Dad walks in after an hour, he is drenched from the rain, he is in his work uniform. He takes off his raincoat and hangs it up, then greets us. 

He disappears behind the curtain, and emerges wearing his blue pajamas. He is tall and slender, the pajamas hang off him, of course, they were given to him by Uncle Philip, he had bought himself a size too small.

He kisses mama, as he sits next to her on the two seater couch. 

“How was business today?” He asks.

“Slow. I only made R102.” Mama sighs.

Papa smiles encouragingly, “It’ll pick up soon, you’ll see.”

Mama shrugs and bring papa his plate of food. Papa takes it gratefully, and starts eating.

Mama sells fruits and vegetables, and sweets and packets of chips, that’s how she makes money. Papa works at a construction site, he just got the job a year ago. When Papa got the job, we all thought things were going to look up, none whatsoever.

Now we left our home, and came to live here because house stands were coming out. Papa said that’d mean no more rent, and that’d mean more money for the family, but I saw no difference.

Mama still had to pretend she was full, so Lizo could have her plate and sleep on a full stomach. Papa still sat on our broken table, and counted cents then scratched his heads. Worst of all, the community of Tankiso, where we live now, hate us. They hate us. They say we’re polluting their suburb with our shacks. I don’t blame them, we just came and set up shacks here, whereas it was a sports field. 

But, we were told to come here. The government offered this place to us.

We are here to stay.