Buntu’s Story

Buntu’s Life

Who is he? How do I know him? What has shaped his life?

Buntu is our night security man, he is 23 and ensures the safety of the volunteers with Umzingisi. He works here in Newton Park, PE, 4 nights a week and travels down from one of the many townships around PE. He plays pool with the ‘inmates’ and chats to us all. He has treated some of us to the local speciality – goats head, very tender, but it is a head. I didn’t eat the tongue, but this is delicious, so Buntu says.

Buntu’s family consists of a twin sister an elder brother (who’s just been released from prison) and an older sister. But more of that later.

Buntu is just like every young man, he chases women, drinks, listens to music, loves to dance and watches television and sport, and just like every African this summer is looking forward to the world cup. Nothing different then to any normal young mans desires at his time of life, he wants to study to be a social worker at the university, he wants to own a scooter, he seeks a better life, believes in being lawful and follows the bible and attends church, so in many respects a better Christian than many in the UK. However, here ends the similarity, and here is a snapshot of his life, and it makes you marvel at the sane level headedness Buntu possesses amid all the chaos he has had to endure through his very formative years.

Buntu’s parents were -perhaps- even well off by South African standards, particularly for blacks. His father was a Lieutenant in the army, they lived in a 10 room house, he lived on the bettter estates and had good schooling. Schools are very important in the communities here.

When he was about 10 or so, his father was pensioned out of the army with a payment of R3,000,000 and he also had another job. It was about now when his parents split up and his father went to live with another woman, divorce followed and the court decided that his mother could keep the daughters to live with her, but Buntu and his brother lived with the father, the army pension was to be kept by his father etc..For a while everything was good, the girlfriend of the father was pleasant and kind. The army pension was spent on a bar, the furnishings and décor was provided by the local government, so his father was still earning a modest income.

Time went by, and his father married the girlfriend and the bar started to get run down, the father and new wife were getting drunk, his father owned 3 cars, the bar was making a loss, at the same time the new wife began to pressurise Buntu for chores and became more demanding.

His father and new wife were blesed with a child, this now became Buntu’s main chore, looking after his step brother whilst his father and step mum plied themselves with drink. Buntu had to drop out of school for a year to look after the baby, then another child was born. The whole process was repeated again, Buntu wanted to enjoy childhood by playing with other children and not be looking after babies.

The straw which seemed to break the camels back, was school shoes, his father had to ask the step mother for permission to buy Buntu shoes he couldn’t do without. School shoes here in PE are very much cherished as is the school uniform. This was the turning point and Buntu returned to live with his mother. As you can imagine, Buntu’s father didn’t appreciate this and further court action followed.

His mother is a seamstress and made little money, and currently lives and works in East London, some 40km away from her children.

At one stage the family moved from small one room houses with great regularity and schools with the same frequency. At one stage Buntu was living with 6 families under one roof all with different age groups, older men out drinking, younger children needing their sleep, all wanting to wash at the same time, invariably these houses only have one tap and no toilet. How would you cope? the nearest I come is queuing with 11 other people here for the bathroom in PE. This bathroom has a toilet, a shower and a bath.

So to summarise, Buntu moved in with his mum at about 12 years of age, and changed schools as regularly as we change our clothes. His education became harder to complete.

Now if I had this kind of upbringing, I guess I would be an angry young man and wonder why on God’s planet did I deserve this? I guess I would also be demoralised too.

As Buntu took up his schooling, he was fortunate to come across Pascal, who is part of Umzingisi, who through luck and perhaps good fortune was able to secure a form of scholarship for Buntu.

Buntu, has finished his schooling, and at times has been met with futher disappointment just at the time when he was studying the equivalent of GCSE’s at 16. His mother was diagnosed as HIV positive. Not good. Buntu again came to the rescue. He took another year off school to nurse his mother. Who had also given birth to a baby. Sadly the baby contracted HIV, presumably through breast milk (one of the easiest ways for kids to be infected). The baby died at about 3 years old. His mother follows a drug programme which abates the virus(?) and goes about her business in a normal fashion.

Thus Buntu has not experienced any part of his formative years with a normal childhood or stabilty, which is probably central to the development of any child. Yet Buntu is just like you and me despite this hardship.

Today, Buntu lives with his twin sister and her two small children, His elder sister and her husband and their one child, until recently Buntu lived in a wooden shack in the garden, which he built and has been been given over to his brother since his return from prison.

In their one room home, there is one cold tap, a toilet without a cistern, no shower, it’s full of clothes, one double bed, a sink, no cooker, a fridge freezer and a tv. Buntu and the children sleep on the floor. But life goes on.

His girlfriend, Nomthetho, sleeps in a bed with her ageing mother who can’t walk, her twin brother sleeps in an adjacent room, they too have one tap, no toilet (it’s derelict outside), a room with a tv, a separate kitchen, and yet they are proud citizens of the world. They have to stand up in a plastic bath to wash, and wash their clothes in the same manner. Would you live like that year in year out? These people have no choice, the government give them the house, and it is their duty for its upkeep, these houses were new in the 1950’s with asbestos roofs, they have sagging ceilings, they are akin to a modern slum.

These communities are by modern standards poor in everything they do and yet they invite you in to share their lives, and hopefully by individuals such as myself who will write about it and tell more people will the situation change through communication.

There is no refuse collection, there is limited sanitation, the public coin operated phones don’t exist – stolen of course – card operated phones survive. They all have a mobile phone, where airtime is consumed by the second, not minutes. These communities are very supportive to each other and in many respects Christianity has kept a balance on their lives. In Britain we wouldn’t stand for it one minute, but seeing and experiencing the hospitality of Buntu’s family has been a marvellous moment of my visit to PE, nay change that to a privilege, and I will be round Buntu’s again at the next invitation. Pictures are posted up for you to see at http://www.getjealous.com/rustycarno

This entry was posted on 20/05/2010 at 04:11 pm and is filed under Port Elizabeth, South Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.