Alice Ncube. This reflects the mixed population in Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality. I soon observed some racial divides that emerged because the university is bilingual: teaching and learning are conducted in English and Afrikaans, so the students are separated by language and therefore do not have time to socialize across language groups.
These racial divisions are still visible even today, though there are calls for transformation from tertiary study institutions in South Africa. I myself had no difficulty integrating into Mangaung society as my life revolved around the many foreigners that were close to me and a few locals, all of whom spoke the South African languages I understood very well: Ndebele, Xhosa, and Zulu.
I bought from shops owned by both migrants and hosts. I also bought products from multinational conglomerates like Pick and Pay, Woolworths, or Truworths—the shops that dominate the South African retail sector—as well as the shops owned by foreigners like food wholesalers, and got my hair done at foreign-owned hair salons Ghanaian, Zimbabwean, or Congolese.
My neighbor was a foreigner, I regularly dined at a restaurant whose wait staff was all foreign, attended church with a foreign pastor, and sat next to a foreign co-worker in school parent meetings. What struck me most was that there were so many of us foreigners in this town. It is against this background that I undertook this case study to establish the successes and the ongoing challenges of refugees and other migrants in Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality MMM of Free State Province.
For example, while it was easy for me to integrate, it was not easy for me to find primary schools for my children because most primary schools offer basic education only in Afrikaans. This report covers many areas of integration, from businesses, to schools, to social events. Bloemfontein is a host city and a point of onward migration along the Southern Africa route.
