The Venda have a proverb for those who always seek their own paths; Madzuli, one who is not content with ploughing the fields of others. Madzuli, a first year politics major, must have had prophets for parents, because her entire year has been a constant search for her own ‘field to plough.’

Madzuli’s search for fertile soil began as soon as she reached Grahamstown. She found herself in a strange town with very little money and no residence allocation because she was, in fact, not a student as yet; she was on the waiting list. “Then a lady from the township offered me her keys and directions to her house in the location,” she says. This location house would become Madzuli’s home for the next three months.

Living in the location and being a Rhodes student has its cons, as Madzuli would soon learn. “I missed most of O-week because I did not know about the Oppi-bus” she says, and continues to explain that her troubles did not end when she eventually knew about the bus “I’d have to wait at least an hour for it to arrive in the location and it would take everybody home and then end with me. As though I was not as good as other people,” she says.

Being Venda in a Xhosa house-hold was not always easy, either. “She would blame everything I did wrong on my culture ‘maybe this is how you do it in Venda, she would say’ and swear at me in Xhosa because I could not understand.” Madzuli says even bringing friends over would be a problem, as the woman could not understand why she (Madzuli) was taking friends into her bedroom, “she would shout at me all the time, and I can’t swear at an adult” she says, indignantly “especially because she was giving me a place to stay.”

So she moved to digs; Beurtfort Street and for the first time, the bus would arrive as soon as she called for it and she was amongst the first to be delivered home. For a thousand rands a month, it would have been worth it, had the place not been dirty and rat infested. It was so bad, Madzuli dreaded bringing friends over “They would say, ‘Oh Maludzi, your house is so dirty’ and talk about me behind my back.” In fact, it was the rats the lead to her eventual departure from this second house; a rat crept on to her bed and though she screamed as hard as she could, no one came to her aid. “Venda is not a dirty place and I could not continue paying R1000 to live in a dirty place where I could get raped and no one would know,” she says; her face tense with emotion.

Much to her family’s mortification, Madzuli moved to her third house; a dilapidated RDP house in a notoriously dangerous area in the township. She moved to Extension six. Her Rhodes friends feared for her safety, even the Rhode-trip drivers who dropped her off at night were hesitant to leave. “I do agree, the house was not liveable and it was in a notorious area, but I felt safe. I never felt the danger.” Her township friends helped her with the reparations; installing doors and windows. “We had fun fixing it,” she says, smiling warmly. “I was not scared because I had chosen to be there.”

“Living in the location gave me status, it was as though people looked up to me, as though I gave them hope,” Madzuli says the she became a part of the community and when, one night someone knocked on her door, she dialled her neighbour’s number. “The police would take too long and my neighbour was right next door,” she says. “When you live with them you become one of them,” she says, explaining her relationship with the community.

However, Madzuli would soon learn that being a part of a community means sharing a part in its problems, its struggles. “People seem to think you have money because you are at Rhodes, make you feel like you owe them,” she says people would constantly ask her for money. “Where I’m from people never go without food, so seeing the poverty would make me cry.”

It was the language barrier that would make Madzuli, six months later, move to her next house. “One night, another girl had her door kicked down and she screamed for an hour, I didn’t realize that she was in trouble because she was screaming for help in Xhosa,” Madzuli says this incident led her to question her own safety. “What if I scream but don’t scream in Xhosa? What if I scream in Venda and people don’t know?” All the fears people had instilled in her began to surface and Madzuli was, again forced to move.

“I moved to a residence up the hill; Kimberley,” and although her heater does not work and her friends refuse to visit because it is too far, Madzuli says she is happy. “I wanted a single room and I got it, I love my freedom, my space.”