'I'd rather go and die at home than die in Johannesburg. I had been stuck here working but I got retrenched during lockdown. I'm returning to my home village,' said Mathibela.
The taxi driver was as cool as a cucumber. It was early on Tuesday morning at the Daveyton taxi rank in Ekurhuleni as passengers filed into his minibus as taxi operators started defying the government's interprovincial travel restrictions.All 10 passengers who were already seated inside the taxi were equally relaxed.
The common feature was the heavy travel bags they were carrying and the protective masks which partly covered their faces as the taxi took off to begin its long-distance journey of over 300km to Thulamahashe in Mpumalanga. The taxi cut through the township onto the Delmas road. There was no sign of police as Sowetan followed it from the minibus depot to the Middelburg toll plaza along the N4 highway, about 310km from Johannesburg.
Even so, the driver chose a remote route to avoid bumping into a police roadblock on the N4. He steered through the misty Delmas road leading to Emalahleni before reconnecting to the N4 highway again.
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