(from left to right, Themba Matha, Chief. Kagisho Molema, Pedro Harris)

Written by: Chief. Kagisho Molema

Every person’s life story deserves to be told. I firmly believe that everyone has an interesting story, and it must be told regardless of their accomplishments or social standing. Stories are the bricks that we use to construct reality and the world we inhabit. We use stories to navigate the great unknown that is called life. Stories help us understand where we come from, what is happening around us, and where we are going. This greatly influences our purpose as humans. The combination of the things you have experienced is so unique to you that if they are not told, the quality of existence is diminished in an undiscernible way. The survival of the collective human species is dependent on people’s life stories.

As a custodian of stories, I have come to hear many people’s stories – many. Since I was a child, people would divulge their experiences to me without any prompts. Perfect strangers have come up to me and told me intimate things about their lives, some of the things is stuffs that they have not even told their loved ones. I have heard hundreds of stories, both harrowing and beautiful.

I met Pedro selling fruits on the main streets of Swellendam, and he would come to my house gate and persistently shout “meneer” until I came out. He would be wanting to sell me a box of fruit, but at the same time, unprompted, he would be telling me a chapter of his life story. Of course, the story would be relayed whilst also marketing his oranges, or plums, or grapes, or pomegranates, or whatever the wholesalers have in store for him to go and resell. I would go back into the house with not only a box of fresh fruit that I would have bought from Pedro, but also some words would be lingering on my mind.

What animates a place like Matjoks? The informal settlement neatly hidden behind Railton did not just magically appear. It was created by many actors, but Pedro tells me that Themba, his loving friend, is recognised as one of the main Architects of Matjoks. The story of Pedro Harris and Sinethemba Matha is a jarring one. It is layered with so much pain, that I ask why do people go through so much and still have the strong will to live?

Both Pedro and Themba are caught in the limbo of being beggars and fruit sellers. Halfway homeless and halfway boarded. It is a state of being in perpetual limbo. They live in what is called hoekies, as shacks are called in the local dialect. Themba is one of the main people who built the many shacks of Matjoks. People would ask him to build shacks for them, and he would build from the sun-up and until the last light of day. Themba and Pedro were brought to Swellendam by the thing that brings everyone to Swellendam: the beauty of the place and the hope that they might create a better life for themselves here. A highlight is that all humans need beauty in their lives.

Pedro’s journey begins in Cape Town where he has good memories of his young life.  He recalls the train rides joyfully and how he joined the army after school. His parents were so proud of him for graduating in the army. Things took a turn when they moved to Worcester. A bad choice led him to the path where he finds himself today.

Pedro’s mother was continually harassed by a local thug. This started happening on a regular. One day this menace to society took groceries from Pedro’s mom. He was heard taunting Pedro and his brothers, saying they are not man enough to do anything about it. Pedro describes him as a jailbird with face covered by tattoos. He confronted this gangster where he found him in a shebeen yard. Unable to contain his anger, he picked a brick block and crushed the man’s face killing him on the spot. Pedro was a formidable rugby player at the time, a strong man. He says he did it to protect his mother. He had also witnessed his father not treating his mother well, though his father was loving to him.

Pedro was imprisoned and served a long jail stint. When he was in prison, he saw a man being bullied by a number’s gangster member and he stood up for the guy being bullied. He was ambushed and beaten by the gang members to a point of hospitalisation. The guards asked him if he wanted to be removed from that section of gang members and rather be placed with unaffiliated members? He decisively declined, and decided to go back to the same section with the gang members. He became initiated into a prison gang. He prayed to God and asked God to help him use his gang status to protect the weak. Pedro is born a helper and justice-seeker. As time went, he became a Captain in the hierarchy of the gang and reported directly to gang Generals and he also had many people who reported to him. During his tenure, he would use his rank to protect the weak from becoming the prey of the more aggressive types. Years later after serving, he came out of prison. God blessed him with children of his own. Pedro went to work on farms picking fruit, where he met Themba.

Themba’s story begins in Johannesburg where he lived and they would visit his family in the rural Eastern Cape, memories he holds fondly. Themba’s brother moved to Khayelitsha in Cape Town where he had a job and what seemed like better economic opportunities. Themba later joined his brother to look for a job in the city as well. He was so grateful for this new beginning. One day Themba’s brother got into a fight with one of the local criminals over a girl. They came for Themba’s brother in the early hours of the morning. Themba found his brother’s decapitated head at the gate of where they stayed. He knew he had to leave, whether out of fear of dying too, or for chasing closure for this great loss. Themba left Cape Town and joined a construction company that moved around the country. When that job ended. He went into fruit picking where he was at a farm just outside of Swellendam, and meeting Pedro around that time.

Themba decided to leave the farm because of unfavourable working conditions and when he came to Swellendam, he erected a shack where he was joined by other people and the settlement grew rapidly into what it is now – with Themba labouring a lot in the spirit of assisting people to have a place to lay a head whilst they seek economic opportunities in the town and farms of Swellendam. The job of an architect is to design spaces, shape places, and transform lives. Themba is the architect of Matjoks, a nickname for Matjotjombeni. An informal settlement (Matjoks) within a township, a township (Railton) within a town, a town (Swellendam) in the heart of Paradise. To a few, Matjoks might seem like an irritating part of the perfect image of Swellendam, but it is also home to the labour force that carries the economy of Swellendam. An unforeseen result of the architecture of apartheid. Themba recently experienced another big heartache and trauma in his life that no human must have to go through, where he heard the explosion of a skull of a loved one during a fire. How brutal is such a death. Yet, you must rise and move on with life. Pedro decided to stop drinking alcohol while working at the farm and when Themba left, Pedro made him promise he would stop drinking alcohol and now they are both five and seven years sober respectively.

Themba and Pedro, very good friends, continually run foul with law enforcement and security companies as they sell their fruits in the town of Swellendam. Pedro says Mandela said we are now in a “free market” so that means he is free to sell his fruits anywhere. In a way he is not wrong, yet he finds that this is not true in application. We all find ourselves at the mercy of a game where the codes are missing and the rules are mystified. How tragic and futile it seems for Pedro and Themba as they try to better their lives, when they are not fluent in the language of the system, and when they also do not have the appearance of the desired class. The inequality and the gap between the haves and the Pedros & Thembas of this world continues to expand.

The real tragedy is being calloused to suffering and too familiar to apathy in society. You cannot save the world because you are not Jesus. But, what small act can you do to alleviate the suffering of someone even if it just for today?

Besides the many troubles that beset them, Pedro and Themba still harbour dreams. Pedro wants to become the best “marketer” of fruits and vegetables in Swellendam riding a veggie bike. I have seen his feet with plasters, so a bike would really help him. Themba wants to act, dance, sing, paint, and teach – he is sure of where his talents stand. In a world so bleak and the great deal of misfortune they have suffered, they still harbour hope. And so are the many residents of Matjoks. If there is in anyway you could help make the lives of these two gentlemen better, please do reach out to us on 068 729 6767. Let us make Swellendam a better place for all, whatever that means.

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