If one hopes to peer into Mbulelo “Ndi” Kafi’s affinity to development, then they must first hark back some 30 years to a haggard stonehouse in a flea-bitten eHukwini Location, Colesberg. In it, a cramped four-room misery, lives Ndi with 14 other family members. His grandfather, Dyantyi Kafi, the lone breadwinner is a municipal general worker whose wages must see to the household’s upkeep. At the best of times this often proves to be no more than wishful thinking. As a result, Ndi, an otherwise ordinary kid often gets his first meal from the school feeding scheme which he sometimes goes to barefoot. “Being from a big, poor family,” says Ndi, “you share everything. Nothing is ever just your own.”
On 11 February 1991 when the rest of the country is celebrating the release of Nelson Mandela, the Kafi family are mournfully lowering the patriarch’s coffin into a lonely grave. In the aftermath, whatever filial connections that exist between Ndi and his mom – who is forced to go eke out a living in Cape Town – are swiftly obstructed.
eHukwini back then could hardly be deemed an environment congruent with raising children. With no fatherly figure around, there was nobody to whip the older Kafi boys away from the wayside. Restless and impressionable, it was no skin off their teeth to foray over into town in search of something to illicitly lay claim to. To cut a long story short, the family subsequently moved around quite a bit. First to a shack at eMpolweni – which later burned to the ground – then to another in nearby Drayini. Amid the constant relocating, Ndi would find himself dabbling with alcohol at an age where he ought to have been singing lullabies in class.
Much to his surprise, though, he passed Matric, wanted to be a lawyer, but there was just no money to back his aspirations. Then one day he would chance upon a pack of tourists snapping pictures around town. “These people,” he thought to himself, “have travelled vast distances to take photos in Colesberg.” Aha!…thus he found himself poring over the town’s history at the Kemper Museum and in no time became a self-taught tour guide – illegal and unaccredited, of course. Through the assistance of the Culture Arts Tourism Hospitality and Sports Sector Education and Training Authority (CATHSSETA), he would do things by the book, get the requisite paperwork and his newly-found Sakhisizwe Tours would win a cool R25 000 from Northern Cape Tourism.
This is when the wheels started grinding for the mild-mannered go-getter from eHukwini. Get this: He graduates in 2014 and shortly thereafter a team of filmmakers are so impressed with a proposal of his that they trek down to shoot a documentary. Many would’ve thought he was punching way above his weight when during this time he also happened to pen a document entitled Promoting Rural Development for more Inclusive Economic Growth addressed to the then Minister of Rural Development, Gugile Nkwinti. The naysayers had obviously not given him enough credit. The Minister not only got back to him but arranged to have Ndi flown – first flight of his life – up to Pretoria. In a well-carpeted office with shiny wooden tables the Minister and his underlings sat listening to Ndi’s pitch on the township economy. It was dazzling enough to secure him a month-long trip to China, all expenses paid, thank you very much. In Beijing, and across several provinces Ndi got up close and personal with that country’s models on rural-based development. He witnessed first hand how the Chinese “are creating cities out of small towns.” How rural villages are being transformed into vibrant urban centres. Little did he know this knowledge would put him in good stead immediately upon his return. He’d barely gotten off the tarmac at OR Tambo when he was whisked away by the Presidency, rigged with a microphone and nudged towards the podium to deliver another speech before some local luminaries at a high profile do at the Birchwood Hotel. “In that entire venue,” he reflects, “I was the only one without a title. Doctors, politicians, celebrities..then me…Mbulelo!” But what could he do? He was the person who’d brought up the “whole concept of the township economy after all.” Stage fright notwithstanding, not only did he ace his yarn but walked off to a standing ovation. If we are to continue at this rate, Dear Reader, this could turn into something of a short story. So let’s just take it home, shall we?
In his young thirty-odd years, he has sat at the Poverty Summit in Addis Ababa. When AgriSA were launching their Rural Enterprise and Industries Development (RAID) initiative, there he was chipping in his two cents’ worth. He could have persisted on a prolonged basis in that organisation had the Colesberg community not deemed it fit to vote him in as a councillor circa 2016. Also, he is one of those rarities who believes that development and politics make toxic bedfellows. “You can’t mix politics and development” he emphatically says the one day I bumped into him on the streets. Around this time, in Hangzhou, China, he was serving on the Afro-China rural development forum. Proud holder of the 2010 Community Builder of the Year award and the 2017 MEC Special Lilizela award.
Nowadays his ambitions are cast towards establishing a community radio station set to broadcast across much of the Pixley ka Seme region. He’s met with the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) and has been allocated a frequency. Should he get his way, the station will be broadcast from the Love Life Youth Centre premises: 50% Xhosa, 40% Afrikaans and 10% English. The overaching goal is to establish some sort of rural media hub to allow aspirant writers, artists and creatives interested in media a sustainable platform. He also harbours a knack for writing, directing and producing plays, the latest of which has been commissioned by Second Chances, an NPO dealing with “battered children and abused women” which will be performed during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence in December.
In his days of drunken stupors he once chanced upon a function at the local community hall. He’d thought it was some sort of soiree, only to discover, much to his chagrin, that it was a religious gathering. He gave his life to Christ and has walked the straight and narrow as faithfully as he could ever since. Between his devotion to God, he also volunteers with Meals on Wheels an organisation that “aims to feed the poorest of the poor” throughout Colesberg. Their bakkie can often be seen serving up nutritious meals in some of the town’s most ravaged neighbourhoods. No insignificant feat in a town where many go to bed on a hungry stomach.
You need not look further than Ndi’s home, the former family shack at eMpolweni, to appreciate the immense strides he’s made. Gone are the zinc sheets, the tapers and smoke-filled interior. In their place a sprawling monstrosity of brick, mortar, sliding doors and a thoughtful Ndi, on his stoep, thinking up his next play or figuring out which powers that be to write to next.
Halalaaaa! Tata! Makwandeeeeeee….