Homegrown Hero

We follow the Springboks on their trophy tour to captain Siya Kolisi’s Eastern Cape hometown, where neighbours are brimming with pride

- Pieter Van Zyl

WOOD fires are burning in Zwide, the township between Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage along the R75, as they do every Sunday morning.

The smell of dozens of braais wafts in the wind and traders are doing a brisk trade selling meat and pap to passersby.

But this morning is a special one – a very special one. Zwide’s most famous and celebrated son is returning to the place of his birth and the residents are out in full force to welcome him.

Nine-year-old Elam Silinga waits at the fence of his parents’ home in Njoli Way to catch a glimpse of captain Siyam Thanda Kolisi and his fellow Boks in their open-top double-decker bus.

The little boy is wearing a Bok jersey and is crazy about soccer and rugby, his taxi driver dad, Temba, says.

“It means a lot to us that the Springboks won with Siya as their leader,” Temba adds. “To those of us who were born and grew up here, it means opportunity. It means Elam can be anything he wants to be.”

Next door is Ace’s Tavern, where people have been hanging around with quarts of cider or zamalek – Black Label beer – since around 11am. Church services have ended early this Sunday.

Waves of people flow through the narrow streets to the bigger roads the Springboks will be travelling along during this especially poignant leg of their victory tour.

“I’m looking after the visitors here today,” Siza Galama tells us in front of Ace’s. He introduces us to Ntombenani Ndzini and her five-year-old twins, Lungiswa and Indiphilile. The trio had to take three taxis from Uitenhage to see their hero on his home ground.

The Alting family have come from Kragga Kamma near the road to Humansdorp as a kind of pilgrimage.

“We were exactly in this spot when we came to see the Boks in their bus after they won the World Cup in 2007,” Haley Alting says.