Stories From Kayamandi:

The 7th grade after school program that i work with at the local township was asked to write news articles about their holidays... these are just a few excerts of the kind of things they wrote about...

• During the holiday I went to Zimbabwe. At first I went to Cape Town International Airport. When I was in a plan called Time Airline my mother bought me a spring roll and a coke. In the plan I felt like going home. I landed on OR Tambo International Airport and went to KFC. I ate two streetwises and a double cheese burger and a coke after the meal. I boarded another plane called Air Zimbabwe at 12:30 hours pm. I arrived at Harare International Airport. I saw my father, he didn't recognize me but I recognized him. He didn't seem to be happy; I thought he was unhappy to see me. He told me that we could not longer go to the rural areas. This was because my uncle was and important person in politics. A lot of people wanted to kill him. They also beat up my younger cousin's sisters, my younger cousin's brother, my aunt, and my granny. I hate the word politics or elections.
• In this holiday I visit my mom and we went on Good Friday. My mom was very happy when she saw me and she took some money to buy clothes for me and a present that surprised me. So my holiday was very nice for me, after that I went to my home, my mom said I can come back to her. Nothing happened to me but it was y birthday, so I had a nice holiday. I played with my new friends on Monday the 14th there was a taxi, this taxi came in the street and broke the wall of a house, in that house the people said they had a baby. There were many people that saw this taxi and they called the police and the police came to the house. I don't know if the taxi hurt the baby though because I was not there.
• Over these three weeks my family had lots of fun because my brother had a birthday and it was very fun. We bought cakes and clothes for him and the bad thing is my sister had been attacked with her friends. My sister had a cement caste on her hands because of her friends. Some of this sister's friends beat my sister and closed the house and went away and the police hunt him and my sister didn't know anything about his home. She tells the police about everything that happened in his life but when I asked her about it she doesn't want to tell me the story.
• On my holiday i saw things that looked wrong! I have been to strand and small children at the age of twelve and thirteen smoking. That is not right because they are too small and smoking kills. I saw children, boys, walking on the streets at ten o'clock, twelve o'clock, and one o'clock at night. They attacked and killed another older boy this night. I came back from strand on Saturday and the next Wednesday my sister's baby died. The funeral is on Monday, 21st of April. Strand and Kayamandi are not good places because people get killed.