"He died in Johannesburg while working there"
Well, I'm on leave at last, recovering from bronchitis that has left me with a cough that sounds like a dog's bark, three weeks later. The weather isn't too cold and I'm enjoying myself taking it easy, although I am not walking much. The bug I caught has made my heart race and my doctor told me to not to exert myself. I'm writing a bit and watch Magnum, PI DVDs a lot. I need to go for blood tests when the cough is gone so we can see if I can reduce my cortisone further. I shall be going to Surban on a conference at the end of July.
I've thought a lot about posting lately. I've wanted to post, but my country's going crazy and I haven't known what to say. You may have heard a few weeks back about our so-called "xenophobic" violence, where Africans from other countries in poor areas were singled out and robbed, beaten, raped and murdered. Fifty people were killed by mobs. We are going to be hosting the Soccer World Cup here in eighteen months, or so we think.
Fifty people were killed. I do not know the names of forty nine of them, including the one who was murdered in a township near where I work. The bloodshed has died down now and the story has slid off the front page, further and further back into the paper. Now the refugees (as the survivors are called) are living in insanitary conditions in refugee camps. Thousands are displaced. Many have fled back to their wretched and poverty struck lives in neighbouring countries, preferring that to living in fear here.
And our lives carry on. It's tough with the fuel hikes, food price hikes and the cost of electricity going up. So we all just keep trudging. But the poor are angry and as usual unheard. The refugees are still seeking refuge. And everyone, except evidently the government, seems to know that this xenophobia and violence is not new or unexpected at all. We are a violent country, so violent that we no longer pay attention when people are brutalised and killed.
I do not now who the other forty nine were. They have no names and no faces. But I do know the name and face of one. His face made the front pages all over the country when the mob burned him alive. I have a newpaper clipping of his story, which I've kept, although I didn't know him. His name was Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave. He was thirty five, married with a wife and three children. He came from Mozambique to seek work here. He could not have known, when he came, what his fate would be, but in his photograph, his eyes are those of a person who has suffered too much hardship. They do not hold much hope for the future. His face is thin. He hoped - or perhaps only wished - for better things here. He is known as "the burning man". He did not die until he got to hospital over an hour after they set him alight.
He should not be forgotten, but I fear he will be. The others already are.
I've thought a lot about posting lately. I've wanted to post, but my country's going crazy and I haven't known what to say. You may have heard a few weeks back about our so-called "xenophobic" violence, where Africans from other countries in poor areas were singled out and robbed, beaten, raped and murdered. Fifty people were killed by mobs. We are going to be hosting the Soccer World Cup here in eighteen months, or so we think.
Fifty people were killed. I do not know the names of forty nine of them, including the one who was murdered in a township near where I work. The bloodshed has died down now and the story has slid off the front page, further and further back into the paper. Now the refugees (as the survivors are called) are living in insanitary conditions in refugee camps. Thousands are displaced. Many have fled back to their wretched and poverty struck lives in neighbouring countries, preferring that to living in fear here.
And our lives carry on. It's tough with the fuel hikes, food price hikes and the cost of electricity going up. So we all just keep trudging. But the poor are angry and as usual unheard. The refugees are still seeking refuge. And everyone, except evidently the government, seems to know that this xenophobia and violence is not new or unexpected at all. We are a violent country, so violent that we no longer pay attention when people are brutalised and killed.
I do not now who the other forty nine were. They have no names and no faces. But I do know the name and face of one. His face made the front pages all over the country when the mob burned him alive. I have a newpaper clipping of his story, which I've kept, although I didn't know him. His name was Ernesto Alfabeto Nhamuave. He was thirty five, married with a wife and three children. He came from Mozambique to seek work here. He could not have known, when he came, what his fate would be, but in his photograph, his eyes are those of a person who has suffered too much hardship. They do not hold much hope for the future. His face is thin. He hoped - or perhaps only wished - for better things here. He is known as "the burning man". He did not die until he got to hospital over an hour after they set him alight.
He should not be forgotten, but I fear he will be. The others already are.