The Read Aunt Mzansi

I long for the day when the streets will feel safe again. I long for the day when I can walk on these streets and not feel my skin crawl. The day when walking down the streets of Boratas, Jo'burg, Polokwane, Alexandra - will be the same. I long for the day when children will flock to an ice cream truck and we won't even begin to imagine that one might not make it back. I long for the day when mothers will be able to go to work during school holidays and be assured that the neighbourhood will look after their children. I long for the day when if work demands we wake up before sunrise on a Saturday morning, that we won't worry that a drunkard or gangster thirsty of blood could be lurking in the shadows on our streets. I long for the day when we will walk in these streets and not think our possessions might not make it to our destinations. The day when a stranger bumping into you won't send your mind into a hysteria of thinking crime syndicate. I long for the day when I...

" 7. The Book: The World Was Silent When We Died For the epilogue, he writes a poem, modeled after one of Okoema's poems. He calls it: "WERE YOU SIL ENT WHEN WE DIED?" Did you see photos in sixty-eight Of children with their hair becoming rust: Sickly patches nestled on those small heads, Then falling off like rotten leaves on dust? Imagine children with arms like toothpicks. With footballs for bellies and skin stretched thin. It was kwashiorkor-difficult word, A word that was not quite ugly enough, a sin. You needn't imagine. There were photos Displayed in gloss-filled pages of your Life. Did you see? Did you feel sorry briefly, Then turn round to hold your lover or wife? Their skin had turned the tawny of weak tea And showed cobwebs of vein and brittle bone; Naked children laughing, as if the man Would not take photos and then leave, alone. " Half of a Yellow Sun Ngozi Adichie Chimamanda This still happens, our circumstances and living conditions are ...