Emzini Wezinsizwa
By Thabang Mokoka
The air inside the cramped boarding house was heavy with the stink of paraffin, strong tea and tired ambition. The dwindling lightbulb stammered, unable to hold back restless shadows long across the cracked walls. The men, stitched together by struggle rather than blood, sat near a rickety, wooden table as their faces swirled with hope and skepticism.
Magubane, the eternal optimist, plopped down a shiny bottle on the table. The label, brazen and unfazed, said “African Future Tonic.”
“This is it, gents!” he proclaimed, strutting like a man about to disclose a great secret. “The answer to all our problems! They say Africa is the next big thing — booming economies, digital revolutions, millions of jobs. No more struggle!”
Mofokeng, the oldest of them, a man whose face bore the map of many disappointments, stood up, reached for the bottle. He twisted it slowly in his calloused fingers, his eyes roving over the fine type.
“Magubane,” he said, voice slow and knowing, “do you know what happens when a well is poisoned? The water is still clear, but it kills slow.”
Chirwali, ever the skeptic, leaned in. “Let’s see the magical ingredients,” he muttered, peering closely at the label. “It’s called ‘Job Creation,’” he read aloud. “But the unemployment rate is at an all-time high. ‘Economic Growth’? In the meantime, millions are starving. ‘Leadership Excellence’? But it is corruption that is tearing us to shreds.”
Mkhize, the more quiet and observant one, rubbed his chin with contemplation. “And look here,” he pointed. “Collateral damage: inequality, brain drain, crumbling infrastructure. We’ve got the largest free trade zone in the world, and most of us can’t afford to even trade.’
Benson, the street-smart hustler, laughed him off. “And tell me, Magubane, if we’re the vanguard of the digital revolution, why are we still importing every scrap of technology? If we’re surpassing the West, why do we still plead for loans?”
With a dramatic sigh, Magubane waved them away. “You people love negativity! Just check your news feed — Africa’s G.P.D. is soaring! We have the youngest workforce, the most mineral wealth, the fastest-growing tech. You just don’t understand the bigger picture.”
Mofokeng laughed softly, knowingly. “Yes, we have all that. But tell me, Magubane, if Africa is rich, why are its people still poor?’
A thick silence descended upon the room. A strobing lightbulb played with shadows as if the walls were eavesdropping on a truth he’d long avoided.
The men in Emzini Wezinsizwa were not just boarders in a dingy boarding house. They were Africa itself. Mofokeng, this wise elder, represented the ancestral memory of the continent, so often cast aside. Chirwali, the analyst, was the economist, the thinker who recognized the cracks in the system but whose warnings were overwhelmed by louder voices. Mkhize, the technocrat, was the working class — the economic engine but underappreciated. Benson, the go-getter, was the capitalist, ambitious but stifled by the bureaucracy and inefficiency. And Magubane, the eternal optimist, was all aspects of blind faith — grasping at shining headlines even as cracks beneath his feet began to widen.
Like the continent, their boarding house was full of possibility but also bedeviled by broken systems and leaders who took more than they gave, and citizens so hungry for hope they sometimes drank from poisoned wells.
Mofokeng set down the bottle gently, hunched over, rubbing his temples. “We are not cursed, my brothers. But we are being poisoned.”
Chirwali sighed. “Poisoned by corruption. By greed. By complacency. And worst of all, by silence.”
Mkhize nodded. “If we keep gulping down this tonic without asking questions, the next generation will find the well dried up.”
For the first time, there was uncertainty in Magubane. He fixed his eyes on the bottle, as if he had never seen it before. The promises on the label still glinted, but this time, they felt empty.
Benson was the first to break the silence. “So what do we do?”
Mofokeng smiled knowingly, like a man who has witnessed the cycle play out too many times. “We guard the well. We demand clean water. We cease drinking blindly and begin to ask who is making the potion.”
The struggles Emzini Wezinsizwa were never just funny gags; they were a mirror reflectin the African story. The five men, wonderful though they were, smart though they were, strong though they were, found themselves in a system that wouldn’t help them rise. As with many African nations they had the resources, the ideas, the dreams — and yet there was something that was holding them back.
Africa is not cursed. Where we live, is the wrong question. Where we wake up is not, either — if we do, we will not make it so. The poison is not on our soil — it is in the greed of leaders who refuse to serve, in the apathy of citizens who refuse to hold power to account, in the youth who choose fantasy over fact.
The men of Emzini Wezinsizwa had no authority on their dormitory, much like the many Africans who have no power in their own nations. But the difference between a joke and a tragedy is action.
The next generation depends on if we get down in the mud and drink blindly instead of fighting to keep the well clean.
The choice is ours.
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