HIS hands are his shop. They are loaded with plastic bags full of sweets, chips, boxes of biscuits and soft drinks.
"Hi mami, ke tshwere di sweets kamo . ke na le ntho tsa o tlosa lenyora . "
Sibulelo Mxiki, 31, moves swiftly among commuters seated in the half-full carriage as the train slithers away from the platform at Johannesburg's Park Station.
He whistles as he continues to call out, enticing commuters to buy from his mobile shop.
He looks like a streetwise urban youth - in black takkies, jeans, checked shirt and cap.
It's hard work, which starts at 4am and doesn't end until 13 hours later when he retires to his home in Protea Glen, Soweto.
It's dangerous work too, with the risk of slipping under the massive wheels of the moving beasts ever present as he has to disembark while the train is still in motion to catch rushing commuters.
But if he doesn't do it, he and his seven dependents will starve.
According to the South African Railway State of Safety Report released by the Railway Safety Regulator for April 2013 to March this year, a total of 588 people were killed as a result of railway incidents and 1498 injured.
Katlego Mboka, 20, a former train vendor, was lucky to escape with his life when, during his regular rounds four years ago, he slipped.
"I was moving from carriage to carriage as usual, selling my merchandise. As I was about to move to the next carriage, I realised the door was locked. I slipped and fell under the train," Mboka says.
"I couldn't feel anything. All I could hear were people screaming, and their screams somehow faded."
He woke up in hospital a day later and was not aware that his legs were amputated from the knee down. "I wanted to get off my bed and go home to my mom, and I tried to lift my legs. That's when a doctor came in to calm me down."
Until then, he was a pupil who hustled on the trains to support himself and his unemployed mother.
But that slip changed all that and today he's a depressed man who spends his days in a wheelchair. He has never been on a train since. The accident, however, has not paralysed his entrepreneurial spirit. He is now a hawker at Naledi train station.
But while Mboka looks back on what once was, Mxiki, like thousands of others who are trying to escape the country's high unemployment rate (25.4%), continues to risk life and limb selling on trains.
"I spend the whole day in trains. I hardly have time to eat. If you want to make it, you have to be constantly on your feet and you have to talk to people," he says.
"The only time I take a break is to smoke while waiting for a train and chat to other vendors about how business is going."
He was convicted for shoplifting when he was 16, a nightmare that saw him struggle to find a job .
And so he resorted to the trains.
He operates on the busy Johannesburg to Vereeniging route, making about R160 profit daily. Every day he needs R300 to buy stock and save towards his monthly train ticket of R450. Mboka offers a word of caution to those like Mxiki who rely on the trains for a living.
"I hope other train vendors can learn from my situation, hopping between carriages while the train is moving is dangerous."
ntsambab@sowetan.co.za
For more stories like this one, be sure to buy the Sowetan newspaper from Mondays to Fridays
Daring death for a living on the railway tracks - a total of 588 killed in a year
HIS hands are his shop. They are loaded with plastic bags full of sweets, chips, boxes of biscuits and soft drinks.
"Hi mami, ke tshwere di sweets kamo . ke na le ntho tsa o tlosa lenyora . "
Sibulelo Mxiki, 31, moves swiftly among commuters seated in the half-full carriage as the train slithers away from the platform at Johannesburg's Park Station.
He whistles as he continues to call out, enticing commuters to buy from his mobile shop.
He looks like a streetwise urban youth - in black takkies, jeans, checked shirt and cap.
It's hard work, which starts at 4am and doesn't end until 13 hours later when he retires to his home in Protea Glen, Soweto.
It's dangerous work too, with the risk of slipping under the massive wheels of the moving beasts ever present as he has to disembark while the train is still in motion to catch rushing commuters.
But if he doesn't do it, he and his seven dependents will starve.
According to the South African Railway State of Safety Report released by the Railway Safety Regulator for April 2013 to March this year, a total of 588 people were killed as a result of railway incidents and 1498 injured.
Katlego Mboka, 20, a former train vendor, was lucky to escape with his life when, during his regular rounds four years ago, he slipped.
"I was moving from carriage to carriage as usual, selling my merchandise. As I was about to move to the next carriage, I realised the door was locked. I slipped and fell under the train," Mboka says.
"I couldn't feel anything. All I could hear were people screaming, and their screams somehow faded."
He woke up in hospital a day later and was not aware that his legs were amputated from the knee down. "I wanted to get off my bed and go home to my mom, and I tried to lift my legs. That's when a doctor came in to calm me down."
Until then, he was a pupil who hustled on the trains to support himself and his unemployed mother.
But that slip changed all that and today he's a depressed man who spends his days in a wheelchair. He has never been on a train since. The accident, however, has not paralysed his entrepreneurial spirit. He is now a hawker at Naledi train station.
But while Mboka looks back on what once was, Mxiki, like thousands of others who are trying to escape the country's high unemployment rate (25.4%), continues to risk life and limb selling on trains.
"I spend the whole day in trains. I hardly have time to eat. If you want to make it, you have to be constantly on your feet and you have to talk to people," he says.
"The only time I take a break is to smoke while waiting for a train and chat to other vendors about how business is going."
He was convicted for shoplifting when he was 16, a nightmare that saw him struggle to find a job .
And so he resorted to the trains.
He operates on the busy Johannesburg to Vereeniging route, making about R160 profit daily. Every day he needs R300 to buy stock and save towards his monthly train ticket of R450. Mboka offers a word of caution to those like Mxiki who rely on the trains for a living.
"I hope other train vendors can learn from my situation, hopping between carriages while the train is moving is dangerous."
ntsambab@sowetan.co.za
For more stories like this one, be sure to buy the Sowetan newspaper from Mondays to Fridays
Would you like to comment on this article?
Register (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Trending
Latest Videos