Kaffir Boy Journal #3 On Violence/ Abuse

When my father was arrested and didn’t return after a long time, we didn’t eat much because he was the one who had the job and would provide for us. My mother began drinking and heavily too. She would get angry so quickly. She would get into fights with other ladies over whose child had been pooping all over the place, or who had the right to draw water first from the communal tap in the middle of the yard. As here personality changed mine began too. I got really cranky. I picked fights with other children and abuse my brother and sister. I got out of control. I was trying to find ways to distract myself from my hunger and sadly I chose to do it that way. Life was rough, and I was going crazy. Missing meals almost everyday is the worst feeling. It turned me and my mother into a monster. I became greedy. I would cut pieces of food to share with my brother and sister but I would cut them the smallest pieces. Then when my sister told on me, I tried to play a mind game with my sister to give my sister two smalls pieces of food then tell her that I had one and she had two small pieces but I would one big one, and that made her feel like she had more than me and she would keep quiet. I was smacked for the first time by mother because I had a bad mouth. Then after I was told not to go begging for food, I ignored that and went anyway. My mother once caught me and I was dragged back to the house and smacked and my mother tried to beat me with a switch, luckily she missed and I tried to runaway to anywhere in the house because my mother locked the door. Was I scared or what? Eventually my mother stopped trying to beat me, but instead she told me a scary voodoo story about witches poisoning the foods. At that moment my stomach began to hurt. I thought I was going to die. It’s funny how one can be when food is not in the stomach everyday. One can become very self-centered and do some crazy things. Who knew that my father would keep getting arrested? Since my father kept getting arrested, meant less food every time. It felt like we would never get the same amount of food because things just kept getting worse and worse.