Written in 2000 after the opening of the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum – Hostel Number 33

Linda Martindale

“The story untold whose history turns time cold” – Lesego Rampolokeng.

Words on the wall of the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum outside Somerset West, Western Cape. If these walls could speak what a story they would tell. A story of degradation, sorrow, injustice, pain, separation and desperation with camaraderie, fellowship and ubuntu  scattered mercifully in between. Hostel Number 33, a relic of a desperate past, is the only hostel in Lwandle left untouched by the Reconstruction and Development Programme instituted in 1994. The other twenty-one have recently been upgraded and renovated. Number 33 is a damp and dark reminder of a history where black men were forced out of the homelands created by the 1913 Land Act and sent to the cities to support the developing local economy which depended on manual labour for its success.

A compulsory poll tax, as well as the commercialisation of white farming which was subsidised by the government, coerced young black men out of the homelands and a lifestyle of subsistence farming. Desperate for work and with dreams of success or just survival, these men set off for the cities and the migrant labour system was reinforced. Those who headed for the Hottentots Holland area found temporary ‘homes’ in the Lwandle hostels, Number 33 being the only tangible remnant of this jaded past.

Seeds of disempowerment and destruction had been sown as early as 1837 when the Native Laws Amendment Act prohibited black Africans from acquiring land in urban areas. In 1923 the Native Urban Areas Act allowed black Africans to settle only in segregated locations or townships in cities. Enter Lwandle in 1945 when it was officially proclaimed a Location and Township. In 1958 the Stellenbosch Divisional Council built twenty-two hostel bungalows in Lwandle with two communal kitchens and outside ‘bucket system’ ablution blocks. 

To limit the number of black people in the area, the council used only a tiny portion of the 19 morgen of land allocated for the township and built these single sex hostels as temporary accommodation for the migrant labourers. Women, children and those no longer fit enough to work were not permitted to stay here. The Bantu Laws Amendment Act had made it illegal for woman to live in the cities. Weary nights were dominated by the absence of women’s voices, children’s laughter or tears, and pap being slapped onto enamel plates.

Government Machati, a migrant labourer who spent more than thirty years in these Lwandle hostels, remembers with tears: “I had to stay without my wife and children for long periods. Once my wife came to visit me illegally and she was arrested and kept in custody for seven days.”  He worked on the town’s roads and was forced to carry a dompas (passbook), which listed his ethnic group, race, residence stamp and employment taxes. “The pass laws separated us from so many people, from our families, our husbands and our children” says Nomaliso from Nomzamo, the sister township to Lwandle. A 1 ½ m high blowup of a genuine pass book dominates the museum as it dominated the lives of those who had to carry them.

The tedious task of gaining permission to work in a specific area meant letters going to and fro between the applicant, “Native Administration” office and potential employer up to six times. Original documents of this procedure on the museum walls are reminders of a frustrating chapter in men’s long walk to employment.  Such bureaucracy was enough to deter most people from leaving their jobs; it could take months to find legal work elsewhere.

With a change in influx control regulations in 1986, women and children flocked to the cities to join their husbands, sons, fathers, brothers and lovers. Accommodation was hopelessly inadequate and the hostels were filled to overflowing. Low living conditions resulted in disease and a cycle of sickness and poverty continued up until 1994 when the entire community underwent a programme of upliftment and facilities and amenities improved.

The museum is an extension of the hostel, although the actual building is not as old or as historically significant. The old community hall, for  years home to discos and parties, has been given the blessing of the community to be used as a museum. A sense of pride and commitment is evident in many residents of Lwandle. A letter from the chairperson of the South African National Civic Organisation says:  “The community is proud to support the museum project as it will contribute to the development of our beloved township”.

As it already has. Besides employing two locals to run the show, it has instilled a sense of value in remembering the past, while approaching the future with hope. Bongani Mgijima, curator of the hostel and museum, is proud that, “This is one place where you will see much more than ‘dead’ artifacts. It is here to help the new generations understand the tribulations of the past.” It is the first township-based museum in the Western Cape and one of the few museums anywhere to depict the history of migrant workers in South Africa. With educational workshops, tours and slide and film shows, Mgijima hopes to “confront the contemporary things and will show change and continuity. It will link the present with the future.”

Khutala Vuba, a business management student at Strand Technical College, will be working there full-time. She says of her job: “It means a lot to me. I’m learning new skills. I’m very interested in history and it is exciting to work in my community like this.”

Charmian Plummer, from Somerset West, who initiated the project, believes the museum could never have happened without such local enthusiasm. She has worked with the community for more than eight years helping start a crèche, which now schools over 150 children. Charmian caught wind of the long overdue renovations and upgrading of the hostels in February 1998, and wrote to the Helderberg Council urging them to keep Hostel Number 33 as a reminder of what the hostels looked like. The person with the vision usually gets the job and before long, Charmian was working with the community ensuring that much of the heritage and cultural history was not lost.

Why has she put so much effort into this project? “To keep history alive and allow black children to see how their grandchildren lived and to enhance understanding of our past. There is also the hope that with hindsight we can improve our foresight.  The effects of migrant labour are recorded academically but not open for the general public. This museum changes that.”  The plans for the future are to record the history of people who are still living in Lwandle and hear the stories that they have to tell.

Hostel Number 33 is still used as a residence while the eight inhabitants wait eagerly for new accommodation. Entering the dingy, single-storey building is like stepping into the past and the smoke-stained walls and makeshift wooden partitions erected in the hope of some privacy  contrast starkly with the upgraded buildings around. A toilet, installed only two years ago, has replaced the ‘bucket’ system, which catered for large groups of men, as well as women and children in more recent years. Two world and times clash when I walk into one of the ‘rooms’ and come face to face with a poster of 2PAC, a look of anger and hatred on the celebrity gangster’s face. The room’s occupant, Simpiwe Malangemi, 23, works at a pizzeria in Gordons Bay and says shyly “I am very happy here”. To him, this room is a refuge, a place that he calls his own. The care with which he has done the decor reflects this.

The Migrant Labour Museum was opened on Workers Day 1st May 2000. Not just a building and not just a relic of the past, but also a hard-hitting trip down a road that many South Africans have not yet traveled. I’m sure it is easier for tourists to come to a place like this and ‘enjoy’ the look at another world, another culture. Indeed, as some have commented: “My best day in South Africa so far”, “Nice to be here” and “What a wonderful morning”.

But for a privileged white South African, this is a visit not to be taken lightly. The hostel is a sad icon of a world unknown and incomprehensible to white South Africans who have never had their movements, work and personal lives restricted by the dictates of a tiny book. Now, perhaps, through the Migrant Labour Hostel and Museum, they will catch a glimpse of what it must have been like. And perhaps they will be among those described in a quote by Chris Zithulele Mann on the museum wall: “And who understood till they shivered in fright at their ignorance.”