Nobody lifts a finger or comes to help when they hear screams or when shots ring out, says Thilivhali Nembudani.
Johannesburg – The year was 2011 just after my university graduation, when countless Jerusalem shacks stared at me with cold eyes. I didn’t like the sight, the stench in their breath, the weariness in their eyes and the coldness of their smile.
“Ndi hone Tshikhuwani hafha” (This is Gauteng), those were my brother’s welcoming words.
“I stood there with my suitcases, clad in new blue denim pants and a T-shirt with a SpongeBob face that my mother had bought specifically for the eight-hour bus trip to Germiston from Thohoyandou.
Jerusalem is situated just outside Germiston, near the Delmore and Knights train stations. It is also a stone’s throw from the affluent Witfield suburbs.
There are other squatter camps neighbouring it – Delmore, Knights and Kanana (Canaan).
My shack, like many others, is perched near a “mountain” of mined soil. I am broke, but live near gold. I often joke on days I feel down.
Last week Jerusalem was in the news because a five-year-old boy had fallen into a mining shaft.
I looked around and I couldn’t help but realise that this place and its surroundings, like many informal settlements, is defined by tragedy.
It was just towards the end of 2016 at around 8.30pm while I was preparing to have dinner when I heard screams outside. I reluctantly went to check and I saw a burning person running as fast as he could.
He dropped, still screaming, 20 metres from my shack. I stood there, scared and trembling. A quick-thinking neighbour doused the flames with water.
The light drizzle had failed to stop the flames. As he lay there, in unimaginable pain, out of nowhere emerged a group of five people, claiming to be related to his girlfriend – a woman he had allegedly stabbed several times earlier.
Suspecting that his girlfriend was cheating on him, he stabbed her several times and left her for dead. He then bought paraffin and doused himself.
As he lay there, the enraged group descended on him, pelting him with rocks and beating him up with sticks and anything they could lay their hands on.
A crowd of around 150 shack dwellers looked on. They did nothing. I did nothing.
As the beating continued, a visibly drunk young man approached the group and shouted: he who lies here is my enemy and uya delela (he has no respect).
For some strange reason, the mob turned on him, beating him up with rocks and sticks.
The drunk young man and the badly burnt one were later taken to hospital.
But they didn’t make it.
The woman survived.
One midnight, weeks after that incident, 50m or so from my shack and near a passage that leads to the Delmore Hostel, I heard a woman screaming.
I didn’t stomp my feet against the tin wall like I usually do when I hear a drunkard peeing against my shack at midnight.
I kept quiet. She said no, several times. She screamed, countlessly. But no one went out to help her, including myself.
In the morning, residents spoke about it with a sense of defeat. Something died inside me that night.
“Umkhaya bamnqumile,” they said.
“Bamnqumile” is one of those words that when you are being taught a new language people never really teach you because they presume that you may never get to use it or hear it.
A friend of mine, who often teaches me deeper words such as “Iqaqa alizizwa ukunukha” (A skunk never smells its own stink), hadn’t mentioned it.
I first heard the word “Bamnqumile” on a Saturday morning when a man was found with his throat slit at the soccer field situated between the hostel and another “mountain” of mined soil.
We were told that he was killed by someone he knew.
Those who knew him spoke in shock and repeatedly said: Umkhaya bamnqumile (they’ve chopped homey’s throat off). Umkhaya bamnqumile.
Jerusalem informal settlement, in most cases, is fertile ground for tragic incidents.
Gunshots ring out in the dead of night – all the time.
I myself have fallen victim to gun- toting thugs who have taken my cellphone and wallet. Jerusalem is home away from home, literally perched on top of gold. But it’s an unpleasant place to live in.
* Meshack Nembudani lives in the Jerusalem informal settlement in Boksburg, the same area where five-year-old Richard Thola had fallen down a disused mineshaft.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.