LISAKHANYA NDWAYI and
MIKE LOEWE
He pounds the pavement. He has done so for decades.
He is a life clock for people who measure the lives of their children by the metronome of his running.
“I watched my children growing up, measuring their lives against when I first saw him running that pedestrian path and pavement into Gonubie,” one commuter said.
Hundreds have watched this gent in takkies and tracksuits, his dreads coiled under a colourful doek, running, always running.
People said that if they saw him at a certain spot along the Gonubie incoming Main Road, they knew they were late.
He is tall and dignified. And he is humble. But who is he?
He became such a mystery that members of the public started giving him nicknames — Running Rasta, Running Man, Joseph with his bright gear.
But his identity and story remained a total enigma.
Finally, a commuter could take it no longer and called the paper asking us to track him down.
We put out feelers and … silence.
Within days, our tipster spotted him and in an excited scramble took grainy pictures through her car windscreen.
We posted the pic on Nubians, the go-to Facebook group for people of Gonubie, and asked: “Who is this fine fella?”
The information gates flew open unleashing a welter of 98 comments, 130 likes, 49 hearts, 19 “I care” and two “wows”. (See comments below).
His employer, Carolyn Rogers, owner of supplier Works Africa, came into the picture and soon we were connected with the running man.
He is Sango Dyaphi, 44 — and he lives in a shack — one of more than 1,000 in Nompumelelo township, Beacon Bay.
He told us that he has been running to work in suburban gardens for 24 years.
The discipline, determination and effort observed by curious commuters translates into the work he puts into those gardens. They are immaculate — and his topiary sculptures are mostly all his own creation.
His life as a gardener was born out of necessity. He was born in rural Mfezane and the family moved to Potsdam where he went to school. But tragedy struck and his mother died leaving him and his older brother having to bring in income.
The brothers became freelance gardeners.
Calamity struck again.
His older brother, Joel, injured his neck in a rugby match and it was up to Sango to take over his jobs.
He said he arrived at the Rogers’ home and had to explain that he arrived to work in his brother’s place.
Carolyn Rogers accepted the situation, he said, and “that’s when my running journey began, in 2002. Ndandi ngenayo imali yoku khwela itaxi (I did not have the money to get into a taxi)”.
In a startling revelation, Sango said sport was never his thing as a teen and he only played soccer and did a little bit of low-key running because his friends did it.
But there was this really amazing woman athlete he admired on TV she was “running and running”.
He does not know her name, but the idea sprang up in his mind that he too had to run.
Everywhere.
“I wanted to be like her, but coming from intsokolo (a poor home), I couldn’t fully pursue those dreams.”
In 2021, he turned 40 and his shoulders and a knee hurt.
Rogers took him for a medical examination. The doctor blamed his school-styled pack which he filled with his work clothes.
They were straining his shoulders.
This was no surprise considering he was running around 20km a day, 120km in a six day week, 5,800km a year. We did a rough calculation and he has probably run 138,000km in this period — about three and a half times around Earth.
He realised the problem was the gym he was doing at home, lifting his homemade cement-in-paint tin dumbbells while doing squats. He was overdoing it.
He had started the DIY crossover training to improve his endurance strength for his running.
Although he is a stickler for being on time, he says he was never much of a time keeper on his runs.
Instead, he measured the journey by instinct: “I just know that it takes an hour to get to work in Gonubie”.
He keeps that pace simply out of an intuitive, imprinted body clock.
Nutrition, a science among runners, was self-gained.
“I take a spoon of honey in the morning and two raw eggs.”
As the years on the road passed, he came to see himself as a long-distance athlete, though he has yet to run a formal marathon.
He hopes it will happen.
People started to hoot in recognition, or greet him with waves and smiles.
Some even stopped and offered to help him get into a race, but it never panned out.
The most unfailing support he received was from Rogers who kept him in new takkies up to softshells when it rains.
He has also had mishaps. He was hit by a car in Nahoon which kept going, which so incensed a witness — “a white lady” — that she raced away, cut the offender off and demanded they take the running man to hospital.
And this happened.
“The car went off the road and hit me where I was running on the pavement.
“When I tried getting up I was dizzy but the white lady told me that I must refuse to be left there.
“They must take me to the hospital.”
Rogers praised him saying he was independent, proactive, and reliable.
“Patrick is the type of person I leave. I don’t have to manage him. I don’t tell him a thing.
“He gets stuck in, and sees what needs to be done. He just takes control.
“You must see my beautiful garden! Patrick just comes in, and works his magic. He’s extremely neat and extremely hard working.”
He says running is spiritual.
“I do not run just for the physical movement. This is my time to reflect on my problems, the solutions and what I want to do in my life.
“Running is a source of inzolo (peace), and a way to strengthen my resolve, my discipline and keep fuelling my journey,” Dyaphi said.
Keep on, Running Man, we are with you in spirit.
Call Sango Dyaphi on 078-908-2799
