INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK

18 AUGUST 2004
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BOTSWANA

The story of a street child

Thabo and his friend Kabo represent what the city has come to be known for: disintegration of families and rising orphanage that everyone seems to see as God ordained and unchallengeable. The orphans are a regular feature on street corners where they are perched on broken trump shoes, lazily basking in the morning sun with grime drawing tattoos on their stoned faces.
These are the old little men and women of the streets whose eyes sparkle from the effects of generous swipes at packets filled with glue. Pieces of worn out clothing hang desperately on their lean bodies.
"Ga re tshele sentle, ga rena dijo ko jwenteng," cries fifteen-year-old Thabo who has been in the streets since 2001 after dropping out at standard five in Palapye. The youngster speaks with his eyes planted on the straps of his spent sandals. On the rare occasions that he makes eye contact, there is an undeniable brilliance that dances in his eyes. "My parents have divorced. I was living with my mother in Palapye who is a domestic worker for several people in the village when I left school for Francistown. Ke ne ke sa rate Palapye. Ke gore go ne go ntapeya fela," Thabo says.
He intimates that his mother was taking good care of him but he was having it rough at the school. He left without notifying the authorities at school. His mother, on the other hand, gave him her blessings and money for the life-changing trip to the city. The agreement was that he would resume his studies under the guidance of his father who is resident in Francistown.

What was wrong with the school?

"The cane! I don't like to be beaten. The teacher used to beat me thoroughly and at times would throw me out of class even though I wanted to be in class like the rest of the pupils. I did not tell my mother about my predicament at school but this also helped me resolve to leave the village for the city," he says.
When he reached the city, he found out that his father was suspended from work and waiting for a response to his application for a job at Orapa mine.
Unfortunately nothing came out of it and as time went by, his aunts piled pressure on him to go back to Palapye to resume his studies. But his father advised him to stick around until he is employed in Orapa where he would find a good school for him.

"My father is white. I don't know where he comes from. I just know that he speaks Setswana, Seburu le Sekgowa. He is a very strict person and I am afraid of him. I don't call him papa.

I call him John. Even though we live under the same roof in Area W/ Itekeng, I don't know how he lives and he does not know how I make it through the days. Ga ke itse life ya gagwe le ene ga a itse life yame. Mongwe le mongwe o a iphandlela," he says of his father.
Life on the streets for Thabo was exciting at first as he got the unrestrained freedom that he yearned for as a pupil in Palapye. In the streets he met Kabo, (they share a room at his father's house) an orphan from Sekukwe settlement, a few kilometers east of Francistown. Through this friend he learnt all the tricks of survival such as eating from waste bins, to collect bottles for sale, helping people to carry their groceries at Score supermarket and watching over cars at parking lots.

"We used to do glue, marijuana, cigarettes, booze and even petrol. Glue is good because it makes one forget his problems. Le gale I have since left it because it nearly killed me. I was sick, vomiting some yellowish stuff. Gompieno ke ja kwae fela le shushi," he says.

According to Thabo, life on the streets is at times difficult but they manage to make it to another day through the money they accrue from washing and looking after people's cars at the Family Grocer's parking lot. "Makgowa like the name James so you simply say my name is James, may I please look after your car?. They pay us a little loose change and we are able to buy some food and other things that we need. The other problem is people who chase us up and down the streets for being dirty and doing booze," he says.

The youngster who confesses that he has forgotten everything he learnt in school reveals that he is now aware of the importance of going to school and he would like to have a shot at learning again.

"Strata se a bora. Things that we need are not to be found here on the streets such as money to buy clothes, food and to play jukeboxes le go dlala snooker. We also would like to watch television and movies tse go lowang mo teng. When I grow up I want to be Michael Jackson. I like the way he dances. I was watching him yesterday on television," he says.

According to Free Environment for Street Kids Trust (FESK) founder Austin Abraham, Thabo is one of the street children that they know. Abraham notes that their efforts at improving the quality of life of the street children in the city are frustrated by lack of support from the corporate sector, government and the community at large.

"We are still battling to find accommodation for the street children after seeing them released from the destitute shelter in Monarch as a result of the unhealthy congestion at the centre. We have lost one of the six children that we managed to save from the destitute shelter back to the streets. Their accommodation is also not too good because they are congested in a single multi-purpose room. I would like to appeal to the business community and the members of the public to heed our plea for help so that we can be able to help our disadvantaged children," pleads Abraham.

FESK is still without an office to coordinate their philanthropic initiative. They would like to help either in kind or in finance to feed, clothe and shelter the street children in the city so that they are also given a new start in life and are integrated into society.

16 August 2004
Tomeletso Sereetsi

 

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