JABULANI SIKHAKHANE: Commuting from former homelands takes almost unbearable toll
High cost of travelling, in money, health and sleep, to and from work is tragedy of postapartheid SA
14 May 2025 - 05:00
Almost 40 years ago, The New York Times’ London bureau chief (and later the paper’s executive editor), Joseph Lelyveld, described the agony of “a nation of sleepwalkers”, a reference to KwaNdebele homeland workers, who travelled up to 305km each day to and from work in what was then white SA.
Almost 40 years later, there are still sleepwalkers who carry the same heavy toll of financial costs, poor health (insomnia, stress, impaired mental activity, which raises the risk of accidents at work) and nonexistent family life...
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