A Sepedi adage says “Mmago ngwana o swara thipa ka bogaleng”. It means that a woman would do anything to protect her child, even if it means blocking the sharp end of an attacker’s knife.
This is evident in the stories of women from the Marikana informal settlement in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng. They carry the burden of survival and raising children amid abuse, violence as well as high unemployment, poverty and lack of basic municipal services such as healthcare.
In the midst of the numerous struggles, the women of Marikana find ways to overcome, to build, to nurture and sometimes to thrive.
The CONNECT Parent Intervention project, which assists parents and caregivers who raise children with emotional and behavourial problems, recently facilitated a writing project to enable the women to share their life histories, fears, hopes, aspirations and experiences of parenting in challenging circumstances.
I was born in a small town called uMzimkhulu, in KwaZulu-Natal. I was born in 1977. I come from a small family of five. It is myself, my mother, father and my two brothers. I am the eldest child. I had a good childhood, and grew up well.
I grew up herding my father’s cattle and sheep. My brothers and I used to ride horses to gather my father’s livestock. We helped each other in doing this work because my father only came home once a year. He spent all his time working at a coal mine in Witbank. My mother was a seamstress, and she had a vegetable garden. We also helped her by fetching the water to irrigate the plants.
Unlike my brothers, I did not get the opportunity to get an education because I left school while I was still in grade 6. Moreover, I was much older when I started school. My father had a nonsensical belief that a girl does not go to school, she gets married. She does not go looking for a job, her husband will provide for her.
My father made an autocratic decision. He brought a man he said would be my husband and forcibly had me married to this man. That man was 45 years old, and I was only 17 at the time. That was in 1993. I wished to kill myself or run away from home.
Upon hearing the news that my father was forcing me into marriage; my mother had a stroke and died. My father was not in the least moved by my mother’s death. Immediately after my mother’s funeral, he went ahead with the lobolo negotiations.
A dowry of 11 cows and one horse.
Once the negotiations were concluded, I was taken to my in-laws’ home and we had a traditional wedding ceremony. There is not even a single thing that I can say was pleasing to me in that home because I was just like a slave for the family. I lived with my mother-in-law and this man. My mother-in-law was bedridden and could not walk. It was my job to take care of her.
I stayed in that marriage and had my first child in 1997. It was a boy. The man was very happy with his child. Life continued but I never loved that man. I resented even the slightest thing about him, but I continued staying in that marriage. I stayed because I had nowhere else to go.
In 2003, I had another child, it was a girl. I told myself I would not raise her the way I was raised. I told myself I wanted her to be educated and liberated. I am grateful to my Creator for fulfilling my dream. My daughter is educated. She is in her third year of higher education, studying engineering.
When my second child was three years old, the father of my children started drinking. He went deep into heavy drinking. He would return home raging with violence. He would get me and the children to wake up in the middle of the night. He would call me all sorts of hurtful names.
“You are nothing without me,” he would tell me.
One day, I hit him on the chest with a laundry iron – the old, heavy coal stove one – he fell and started convulsing. I got frightened thinking I had killed him. I realised that I would eventually kill him, get arrested and be separated from my children. I decided that it was best for me to leave.
In 2010, I started realising that there was nothing worth staying for in that marriage. I stole his money and ran away with my children. I came to Springs, Gauteng, in search of greener pastures. A woman who was a neighbour’s sister from back home had a tavern in Springs. We stayed with her when we arrived. Fortunately, in February 2010, I got employed by Tammy Carlson to work at a gym called Flex Appeal Gym in Selcourt.
She trained me to become a gym instructor and administrator for the gym. Tammy paid for my children’s school and creche fees. She gave me a place to stay at the back of her house because I did not have a place to stay in Johannesburg. That white woman really changed my life. She made me see myself as a person, my self-confidence started returning, and I started developing hope for my life.
I am now in a relationship with someone else. But I told myself I do not want to get married ever again. My partner knows that I do not want him to raise his voice when he is talking to me because that triggers my rage.
My anger does not really affect my children. We have peace in the house.
If I had an opportunity to study, I would become a lawyer and fight against all the bad things that happen to young girls. I would fight for the dignity of women and children. I would fight the men who enforce oppressive laws that trample on the dignity of women and girls in SA.
- Sithelo's story is part of Through the storms: Stories of our resilience – a collaboration with the Centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg and Kids Haven Child and Youth Care Centre
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