Leaving Home
A Pastor during what I recall to have been a Family Life Ministries sermon preached about the importance of and establishing a family. In his preaching he said the most profound thing which has since floated in my conscious and really put the icing on his sermon. I like when a sermon isn't solely based off the Bible but is also harmonized with real matters of life as we deal with life routines actively. The Pastor said and I will paraphrase "The real test and rubber stamp of growth, maturity and manhood is when you move out of your parent's house, out of family coffers, into your own shack, on your own cheque, marry from there and build/establish from there.. " - Ps Nkanyezi.
The world seems to be going to a halt, the idea of independence is an incredibly rough patch of sorrow, pain, weight-loss, not looking your best, mediocrity and dropping standards. Mind you this is not the case for everyone that seeks independence, some people leave home after their parents have equipped them with standard education, they apply for jobs in line with their majors, send their CVs out and get employed and paid well and move into nice apartments and afford to buy some utilities and furniture, they eat well and they glow up. That is a well structured life and what is meant by the power of education. However that is not the case with everyone, I have lost 17KGs already trying to establish myself and finding my placement, my skin has gone bad too and I've collected some scars from market fights and getting mugged, my shocking weight loss has been a subject of depreciation by many and there have been suspicions of a chronic illness. Anyone that still lives with their parents or under their support holds and lives upto life standards they can't individually afford, they've got a place to fall back on, cheese and polony in mom's fridge and make no sacrifices, so giving such a life cushion away in exchange of a teary independence seems a trade too hard, which in fact is. It is not easy to leave home without a plan, into a cheap room with a latrine, where you have to pay for electricity and running water if at all there is, where you don't have a stove and may depend on dollar meals until you pick-up and afford a gas cylinder or a single-plate stove. It's not easy moving out from home without a guaranteed stream of income, so you'll have to live off of chance of service for return or buying and selling stuff, it's not easy losing weight and getting darker because you no longer find cheese and polony in mom's fridge and now spend too much time in the sun working, what are people going to say? It's not easy but that is the start of a real test of growth, and that thing always finds a way for those who attempt it, there's always a way. It's not easy moving out from home without academic qualifications or skill sets because you just had an academic functional impairment, not every parent has got a connection to get you started into something or a career whose footsteps you can follow, so you have to be you and think for yourself and make a choice on what you want to do without any parental influences or demonstrations or guidance. The first time my father suggested a skillset he suggested carpentry and plumbing, unfortunately I was already caught up in my own decisions as a vendor and always looking forward to my next dollar too much to care about a skillset. And, he was absolutely right, just late. My father's dream was to educate me straight to university abroad and equip me for employment in the Mechanical Engineering industry which I always envied off of him as a kid, but things didn't go as planned I didn't perform well academically. And I didn't have alternative intended courses besides a childhood dream of being an Engineer, I didn't get any career guidance either and I always think had I had guidance I would have alternatively pursued a course in standard mechanics with supplements instead of choosing to sell, but that didn't cross my mind at all. When I dropped out of school I literally didn't know what to actively pursue, I just had interests in radio which I felt I lacked a radio personality for, so witgout wasting time I went and sold in the streets, which was quite the paradigm shift as I didn't grow up that way nor was I compelled by unfortunate circumstances, I just wanted to be able to build a family home like my father, not to grow and rot in his, and that was a place to start. The thing is, without influences or career guidance, it's not easy weighing out or gauging different career paths or skills sets to pursue in order to figure out which one you really like and could sustain you because we weigh everything according to idealism and whether or not you could potentially be the big boss in that line some day, whereas we ought to weigh by our abilities. So people just throw themselves in whatever and figure things out wherever the river takes them, which was the case with me too. What basically makes independence a hard patch is that deciding what you want doesn't come easy, it could be a lack of exposure and/or influence, or not liking your exposure or the influence in your face. For instance your parent or uncle could be a teacher, you may not like working in the department of education. Additionally, it could be laziness and too much comfort. Comfort is detrimental for men! You could be sleeping warm in your room without realizing the house is actually on fire. The girl child can bask in her parents' comfort and the standards they've pegged for her until she gets married out, but the boy child ought to get blistered out.
