Cape of lost hope
Saturday, 06:30 am, Soweto (South Africa): 12-year-old Qaara has to get up. She has to
go to work in order to earn the money for momma’s medications.
6 months left.
The bag with the stolen goods lies heavily on
her shoulder. Now she’s making her way, tired and hungry. Destination: Soweto’s
streets.
With her is her grouching (quengelige), 4 years
younger sister Ayo. Her job is to steal the stuff Qaara’s going to sell the
next day.
When momma will finally have recovered, Qaara
will probably be able to send Ayo to school. She’s going to work alone again,
until now 2 ½-year-old
Lekysha will be grown up and quick enough to
take Ayo’s part.
The possibility of being caught is high, and
being caught is more than dangerous, so nobody wonders why she gets frightened
when someone touchs her arm.
Turning around slowly she recognizes her
coloured buddy Zygoma, whose momma’s also in a critical state.
Her momma doesn’t like her to hang around with
guys, without ever having explained why. But Qaara knows, he’s the only one she
can trust.
Nobody else could understand her feelings.
15-year-old Zygoma hasn’t been living in Soweto
for his whole life.
When he was younger, he used to live in
Johannisburg, and once, he even went to school. Therefore he’s now able to
explain to Qaara the whole world, or at
least for her it feels like that. He knows
nearly everything about the terrible illness that threatens more than half of
Soweto’s population.
According to him the number of people dying due
to Aids has doubled in the last ten years.
Qaara asked him more than once whether her
momma was going to die.
He keeps on explaining the heavy symptoms aids
has.
First, he says, fever, headache,
muscle and joint pain, maybe also a sore throat (Halsweh), rash (Ausschlag) and diarrhea (Durchfall) affect the victims.
At first stage it
could be only a flu, of course, but if the lymph nodes (Lymphknoten) in the
neck start to swell and you wake up soaked with sweat every night,
never feeling hungry
but weak, it’s best to go to hospital immediately for a check-up.
“And what will happen
after that?” Qaara wants to know all about it.
Zygoma smiles
sad-faced.
“She dies?”
“No, as long as she
takes her medicine regularly, she’ll be fine.”, he tries to appease her.
“But what if…”
Suddenly Zygoma puts
his hand on her mouth and pulls her away from the street into the shadow.
Shouts, moving in the street.
Qaara winced, someone
tipped her from behind. Ayo, short of breath and frightened. “Kahoma?”, Zygoma
asks.
Ayo nods her head.
“Fuck!”
The streeets are under
the total control of Kahoma and his gang.
As long as Qaara
lives, she knows the unwritten rule not
to try to rival with Kahoma.
In the streets, his word is the law and you
need a licence whatever you do, because it’s his district.
But Qaara has no
choice. She needs all the money for momma’s medications.
And so she keeps on
working, scared and afraid.