TEN YEARS - DISA

SMMdi]®!? W®Q» 1 K)®a % ®M 4 ED©© 1©
girl's composure and she wept uncontrollably. She had gone to
work knowing that her mother-in-law (by h£r common law marriage)
had been hauled out of bed to face the authorities at the office.
Until she saw the curtainless windows and, finally, their rags
strewn around in the backyard, she had not thought the visits in
the small hours of the morning to be anything more than little
inconveniences that were an integral part of a black person's life.
The stranger stood at the corner of the house, taking in
everything slowly. The dilapidated state of the furniture and the
piles of rags, the extreme poverty that he was witnessing did not
shock him, because it was part of his life too. He had come upon
such desolation a million times in his life and perhaps he might
have come through it too. What made his heart bleed more than
anything was the realisation that he had contributed to everything
that he saw before him. Where would these people go if he took
their home from them? It had been stupid of him to think that he
would be given a vacant house. There simply was not a single
vacant house in the whole of Soweto. That was why people stayed
on the waiting list for houses for decades. He had thought that he
could avoid waiting for eternity, when more houses would be built,
by paying to be considered whenever a house became vacant.
Those who had tricked him into causing anguish to this poor family
had assured him that houses did become vacant. He had not
delved deeply into what they said and had been only too pleased
when they took his money. His idea of an empty house was, say,
that people there were leaving of their own accord. The shock
wave of 'seventy-six, the year of the tumults, had sent many a
timid soul packing for the sleeping countryside. He also knew that
there were many lonely old people with no one to look after them,
who kept their houses on doles so that they might at least die
under a roof and not like dogs, in the wilderness. These derelict
hurt, J>S were only too prepared to accept young couples who
would t-^ke over their houses and give them shelter and food until
death arrived to deliver them from unrewarded lifetimes.
The thought that a whole family would be thrown out to make
way for him had never entered his mind. It was immoral and he
would not be a willing party to it. He wanted his money back and
he would add to it to build himself two small rooms in the backyard
of his home and wait there for eternity. They were still childless
and by the time they were really forced by circumstances to leave
home something might have cropped up for him or he might have
saved enough to have a room built for him on the new thirty-year