farm where she works, arriving at 6.30am.
“I wish the protest could end. I am always tired. I leave home at 3am and come back after 10pm,” Nditsheni said.
She is forced to walk because since the protests started, residents in villages around Vuwani, Hlanganani and Levubu have been preventing taxis and cars from driving through the villages.
Protests erupted last week after residents lost a court bid to have the area reinstated under the Makhado municipality. The court ruling paved the way for a new municipality, that incorporates Malamulele, to be formed.
On Friday, VhaVenda king Toni Mphephu Ramabulana said his nation would not appeal the court's decision, but would instead ask President Jacob Zuma to reverse it.
Since the protests started, over 20 people have been arrested for intimidation, malicious damage to property and public violence and more than 20 schools have been torched or vandalised.
On a normal day, Nditsheni travels home in a hired van with her colleagues; they leave home at 5am.
“Now what we try and do is walk in groups of three or four. But sometimes I am forced to walk alone. I am scared that because it’s dark and there are lots of trees, criminals will attack me,” she said.
One day, Nditsheni was too tired and scared to walk back home, so she slept in the bushes.
“I slept there because I thought I heard people approaching. After they passed, I was too scared and tired and decided to sleep. I woke up in the morning and walked back to work,” she said.
Over the weekend when the protests were suspended, she was still unable to spend time with her family because she was one of the residents taking turns to guard schools.
Avatondwi Primary School, where her children go, was set alight; Nditsheni and other women used milk meant for the feeding scheme to put out the fire.
“We cannot sit at home when people are trying to burn down our schools. It is important that our children get educated,” she said.
Ndivhudza Govheni, who works at an orange farm, sometimes walks with Nditsheni.
“Life has become very difficult because of the new municipality. We just want our old municipality back. Now I am forced to worry about my safety all the time because I walk to work,” she said, adding that staying home was not an option for her because she would lose her job.
“There are a lot of people who want farm jobs. If I don’t go and take part in the protest (instead), I will lose my job. Walking is the only option,” said Govheni.
Like many people in Vyeboom, Govheni wants Zuma to come to the area and sort out the impasse.
“Zuma must come here and show that he is taking us seriously. This is all his fault and he should come and deal with it,” she said.
The protest has not made life difficult for residents only, but for police officers as well.
The SAPS has deployed officers from across Limpopo, reinforcing the forces with officers from Free State, Mpumalanga and North West.
Three teams of officers work 12-hour shifts.
An officer from Limpopo said protests in the area were some of the worst he’d seen. “These people don’t care about anything. When they see police their aim is just to burn our cars,” he said.
He said the hardest part of the protests was when they changed shifts at night.
“We are stationed here in Hippos (an armoured personnel carrier), but when we leave, we drive in Quantams so it’s easy for them to attack (us).
“The streets are very dark and they put barricades in the middle of the road and hide in the bushes.
“When we drive through a village and find fires in the middle of the road, we have to get out of the cars and remove them. We can’t drive on the side of the road because they put planks with nails so they can puncture our tyres.”
The officer said the local election registration weekend was one of the most violent.
“We drove to one of the villages and residents closed all four entrances and exits. We tried to shoot them with rubber bullets, but they used corrugated iron sheets as shields. We even ran out of rubber bullets and we called for a chopper to come rescue us.”
The Star