Where there's a will, there's a way

It's the Hard-Knock Life

This is the official version of childcare in South Africa.

Our life mission is to care for, nurture and develop children in need, to help them become balanced, well-adapted and fully independent adults. We try to provide a loving, happy, and secure home for boys and girls of all ages and religious denominations.

The children are placed in our care strictly through the Children’s Court and given three balanced meals a day, attend local schools and provided with school uniforms, sports equipment, and casual clothing.

They receive medical and dental attention as well as therapeutic and counseling services, with an individual development program for each child, according to his or her specific needs.

They receive training in basic life skills and are encouraged to participate in a selection of sports and recreational activities. We also endeavor to promote spiritual growth.

That’s only on the proviso that the people in charge aren’t slightly psychotic, sadistic, devil-worshiping neo-Nazis.

Children are the future of our nation, and we are grateful that we can serve them by providing a place where they can receive loving care and the opportunity to become well-adjusted, productive citizens. Our Motto being: The children always come first.

In a f**king pig's eye.

If you’re able to conjure up, or envision, any of those horribly dark and depressing movies of really scary, mid-century orphanages, where everything’s big, and old, and gray and ugly. That’s exactly where I was at.

I'd shout out from the rooftops, tell you all about the horror and abuse that took place while I was resident in the devil’s bowels, but only if I thought it would achieve anything, but there’s no point. You’ve heard it all before.

The sad truth is, whether you want to believe it or not, is that nothing will ever be done to change this. Not as long the Catholic church exists. We were little kids who’d been abandoned and then unwittingly (at least I hope so) left to the fantasies and whims of dangerously unhinged, supposedly god-fearing nuns, who treated as if we were their own personal possessions. To do with, and to use, as they f**king pleased.

These sick f**k’s were entrusted to take care of us. They accepted this trust, and then twisted it around, using it to commit some death-defyingly imaginative abuse. Worst of all, is they got away with it, time after time.

I wouldn’t be at all shocked, or even a little surprised, if I heard that they were all still there. The only difference being they’d be a lot older and even more f**ked up than they already were. Some of them, and you can only hope, will be dead, of course.

Today, if and when I’m in the same room as any f**king voluntary care worker, no matter how good their intentions may be, or a children’s counselor, a religious group and or the occasional children’s TV presenter, as far as I’m concerned, I’m in the company of a potential child moles, pedophiles in waiting, or maybe just plain down sicko’s.

The irreparable damage caused by these f**king pricks, has left kids with emotional scars and wounds that will never, ever heal. Society should demand that each and every one of them be held accountable. Impaling them, and then burning them alive at the stake, would be a good place to start.

Anyway, I’ve been missing for quite a while now and mom was slowly losing it. She wasn’t looking or feeling too good either, and Reggie had kind of drifted away, but he did get mom a job, working as a cashier at the New Rand hotel.

The New Rand is / was a real dive in downtown Durban. It was a shithole in the best sense of the word. Soiled, unsavory, and in desperate need of a makeover. With its old, rusty, cracked windows and neon signs that had seen better days. The advertising was all about cold beer and cigarettes, and everything reeked of cigarette smoke, stale beer, and piss. Mom loved the f**king place.

Thanks to my unwelcome detention, child welfare managed to track mom down and after locating her, they deemed she was unfit as a single parent, so my poor sisters were placed in the welfare system as well. Which was probably a good thing.

As newly appointed wards of the court, the undeniable and irrefutable fact was that nobody involved in our involuntary incarceration cared. Not one of them, gave our well-being a second thought. No one asked us how we felt or how we were coping with this earth-shattering, life-changing upheaval.

Mom was our anchor; she was our only real source of comfort, and we were supposed to be at home with her, not in some f**king scary, unknown place, with no one to turn to. It seemed as if we didn’t matter anymore.

We were just a few more kids, left to fend for ourselves , but that wasn’t really an option either. They took that away from us too. Our future had been determined for us, and now we were faced with a simple case of f**king sinking or swimming.

We were subjected to subtle bullying, day after day, week after week, without even realising it. They f**ked with our minds whenever they could, consistently trying to destroy any capacity we may have had as individuals. They inadvertently, or maybe intentionally, chipped away at our desire to show any initiative at all.

We became f**king victims and as we got older, no amount of therapy, that’s assuming we could afford therapy in the first place, would help. Try giving that some thought. Imagine it was you who grew up in a childcare environment and had to fend for yourself.