The little Citizen

Today the story of Losanda resonates with me; he is the little boy many Johannesburg newspapers refer to as “the boy with no identity”. I find this statement crude because he is but a child in a situation that he did not ask for and does not understand.

He has no family and has been abandoned since he was a toddler by a mother looking for better opportunities and greener pastures. His infant years he has spent travelling from house to house and for the last two years he finds himself home with Lucy Sello a pensioner from Slovoville.

He has no birth certificate and the women who brought him to the outskirt of rural Guateng has been deceased for the last two year. No one knows the origin of the Xhosa-Sotho speaking little boy and government officials are refusing to give him a birth certificate or recognise him as a citizen of this country.

It saddens me that our South African social security system is failing him and the many other little boys and girls that are out there in similar situations. It anger me that our country can spend millions on political campaigns and lush street parties, leaving women like Lucy Sello destitute and fighting a system they had no hand in creating.

I have been fortunate to meet this Gogo and what a remarkable women she is, reminding Losanda that he is not a subject nor is he lost because her home and the little she has is his. 

Your freedom should be mine too

The craziness of the build up to this elections is just too much.

Politicians are out campaigning every where you look selling promises and playing on emotions. The apartheid line has been out played, for how many more years are we going to blame colour and race for the situations we find ourselves in?

It angers me to my core that parties are playing on community colour loyalty (saying vote for your own people); to the Malema's of this world "isn't my people as South African as yours regardless of their colour?".

They fought the same struggle that you so often quote "as being your own", they died for freedom too. This freedom that you use and abuse so publicly. The freedom you milk dry with your lush parties and greed.

I think the blame games need to stop, that responsibility needs to be taken and leaders need to step up to the plate. They need to earn peoples respect and not demand it because of the party they represent.

Our blood is as red as yours and poverty effects us in our communities just like it does in townships.

Lets move beyond the stereotypes, otherwise we will always be living an apartheid that is only understood by those who created it and thrive on it's chaos.

Journey back

Sunday we took to the road for our journey back to "the City of Gold".

On this long drive i started thinking about 'home' and how over the years Cape Town has always been it for me. It has always been where i find peace, find family and memories.

However this trip has been a crude awakening of growing up for me. My childhood home seemed small, my family distant and the city i have always called home felt different. The memories i have there also seemed old and like a completely different part of my life.

I found myself missing my wooden floors, the noisy people next door and even the freak thunder storms of Joburg.

In retrospect if i sit and shift though my thoughts Cape Town hasn't changed, neither has my family. I am the one that has changed. My wants, my needs and my sense of responsibility. It made  me realize that home is where i make it, it is where i am and where i am happy because life is too short to live it bound by the past.

For as long as needs be this city i find myself in will be home for me.