I have lived in Diepkloof, Soweto, for 12 years now with my aunt and three cousins. When you live in Soweto it is very rare to ever get an invitation. You hear of a celebration or a funeral and you just arrive. We know each other. We watch out for each other. If your neighbour doesn’t have hot water, he comes by to bath.

Hey makhi (neighbour),’ you shout across the fence, ‘I’m cooking, can I have salt?’ Diepkloof has changed over the past 12 years. The old broken road has been newly tarred.

But we still can’t get Wi-Fi because of the big mine cables underground. There is a new mall. My aunt has a bonded house and we have built a wall around it. When she has money we want to extend it. There is a new fashion in Diepkloof – to build double storeys.

But there are still the old apartheid houses. We call them ‘madalas’. Red ones with asbestos roofs. They are owned by grannies, umshozas, who wear big skirts with too many pleats. In 1994, title deeds were issued to people who had lived a long time in these municipal houses. Not everyone has them yet. But here in Soweto your neighbour knowing you is your title deed. The municipality is trying to control backyard shacks, but if you put someone in an RDP house, they will put shacks in their yard. It’s a way to get income from rent or accommodate new family members. I like Diepkloof, even though there is much more crime here now, and there are people who are your neighbours but not your friends. One night a young boy broke into my aunt’s house. He was high on nyaope and sitting by the fridge eating polony and drinking milk. My aunt and I dished up some food for him and he ate. He was very hungry. The next day he came to apologise. He told us his father who had worked at Pikitup had died. After his father died he turned to drugs. His mother arranged for him to go to rehab. I hope he went back to school.

Diepkloof is better than Orlando. In Orlando there are more rats. Big rats that will eat your door. Where I live in Diepkloof there used to be no shops. The nearest shops were a 45-minute walk from my house. In 2010 shopkeepers from Africa moved into the neighbourhood. Now the shops are five minutes away. Alex is from Somalia and he is a good man. If I don’t have money I just ask him for something and he lets me pay later. But if you try to rob him he will kick you like a donkey. When there were those xenophobic attacks in Alexandra in 2012, he ran away for months. I don’t know where he went. I was so angry that they were attacking people from Africa. People just like us. And I had nowhere nearby to get bread or paraffin. Then one day I saw his trucks arrive with new stock. He was back. It was a wonderful day.

Tshabalira Lebakeng

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