As 1996 began, the five Motsoeneng kids were doing just fine. Their father had a steady income as a truck driver and, with their mother, had managed to build a brick house in Orange Farm.
But during that year Aids arrived and ”friends, family, everything, the world itself, changed”, says the second-oldest child, Piet. His childhood ended as he, aged 13, and his 14-year-old brother Seun John, cared for their dying mother. They tended to her, did the shopping, the cleaning, the cooking, and they looked after their siblings.
Their mother died in 1997, and shortly after that their father also fell ill. He lost his job and the family income disappeared. Resources were consumed by the costs of medicines, transport and medical bills.
In 2001 their father died — of tuberculosis, they thought. Some time later a neighbour broke the news that both their parents had died of Aids. At the ages of 19 and 18 and while still at school, Seun John and Piet became parents to their 11-, 13- and 15-year-old siblings.
The family were let down by the social security system. Seun John applied for foster care grants for his siblings, but was told he was too young. In 2005, after four years of waiting and being sent from one office to another, he was finally told that his file had been closed. He doesn’t know why.
Despite having no income, the children had to pay for their school fees. Seun John sold sweets and chips at school to make money. The year after their father died Piet dropped out of school to look for work and to sell sweets by the side of the road.
Family helped pay for the funerals, but with one exception no relative has visited them since their father’s death. The exception was their grandmother, who left her family in Hillbrow to move into their house. Her pension helped until she died in 2005.
The Motsoenengs have one asset: the brick house their parents were so proud of. But they also have nothing to spend on it and now rain is seeping in. They cannot afford to repair the paraffin stove and so have to use expensive electricity to cook and to heat water. They have cold running water, but no toilet and no bath. There is not enough room on their small piece of land to dig a pit toilet, except for the small and much-needed vegetable patch.
Since the beginning of December Piet has earned R350 a week in a temporary labouring job, although one-10th of that goes on transport.
But the family hates January because it means schoolbooks and uniforms. The school fees of R100 each are paid in instalments. ”It was a black Christmas,” says Seun John. Their sisters each got a top for Christmas. Seun John jokes that Piet’s gift was a cool drink and the brothers burst out laughing.
On Saturdays Piet pays R10 to travel more than 30km down the Golden Highway to Johannesburg, where he sells sweets, chips, belts and wallets.
Applications for formal employment have not yielded results.
Seun John tends the vegetable garden while doing whatever work he can find, such as building or cleaning other people’s yards in Orange Farm. The 21-year-old middle child has just failed matric. The two girls are working hard at school. The 18-year-old has started matric and the 16-year-old, who has dreams of being a doctor, is in grade 11.
Seun John and Piet have put their own futures on hold to care for their siblings. Seun-John says: ”If I turn away, they will suffer. I can suffer, but not them. Girls are not the same as boys. I need to see the two girls and the other [youngest brother] having their future in their hands. Not as I, living at home without work.” Piet says simply ”We love each other. I’m the mother and the father, so what would they do?”
Seun John failed matric; it was hard to study while hungry and he was worn out after years of worry and insecurity. He would like to go back to school, because ”No matric, no job”, he says. He’d like to learn a trade, do a learnership, and eventually be his own boss.
Piet aches to get his matric, and wants to join the army. He looks more robust than his older brother. But Seun John says it’s not money itself that worries him most. ”I worry about the little ones being happy.”