I have been intermittently putting little thought to this as it is such a difficult statement to digest. Actually, I have been avoiding putting much thought to it as it sounds stressful and inconsistent with the realities today which far outstand that of bygone days. The cost of living is higher today, the unemployment crisis and retrenchment rate have skyrocketed, the recessions and inflation, it is all truly such dire things to meditate the mind on in bid to position yourself independently. Nonetheless, the truth remains still, no matter the circumstances the real test is actually out of a place of comfort, out of returning home to a warm meal mom prepared or waking up to scones baked, out of the electricity that brightens the home and the taps that run council water on dad's cheque. The real test is where each and every life demand and need faces you to the brunt! Contrary to this, if we instead confine ourselves to our parents' comforts, it will thwart us from become productive and child-dependable adults.
I've however ultimately contemplated deeply on the Pastor's unsettling premise and my heart raced so much to the imagined events of solitude and self sufficiency and I realized that all the grinding I've convinced my self to be doing and cutting myself in half was actually play and hasn't at all amounted to anything. Surely, you do not learn how to swim by sitting on the pool edge kicking your feet in water or standing on the shallow end in fear of the unknown in the deepend. That is exactly how I felt as I contemplated about the works I've been putting in knowing I don't pay rent, bills and food. One ought to dive straight into the deep end and swim themselves out, dive again until they've mastered a way of life, and, it isn't an easy turn that, especially when it has been self imposed without compelling circumstances but sheer need for self sufficiency, empowerment and independence. Most people usually begin to awaken and move their weight when a tragedy falls on them, when they've fallen pregnant or have impregnated out of wedlock, or when their home and property get burnt down or repossessed, or when a bread winning parent passes away.
For me, contemplating on leaving home brought cold fear to my heart and spicy itches in my armpits. Some truths about myself became transparent that I do not have a career nor academic achievements nor lucrative skill sets to crutch on, my hope solely lies in my ability to sell and move my weight which in all fairness isn't a sustainable stream to rely on merely, but that is the reality of most young Africans, ill-equipped and without viable and/or resourceful skills and qualities. It couldn't get more honest than that!
I have worked for some madalaz that sell fruits in the city, they pay a commission of 10% of what you sell per day, of which at most you'll earn $5USD if you're even lucky, otherwise on most days it amounts to less than $3USD per day, you earn even less if you run on a shortfall, it gets deducted from your earnings like they do with supermarket floats. I worked as a till operator prior at Spar too, there if you ran on a float loss you'd pay. I then subsequently started selling bananas for myself in the city, each crate costed $7USD and returned a profit of $2, I would order three to five crates at most, load them onto a hired scorch-cart and push them into the city. You'll spend the whole day selling three crates off which ought to return a profit of $6. Six dollars is fairly a good profit to take home everyday, ideally you'll be making about $30 per five days and $120 in four weeks, it's a good income really. However things do not turn out as such, there are running costs per day. There is lunch you buy at $1USD, there are municipals you bribe with $1USD and the drill-hall police also want $1USD bribe, you have to pay a hiring fee for the scorch-cart at $0,50c and if you don't sell-off everything on that day you'll have to pay an overnight lock-up fee of $0,25. At the end of the day you have spent $3,50c on running costs, which makes your profit of the day $2,50c and that's if you even sold everything off. You earn a profit of a single crate after putting a day's time and effort selling five crates off, you see what they mean by working hard sweating hard and going nowhere? It took hard experience to learn this otherwise I wouldn't have learned it off the book, if at all. Furthermore, in the event that you don't sell your wares out on that day and sent the remaining stock for lockup overnight, you'd have to re-spend that $3,50c running costs for the next day bribing municipals and drill hall and paying for another day of hiring the scorch-cart, plus your lunch, and, being that you are selling perishables, they may wake up the next day overriped and you'll have to cut your price down below target figure; Which evidently cripples your profits completely, or may even run you at a loss if the municipality police lodge an operation and raid your wares. You lose everything and further pay a contravention fee. So you have to sell five crates off, which is 550 bananas, in one day to still earn $2,50 after running costs. Now, one would ask how then are the madalaz doing it doing it? To really run this trade profitably, you have to employ over three guys to push three of your hired scorch-carts, each cart carrying seven crates of bananas. One cart generates running costs for all i.e. cart hire fee, municipal bribes, lunch for the boys, commission for the boys and overnight lock-up, and the other two carts run as milk cows. All in all that is 7 crates × 3 carts = 21 crates. 21 crates x $7 per crate = $147USD to run a street fruit sales business profitably. And that $147 is actually worth more than 21 crates, it is worth what we call a bin, this bin holds over 380kgs of bananas.
