Usually when you are told to write or say something about a community like mine, listing every single detail to the tiniest bits like the ups and downs, the struggles, challenges, and people who make it what it is you end up with a novel some might find touching. Well, this is how I see my world Winterveldt and the impact it has on me.

Winterveldt! A dead end to be precise. Planet Mars on Earth where there is no sign of life.
The mention of the word Winterveldt has that description in some people’s minds. But that is all in the past. Yes our forefathers had no drive. Waking up alive was enough for them to Thank the God above. Their mindset was nailed in the direction that states if you have you have to thank God, if you don’t you don’t, success is for white men.

That was enough to get them going on whatever they had or not until…my generation was born.Us the rebels of poverty.No child in Winterveldt back then completed high school until we became the game changers. What they said couldn’t be done by a child from Winterveldt we did. We not only came against we beat the odds too.

Yes! Some of our scavenger-like characters and behaviors proved the rest of South Africa right about us .A neighbour called Mamikie refers to Winterveldt people as rotten. According to me sometimes a rotten potato doesn’t spoil the whole bag. Some potatoes manage to be salvaged on time before they are like the rest, Rotten. Yes we are still facing a lot of challenges, paying for our forefathers’ sins of ignorance. But for the living there is hope. Determination goes a long way. One can only see this after a prison break from a poverty mindset. If only we had the power to change the fact that most of the people in our community are infected with HIV/AIDS. Too bad some things are beyond our control. All we can do for ourselves is to be the wiser man who learns from other’s mistakes. Most of the people when they make it in life they leave Winterveldt. They separate themselves like wheat being separated from the weeds. Do I blame them though? Maybe.
I too once had a mindset that the moment I make it in life, Winterveldt will be a thing of the past and achieved. Well the fact is I wasn’t born in Winterveldt but I grew up there when my family didn’t fit in society.Its a place I came to call home. My Home.

My neighbour called Galatshane compares this place to Sodom and Gomorrah. Even Winterveldt inhabitants don’t have anything nice to say about the place. I call them blubber mouths for they only complain without contributing to any change to make Winterveldt livable. Truth be told we are far from perfection but there is light at the end of the tunnel.

We litter illegally and the people working under EPWP take care of our trash. We have people like Mrs Julia Masombuka from Phetogo Missions who take the burden of rehabilitating our drug-addicted brothers upon herself. Due the unemployment factor we help each other as neighbours by hiring each other according to skills like garden and so forth.

Now here is the sweet part about it all. As you now know about 60% of Winterveldt’s infrastructure is old and dilapidated, that looks like it’s about to change and at least drop to 40 % because people from Suburbs whose money perhaps may be running out are now buying land and building enormous houses in Winterveldt. This is probably because the cost of living in Winterveldt is affordable. We don’t pay rates. Water is free if it’s available. Some people don’t even buy electricity.

Rich people moving to Winterveldt and building beautiful houses is now inspiring our mothers to do the same, even if they don’t build mansions, they upgrade our homes. As others are leaving, new faces are gracing us. A great change is underway. I want and I am going to be a part of it. I for one wouldn’t miss it for the world.

This piece was written as part of the Fundza Fellowship Programme.