Publications
Partners
Clinton Chauke was raised in a remote village next to the Kruger National Park and in a squatter camp outside Pretoria.
He rejects the concept that he was ‘born free’, arguing that many of his generation are anything but free.
In this edited extract from his book, he talks about one of the most pivotal moments of his life - the day his family’s rondavel burnt down
Born in Chains: The Diary of an Angry Born-Free
by Clinton Chauke
Jonathan Ball Publishers
R210
During the summer, we would often have extremely hot, sunny days. I would pour water into the container we used for bathing and leave it in the sun.
When it was time to bath, the water would be as warm as I liked it to be.
That way, I could avoid going into the kitchen, which was terribly hot.
Each and every day, we endured the struggle of life in the village. With our parents 500km away, life was not easy. Things reached a climax when our rondavel house was burnt to ashes.
Normally, we would sit around the fire in the kitchen until it was time for us to go to sleep.
Despite our economic hardships, we lived lives filled with humour, warmth and love. There was no TV or radio. We would sing songs and play games. Katekani was our storyteller. We called her Garingani (Narrator).
She would begin her storytelling by saying “Garingani, N’wa-Garingani! [I am Narrator, daughter of Narrator!]”, after which we would cheer, “Garingani!”
We would cheer her name after each line of the story, until the story’s end. We would tease one another, all four of us, my two sisters and our guardian.
In winter, we bonded by playing while consuming the huge stockpile of firewood that my mother had left when she had gone to Pretoria.
Shortly after my mother left for Pretoria came the nightmare night in 2003, my earliest vivid memory.
I will never forget that night. We had gone to sleep very early. I remember waking to huge confusion, filled with smoke and fire.
I am the one who first noticed that the house that we were sleeping in was, in fact, on fire. I started screaming and shouting, waking my sisters and our guardian, Katekani. I shouted for help from our neighbour: “Hahani Mavis! Hahani Mavis! Yindlu yatshwa! Ha fa! [Aunt Mavis! Aunt Mavis! The house is burning! We are dying!]”
We were colliding with each other trying to escape. When Katekani reached for the door, for a moment we thought it had been locked from the outside. Luckily, it had just jammed, so we pushed it open and escaped.
Our house was burning down before us. By the time the neighbours arrived, the thatched roof had crashed in, showering sparks. I remember us being outside in the deep of night in our underwear, crying at the tops of our voices.
The neighbours stood around, watching the roof timbers and thatch, which my parents had collected by hand over many months, burn to the ground in an instant.
Everything burnt inside that rondavel. We were devastated.
The whole village was shocked by the tragedy, but everyone was happy that no life had been lost and no one had been hurt.
What the villagers did not know was how hurt we were mentally.
They did not know that we would bear the scar for a lifetime; the tragedy would haunt us for years to come.
For anyone who has never lived in a village, one thing I can tell you is that news travels faster than the speed of light. From Anyusitandi Ya Le Danwini to Anyusitandi Ya Le Masirheni, everybody knew about the fire.
By the next morning, my mother already knew what had transpired at her house. She was devastated.
There she was, among the shacks, trying to provide for her children and, in an instant, as far as she knew, all her children were dead. I assume the thought of committing suicide came to her.
Later that day, someone more mature explained to her that no one had died, but the house had burnt down. She breathed a sigh of relief. My uncle, who stayed in the township where I was born, transported both of my parents back home.
We did get support from family and friends from near and far. People of goodwill donated blankets and clothes to cover the damage.
This was real communism, not the individualism, celebrated in the urban areas that eventually leads to the capitalist approach in government.
Life had to go on. The cause of the tragedy – who started the fire – remains a mystery to this day. It was a time of despair for all of us. We didn’t know how to go on.
But the struggle had to go on. I remember walking to school barefoot for almost three weeks. The sun did not help: the ground was very hot, and I had to endure the pain. But most children walked barefoot to school. I was now one of them.
A few weeks later, my parents had to go back to Pretoria. I felt a little bit bitter about their leaving us behind in the midst of a trauma.
We began to go downhill psychologically. After the fire, I remember social workers starting to come to our house. We would come home from school sometimes to find them talking to our guardian.
They would look at us, and everything around us, as if we were orphans. They would ask a lot of questions.
They worked with us to deal with the trauma that we were going through.
Some of the small-minded neighbours criticised my mother for moving to the city. Their argument was that it was milk and honey for my mother, while we were drowning in poverty.
I heard one of the neighbours say: “Va nga famba va ya joni va siya vana mara? [How could she go to Gauteng and leave her children?]”
We had now moved into the rondavel kitchen. The once-upon-a-very-short-time bedroom had now become a kitchen without a roof, for it had burnt down. We were, indeed, drowning in poverty.
Our family was so poor that we ate majakiti, which was basically fried grass, and guxe or thelele which, on the surface, looked like mucus.
Don’t get me wrong, this type of food was, and still is, nice, but the problem is that we ate it repeatedly – to a point at which we lost our appetite.