Obviously I've lost you with figures, but big balls trade begins at $147. Now tell me, who will hand you $147USD my friend? This is not money you can borrow in this line of business as it is still a business without safety nets and may fall susceptible to losses and all your wares can still get raided by municipals. It's still risk. Most of the guys you see selling bananas work for madalaz who invest in the trade and pay them commissions, they earn less than $5 per day and sometimes nothing, and still show up because what else can the boys do to get by man? A dollar a day is still better than jack. That, amongst many, is the reality for many men and women who've left home, some of which did not have homes in the first place, born in the streets made in the streets! It's a war zone!
So, having tasted the structures of street life, my heart races to the thought of pursuing independence, where exactly do you begin? Life is literally a dark place where people go without food for days because they aren't dependent on a bread winner, people get thrown out of their rooms for failure to pay rent. Literally! It is not soft as bread out there. One of the guys I am well acquainted with at the flea-market interchanges between selling choumolia, sometimes he sells tomatoes, sometimes fruits and other times he pushes the scania (scorch-cart) loading people's heavy luggage and pushes them from the flea-market or wholesalers to where his prospects board their omnibuses. For this guy what he does for the day depends on what's selling faster then. So, he reminisces to me to a time when his mother in Nkayi (140km away) had harvested maize and sent him a bucket of some of it on an AVM bus so he could get it grinded and have to cook pap with whatever relish he affords, at least to swallow something so as to get by in difficult times."Kuyayilahla bra wam" he said, his story spoiled my day, I was helpless! But, this is only the one side of life I have experienced whilst sitting on the fence. I understand why people smoke weed and spend on alcohol, I really do, there's too much to bear whilst sober, some people can't handle it and rely on the little satiation they can draw from substances. Life is haphazard for many people, it's unstructured and they do not know exactly where to play their cards or place their circles or crosses on life's tic-tac-toe.
On the other side of the fence I see people that get married straight from their bedroom into houses their parents gift to them and get employed into their parents' companies or through their parents' connections. That is such a beautiful privilege, an incredible mile head starter and I do think that is the way things should be, although I also think it is a deadly shortcut which lacks adversity training and character building phases which could of been otherwise sought in independence and self sufficiency, but, even with that still, life just flourishes for some people without need for adversity trained or character built tactics, things just seem to remain soft as bread and easy going for them, and they remain sober minded noble and humble people which being a Christian I am solely limited to rationalize that as the absolute glory of God whose countenance and blessings continually dwell and shine on His children. You would think someone in such people's lineages endured adversity attained character traits and mental skills and through their sacrificial life their next generation profits and leverages, making them elevate to higher and better challenges dealing with things beyond worrying about their next meal and their next bill. Some people just never face crippling or devastating estate problems you know, their heads just seem to remain above water, well, above sea level. I could only assume that is the power of legacy, and families that achieve that deserve it together with it's long-range privileges which extend to those that follow. Their children learn well, are guided and equipped with lucrative skills or responsibilities and positions to sustain them and their offspring without losing status, is that not the case with whites in Africa? White people and their children will never digress to townships or high density settlements, or board omnibuses or work in the CBD. We have Africans that live absolutely the same way, and that is empowering to know.
