{"id":8593,"date":"2015-04-17T09:49:55","date_gmt":"2015-04-17T07:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/responsive.jozikids.co.za\/zaparents\/?p=8593"},"modified":"2022-06-08T20:50:37","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T18:50:37","slug":"i-dont-understand-what-my-family-has-done-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jozikids.co.za\/blog\/lifestyle\/poverty\/i-dont-understand-what-my-family-has-done-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"I don\u2019t understand what my family has done wrong."},"content":{"rendered":"
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AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL SOUTH AFRICANS<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

My name is Danai Pachedu and I am 11-years-old. For the past two weeks my life has changed.<\/p>\n

I have been scared to go to the shops because people may recognise me. I have stopped speaking Shona in public or too loudly at home because I might be recognised and our house identified.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t go to the park to play anymore because I might not come back if someone recognises me. I spend most of my time inside our yard or at my private school because I am afraid to go anywhere and be recognised.<\/p>\n

I hear other children outside our yard laughing and speaking loudly to their parents in foreign languages because they are not afraid.<\/p>\n

Some of those children are Portuguese, Jewish, Chinese, Pakistani, Lebanese and Italian but they are not afraid; they are free.<\/p>\n

I however, am afraid and don\u2019t feel free.<\/p>\n

I am still lucky because sometimes people think I am \u201cSouth African\u201d.<\/p>\n

Strange to me, because I am South African or aren\u2019t I? Maluti, my brother is not so \u201clucky\u201d. Most people think he is West African. They will easily smell him out, they will definitely recognise him. So lately he also doesn\u2019t go to the shops or to play in the park anymore.<\/p>\n

Maluti has been wondering if he should continue to ride his bicycle to the gym or go and practise his soccer at a local ground anymore because he is scared of what they will do to him if they recognise him.<\/p>\n

Maluti doesn\u2019t look 16, he looks like one of those guys that work daily for so little in the restaurants, they might think he is stealing their jobs, so he is also scared. Maluti is a little bit lucky because he doesn\u2019t have to worry about speaking Shona, he is so bad at Shona in any case that my mum says if he speaks Shona at the Zimbabwean border they will definitely deport him back to South Africa, Eish.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I don\u2019t know which is worse, his Shona or his Zulu but what I know is either way, they will smell him out.<\/p>\n

Then there is my Aunt Alice, she helps us in the house. My mother brought her so that she can assist us with our Shona and the Shona culture. She is so Shona, if it was anywhere else she would be a treasure but here in South Africa, she will definitely be recognised.<\/p>\n

She carries her permit everywhere, but I don\u2019t think that will help, she always sticks out like a sore thumb. Even the police don\u2019t recognise that permit anyway because every month she tells me that she has to put aside R400 to bribe the police not to deport her.<\/p>\n

Lately she has taken to skin lighteners so that she can blend in. I am not sure that this has worked, she still smells like a Shona and will still be recognised. She is petrified but has no choice, she must come to work.<\/p>\n

I am worried about my parents. My mother despite being in South Africa since before 1994 is Shona, they will recognise her. She has to carry her South African Identity document everywhere but that doesn\u2019t help either because many a times, she has been accused of forging it. When I am at school I worry that she might forget and speak with a Shona accent or say her surname to someone and give herself away.<\/p>\n

My dad is a bit lucky; he works in the northern suburbs and they won\u2019t go there. It\u2019s my mum and the other people that work in our small shop, in Chinese shops, as domestic workers and in restaurants where they earn less than R1500, that they will be targeted. I am told they are stealing South African jobs. I don\u2019t understand that? Why don\u2019t they punish the people who give them jobs or are they scared of them?<\/p>\n

Are the Portuguese, Jewish, Chinese, Pakistanis, Lebanese and Italians not stealing South African jobs or are they scared of them? My parents have worked tirelessly for nine years to make our small shop work. The shop is my mother\u2019s pride and she goes there every day. That shop which has been a blessing, I am afraid will bring us problems.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t miss that shop it\u2019s so recognisable. I wish we didn\u2019t need the money from that shop, now I believe we might die because of that shop. The problem is I can\u2019t relax because I don\u2019t know when I, or my family, will be recognised.<\/p>\n

I also don\u2019t understand what my family has done wrong, or what my Aunt Alice, the shop workers, the waiters have all done wrong. I am scared that if they recognise us, they will petrol bomb our shop, kick us out of our house and kill us. I, at least can run and hide in our suburban house. But what if they catch my Aunt or the 85-year-old Malawian man who has been in South Africa since he was 25-years-old or my cousin Tarisai who works 14 hours a day every day to survive; they have really done nothing to anyone.<\/p>\n

I have seen videos of what they can do to \u201cforeigners\u201d. I am scared that no one wants to protect us, not the police and not the government, they will just put us in tents in a football field and justify that we are involved in crimes. The majority of the South African citizens don\u2019t seem to care; they won\u2019t speak up for us. The majority of citizens and our neighbours don\u2019t want to get involved, some of them seem to also think we should be recognised and \u201cdealt\u201d with.<\/p>\n

I am worried that it\u2019s just a matter of time before all \u201cnational foreigners or is it foreign nationals\u201d are recognised and killed. The world doesn\u2019t care; we are not Charlie Hebdo, not American, not European nor Chinese nationals.<\/p>\n

We are KWEREKWERES. I wonder where we will go when the time comes. Maluti and I were born in South Africa; we have never lived anywhere else.<\/p>\n

\u00a0My mum and dad have been in South Africa for more than 20 years and they are \u201ccitizens\u201d, basically all their adult life has been in South Africa. My Aunt Alice is just trying to survive and she hasn\u2019t committed a crime. The workers at our shop have never hurt anyone and mum says she keeps them because they are prepared to work and cook Shona meals.<\/p>\n

They are good people and they don\u2019t commit any crimes. I am scared that one day, I and my fellow KWEREKWERES will be beaten to death or doused with petrol and burnt alive for being KWEREKWERES. That we won\u2019t be given a chance to show our ID, that even an ID won\u2019t save us.<\/p>\n

That, when the day comes our only crime will be that we are RECOGNISED as KWEREKWERES and don\u2019t deserve to be treated like human beings least of all as fellow South Africans or Africans.<\/p>\n

Every night I listen to my parents speak into the early hours of where we can run to. Maybe New Zealand, Australia or Canada, they take professionals there I believe. But I am scared of this as well. I will miss my friends, my school, my home and my country and there I will definitely be \u201ca national foreigner or a foreign national\u201d.<\/p>\n

Some say we should go back to Zimbabwe? Where will my parents start after 23 years of absence, where will Aunty Alice get money to feed her family, where will our workers start? What will Maluti do, he can\u2019t even speak Shona, and doesn\u2019t even like being in Zimbabwe because he says he can\u2019t identify with anything there, well neither can I. Will I ever be considered South African or a fellow human being? I wonder why my \u201cSouth African\u201d brothers and sisters don\u2019t like me so much and yet they are happy to embrace the Portuguese, Jewish, Chinese, Pakistanis, Lebanese, Italians, anything but African.<\/p>\n

After all we all know they have more money than the poor Africans, bigger shops. Will I ever stop feeling scared of my fellow countrymen? Most importantly, are you all going to turn a blind eye, while innocent people are killed, their only crime being that they are KWEREKWERE and are doing their best to survive and feed their families.<\/p>\n

Must a Portuguese from Portugal, Jewish from Israel, Chinese from China, Pakistan, Lebanese, Italian, European or American be killed first before we speak out? My name is Danai Pachedu, Je suis KWEREKWERE. Xenophobia a ticking time bomb.<\/p>\n

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