Life today in the New South Africa

It was just before 3.30am and I was still waking up and deciding if I was going to get up now or later when suddenly I heard a noise.  Johan, next to me in our bed bolted up and asked me what that sound was.  Even in a deep sleep, he had been rudely awoken by something out of the ordinary.  Suddenly pandemonium ensued with William barking...barking like there's no tomorrow. And then we heard Trinity too.  I tried to make William keep quiet, while peering through the kitchen window.  I saw both Trinity and Purdy running back in the direction from where they had come.  William, my blind cocker spaniel, sleeps in the kitchen together with the puppies. Trinity and Purdy sleep in the tack room.  Next minute we heard screaming but inside the the house we didn't know where it was coming from.  The night air, the flat open land, the tall grass, make it difficult to distinguish where sound comes from.  Johan opened the front security gate and went outside.  NiQi, awake too by now, and I stayed in the front passage close to the now locked security gate and front door.  The screaming continued, William was still barking as were Trinity and Purdy.  I didn't want to let all the dogs outside as we would then be vulnerable.  We heard Johan running back towards the house, talking on the cell phone.  He asked me for the key to the back gate between us and our neighbour.  It was in the outside room.  I went with him to get the key, then we walked as quickly as we could to unlock the gate. Barefoot and in their pyjamas, our neighbour and her son were at the gate, they were the people we heard screaming.  Together with them both I went back towards the house while Johan walked through to their home.

This is our neighbour's account of events leading up to that point:

Sleeping in her room, she woke to sounds next to her bed.  she thought it was her son coming to look for migraine tablets, which he sometimes does.  Opening her eyes she had an R5 weapon pointed at her head. She realized the man holding it, didn't have anything covering his face and neither did a second man who was ransacking her room, holding a brand new bolt cutter in his hand.  She looked away so that they wouldn't think she was trying to remember their faces or anything else about them.  They asked her where her husband was and she said he was away.  They asked her again and she told them he worked away from home so he wasn't there, but she expected him back at 5am.  She didn't know what the time was but hoped it was close to 5, so that they would hurry and leave.  She's not married, but thought if she pretended she was and that he would be home soon, they would go.  All the while she was thinking of her teenage son asleep in the next room.  She didn't want to do anything to alert them to the fact that he was there.  They asked her for the safe keys.  She told them she didn't have them.  They told her to open the safe and again she said she didn't have a key.  They didn't believe her and one of them reached into her handbag searching with his hand for keys.  He pulled out a big bunch and called her a liar.  She said to him he could try all the keys but none of them would fit the safe as they were the keys for the house and the cupboard in the front room.  She said he must try himself.  He threw the bunch of keys down on her bed.  She was lying but they believed her that they didn't fit the safe and they didn't even try them to see if they fitted.  They told her to get up and open the other doors in the house.  She pulled the duvet around her and they told her to leave it.  She walked ahead of them and went to the first room and opened the door.  Then she went to the next room and as she opened thee door she ran and jumped on top of the bed to shield her son.  She didn't want them to shoot him or harm him.  Then a third man appeared and they left carrying as much between them as they could.  As they left one of the men turned to her and said that he would be back and he is going to rape her.  They closed the bedroom door behind them and our neighbour said she counted in her head for about five minutes before opening it to listen and see if they were still there.  She didn't see or hear anything and motioning to her son to be quiet they crept down the passage to the lounge.  Through to the kitchen she could see the back door and security gate were open.  They had used the bolt cutters to cut off the gate padlocks.  Not looking back they both ran through their property, through thorns and tall grass until they reached the gate between us.  Then they stood and screamed hoping we would hear them...

While I made some coffee she told NiQi and I everything that happened.  I gave her my cell phone to use so she could phone both her brother and her sister.  Johan in the meantime together with Peet and George were at the house.  The police arrived very quickly, as did the dog unit with their tracker dogs.  The dogs couldn't pick up anything and soon left while Johan, Peet and George found the foot prints of the 3 men and started to follow the tracks.  The police came to our house to take a statement from our neighbour.  Her brother and his wife arrived at our house and that is when she broke down, crying at the thought of 'what if'..They then all left  shortly after that to go back to her house so that she could show the police what had happened.  Just after 9 am Johan arrived back home.  they followed the tracks for kilometers, through the back of a number of plots, down to the R101, over the railway track, through the long grass, next to the river, past the power station....they didn't find the 3 men. The tracks stopped...but they did pick up some of our neighbours belongings they had dropped along the way.  Our neighbour and son just popped in to say 'goodbye' for now.  They have packed their vehicles with clothes, bedding, other things of sentimental value and are going to stay with her brother for a while.  This is the second time they have been broken into in the last 4 months.  The first time they weren't home...this time they were.

This is democracy in South Africa, 20 years after we stood in queues to vote for change.  I don't have R200 million rand lying around to improve my security or to protect me from what is happening to innocent people in this country.  This is not what I voted for.  If you are reading this account of one incident of thousands that happen in South Africa daily and you know expats that left our shores years ago, or you are one yourself, you can vote to make a difference in this next election.  When you hold that flag high and say you are proudly South African, please humble yourself before you utter those words, for what is there to be proud of today being a South African.  You miss the sunshine and the beaches, the mountains and the wide open spaces, the sport and your braaivleis....What you left behind doesn't exist anymore and for whatever reason you left, I can guarantee you it is so much worse now.  Even those still living here, if this story doesn't affect you, then you have no idea what it is to live in rural South Africa, where daily farmers are being attacked and murdered.  The millions living here are either brainwashed into believing their turn will come for a better life, or are too apathetic to vote....you can make a difference for us...those struggling in a country that is filled with crime and corruption.  Please register to vote and make sure you do it.  I hate living here.....I wish I could leave....I want a better life than this and yes I am scared.  I live in fear every day, behind closed doors and locked gates, which in reality are not any form of protection against people who come armed with bolt cutters and firearms.....