Some of the personal stories of the Women of Marikana: Nomfanelo Jali: My name is Nomfanelo Jali and I am 47 years old. In 1993 I came to visit my husband who was working at the mine here at Marikana but he was seeing other women so I went back home to Harding in KwaZulu-Natal. The marriage ended and I haven’t seen him since. He left me with four children and no support. Life was too difficult so after a few months I came back here to stay with my brother who was also working at the mine and to look for work but I was unable to find any. Twenty years ago this place was better. There weren’t as many people here as there are now and there was no crime. If someone did something bad, justice was carried out by the community and it was brutal, deterring crime. Now crime is opportunistic and rife, men are often beaten and sometimes even stabbed while being mugged especially around pay day. Crime was very bad during the long strike this year, with the theft of people’s belongings, even fridges, from their shacks. It is bad for women here. Recently a woman was gang raped by three men in her room after the man in the house left for work and did not lock the door. In 1995, I started a relationship with a man from the Free State working at the mine as a machine operator. He was married but she has now left him although he still sends money and supports his three children that are with her. We have three children of our own, the two youngest are here with us and the older child is back at my home living with his aunt and going to school. My son and two of my daughters from my previous marriage are living here with us looking for work and one has a child who we take care of. So we have two shacks.My life is here with my partner, I am recognised by the mine as his official partner but we are planning to go to Home Affairs and get married. He must first pay lobola though, because my father is still alive. We usually go to my home in December and then to his over Easter but we plan to retire at my home in KwaZulu-Natal. I have a very good partner. He supports four families; his children in the Free State, his parents; my children from my previous marriage and the family we have together. It would ease the pressure if my daughters would find men to support them but they want to find jobs. The only other money we have is the child grant I receive for two of the children. We have to be very disciplined with money. I control the bank card and I give my partner an allowance because when we first started dating there were problems with other women so now I control the money. I don’t know if he is always faithful to me but he isn’t giving another woman money; if he buys something without telling me, he has to show me the receipts otherwise there are problems, but he knows the rules. Before the massacre I used to sell chickens and vegetables but now I am fully occupied by Sikhala Sonke, mainly by going to the Commission. Now I wake up at about 4am to do some housework, get the children ready for school at about 6 am and then leave for the Commission. I return at about 5 or 6pm in the evening. My daughters take care of the rest of the housework while I am away and my partner is very supportive. I go to the Commission because I feel I owe something to those that suffer as a result of the massacre. Before the 2012 strike we were still suffering because of low pay and there was crime but not like it is now. A lot has changed since the massacre, there is more hostility and more crime. Many are disillusioned because the mine broke its promise to workers and they didn’t get what they demanded even after suffering such a huge loss. But the trauma of August 16th also resulted in more unity. Some of us women came together immediately after the massacre to provide support and we have stayed together because we don’t want to sit down and get nothing like before. So that 2012 strike played a huge role in our independence and the establishment of Sikhala Sonke, and I feel we have a debt to them. We wish that the government and the mine would care for the spouses and the families of those deceased and injured. It is these families that suffer the most now. They have no financial means. They should have got something but they didn’t even get the back pay money negotiated to end the strike. I know what it is like to be left with nothing, but it was different for me. My husband left me, he wasn’t taken away from me. The mine should acknowledge this. Even when things got bad during this strike, we supported the strike and supported each other. We knew the strike was coming so we were able to prepare and we received support from the outside which we were grateful for. But it was still so bad. We have debt of R3700 for food we took from a local shop during the strike. We are lucky, we have a good relationship with the owner and so had this available to us and he is not charging interest. We were forgiven for not paying rent during the strike but still have to pay it back now. We have two rooms so we pay rent of R300 for both a month. We built the rooms but pay for the land to the person whose yard we are in. He is in the Eastern Cape but his relative collects the rent and sends it to him. If we don’t pay rent one month, we have to pay double or we will be evicted. We have realised that we need things to change for us as women. We are not satisfied with how we are living but we have gotten used to it and there is no use complaining. We complained before and nothing has changed. But we need to not be so dependent on the men. The last strike was very bad; there was nothing in the house. We were so hungry; one day I found my young child eating a candle If Sikhala Sonke gets going at least we will have something and be able to support each other during such times. Sikhala Sonke gives us hope; we want a better life, we want development. We can’t get jobs so we must find another way. Together as women we want to start a crèche, a vegetable garden and to keep some animals. As soon as we start this my life will be better because I will be able to bring something home.
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 10:11:54 +0000
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