Word: olebogeng
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...packed for the trip home, Olebogeng looked around his dorm room, an 18-ft.-sq. space, lit by a single bulb, which he shares with 19 others. A coal-burning stove provides the only heat in winter and helps dry the rows of fetid clothes that hang on string lines. The miners sleep on pads on top of grimy two-level cement-slab bunks and store their possessions in small wooden lockers. One of Olebogeng's roommates was still there, packing T shirts for his two young daughters. "I'm gone so much, I'm surprised they recognize me," said...
...vinyl suitcase stuffed with clothes and stereo tapes, Olebogeng planned to take the train home on Wednesday. But pay in hand and spirits high, he went out for a final fling with a friend and wound up missing his connection. The next day, nursing a hangover, he hitched an automobile ride with a black driver. For 300 miles, he rode through the scrub veld of the western Transvaal, past parched cornfields and through conservative Afrikaner towns...
...late afternoon, Olebogeng arrived in Ganyesa, a collection of mud-brick huts about a mile from the highway. Outside one meticulously maintained house stood Selena, Olebogeng's mother. He shook her hand, kissed his sister and playfully cuffed the ears of two younger brothers. Two other brothers who also work as miners were expected at any moment. His father was still in the fields, but neighbors flocked to greet Vincent. "You don't write, and you don't send money," said his beaming mother in mock irritation. "I should be angry, but you're tired, and I'm glad...
...Olebogeng will stay for three months, building a fence for his parents and doing other chores; he hopes that someday they will have a few luxuries, like electricity or running water or an indoor toilet. He will also court his girlfriend Mary. "I miss her all the time, but I can't help being away," he said. "I have to work." Nervous about what to buy her for Christmas, he promised to take her to the nearest town, more than 40 miles away, and let her select a gift...
Before he did anything else, however, Olebogeng had to give his father the present that made his year in the mines bearable: his savings of 1,010 rand ($450). "Pick a goat," he said with glee, anticipating the feast to come. Meanwhile, his brother James, 13, popped a cassette into Vincent's battery- powered stereo. The sounds of the Isilingo Soul Brothers wafted over the plain. Vincent Olebogeng was home, and Durban Deep seemed very far away...