However, on the same side of this fence, there are those that get life stuck with their parents and yet still marry into their parent's home. They get to work their parents' jobs or take/get handed over their parents' positions, drive their parents' cars and split household bills and expenses for food four ways under one roof, which to be fair is quite an economic stunt if one sees they can't afford to or aren't courageous enough to leave home. Things are quite tough but life still has to move on, family continuity has got to occur and for that to happen someone has got to marry and the shackles of a plummeting economy and sky rocketing unemployment rates will not stop some people. Hence why we have people that grew up at their grandparent's homes with their parents. It is absolutely a smart way of maintaining pro-creation in spite of the odds which may potentially propel familial extinction. At the end of the day what really matters is if you can keep your mate/spouse and offspring safe and secured without lacking and if that means jointly living in the same house/yard with your parents and siblings, sending your children to good schools, driving out for picnics then why not? For what is life? This however shouldn't be the standard, nor should it be shamed. It is a good plan but it isn't ideal. One ought to be working towards moving out still. It is always better to leave dad's big house to live in a two room quarter with your spouse and kids, where she feels free to be a wife without supervision. But we all know life doesn't always dish-out expectations.
A lot of households today hold adults in their thirties to forties years of age living under their parents, we all see this. When I was twenty one years of age I saw it too, I slandered it too, and I didn't want to turn thirty years of age staying under dad's roof and feeding off my old man's retirement fund. Seeing it happening vastly actually motivated me to break my walls and begin a journey of working hard to establish and empower myself from the age of twenty one. I didn't know where to start either, my parents are distant and I didn't have any career or entrepreneurial influences, so I started selling bananas in the streets whilst I still had the privilege of 'daddy's house' and his support but that isn't intended for my lifelong sustainance. I am doing four years in my pursuit to happiness and still going strong doing other things but I am however beginning to see and understand exactly why many decide to lay back and do less.
To be a man without a mentor doesn't come easy. Picking your battle, figuring your direction, making a committed choice, moving out from home, achieving stability, marrying in your zone and procreating, it's not boy stuff. The courage that that takes is goated, especially without compelling circumstances but out of sheer need to man-up! A goat will head anything that stands in it's way, no matter how stonewalled the goat goes and it goes all in, win or lose it's just heading it, hence goated.
There is an abundant proportion of people who take risks and vacate their homes to start their lives off on a personal commitment to become significant and productive individuals, some are compelled by austeric circumstances some surrender the comfort afforded to them by parents out of need and a drive to be independent and self sufficient high achievers, that is gangster! They've suffered homelessness, empty stomachs, brokeness, nothingness and continue to persist against the odds. Some have made it and yearn for even greater achievements, some are just in the teething phase, and others are in their contemplative phase and are yet to endure the birth pains of self establishment, it's kak! At times you'll get to understand thieves, frauds, CITs, prostitutes, drug lords and people on illicit ventures, it's very tough out in the open some people resort to high risk zones. I have surmountable respect for young guys I always see in Makhokhoba and these high density areas renting rooms with their women and children, you will find these guys selling pies in the city, clothes, cutting hair, working at the carpentry or at metal works or in mechanics, some lay brick, some are plumbers. I frequent the flea market daily, it is absolutely not a place to look your best but it is a place of independence! People there pay their home rent and bills, they put food on the table, they send their kids to school. I have more respect for that than anyone loafing in their parent's suburban home with elitist standards and only waiting on them to die. It shouldn't be that way.
I'd like to believe life makes a way for those that try it, if it doesn't then go back home, resurface and try harder. You may sleep at the park, you may sleep at a garage, you may spend two days without swallowing a thing, but that's life baba face it. Some people don't even have a home to go back to or a parent and relative to ask from.
Best Of Luck!
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