RED DE BAJA TENSIÓN

Lerato is a 27-year-old Xhosa woman who forms part of the Zivuseni Reloaded project. She started work at the EPWP Zivuseni Reloaded project in November 2013 and has subsequently worked in two areas including general cleaning and carpentry. She hails from Gauteng province but regards her mother’s birthplace in the Eastern Cape as home. Lerato has a five-month-old daughter and has been in a committed relationship with her Pedi partner for the past six years.

During our second interview, Lerato identified several critical scenes which have shaped her life

herstory narrative. These scenes include the death of her mum, the ending of her school education, Xhosa upbringing, admission into Zivuseni Reloaded and the birth of her child.

Lerato’s mother worked at a supermarket and was the family breadwinner, “everything was nice because I did not suffer because my mum was supporting me in everything”. Her mum passed away in 2007, when Lerato was in Grade 9. Lerato has strong links to both the Eastern Cape and her Xhosa culture, “my mum is buried in the Eastern Cape. So if I have something, I go there in the Eastern Cape”. Lerato’s elder brother subsidised her during Grades 10 and 11. At the end of Grade 11, Lerato’s brother discontinued the financial assistance.

After one year, he [brother] was tired. He don’t want to give me the money. Then I end up to leave school.

Lerato did not complete matric, her highest level of education is Grade 11,

Since my mother passed on and my brother was tired I had no money for my Grade 12 school fees, books and uniform. If you didn’t have uniform, you didn’t enter the school gate. So I end up to drop [leave] my school. I will be more than educated if my mother was still alive.

After leaving school in 2009, Lerato started at work performing home-based-care at Lewisham under the Department of Health, she earned a stipend of R1,000 per month over a period of a year. Lerato likes “to address people and speak to them”, she is a member of the ANCYL and the church choir. Lerato and her baby live together in an RDP house she inherited from her mother. Lerato’s primary identity markers are her gender identifying as female, ethnicity as a Xhosa, her relationship status as in a committed relationship as well as her religion identifying as a 5th Mission, Christian. She views her Xhosa ethnicity as more important than her racial classification of African black. Lerato does not speak Pedi but is trying to learn the language, “I am trying to speak that language but if I am angry I am talking my language [Xhosa]”. Lerato cannot marry her boyfriend until several cultural practices are observed.

He has to pay an ‘apology’ because I have not had a baby before. They call me a virgin. No matter that I am not starting to be sleeping with him [not a virgin when I met him]. They say I am a virgin because my breasts are no longer high. So, since it was that boy who was sleeping with me making me to be pregnant the breast is not staying high …it is broken, ja [yes] he broke her breast. That one is a virgin … so you pay more.

Lerato’s boyfriend gave a R4,000 apology to her uncles but she explains that that R4,000 does not allow my baby to go to Limpopo [boyfriends home]. In order for her child to go to Limpopo a lobola for the child must be paid, this is not to be confused with the lobola that must also be paid for Lerato to become his wife.

At the time of the interview, her boyfriend was talking to Lerato’s uncles about the lobola for the baby. The price Lerato’s uncles have set is two cows which is in the region of R16,000. “If you want to marry me you have to put the horse. That horse has a clothes. You know clothes

[meaning saddle and riding gear]. We are so expensive…Xhosa’s”. Lerato indicates that the baby is carrying her surname because she is not married. The baby is a child of Lerato’s family until she marries. “I change the surname at Home Affairs after he finishes to pay the lobola’s.

Without the two lobola’s I am not going to change the surname. I am still using my surname”. It is now clear why ethnicity ranks so high up on Lerato’s identity markers. Lerato did not consider having an abortion because,

I am scared. I saw my classmate, that one was green. I asked why? Because I am doing the abortion drinking the tablets. After I get pregnant, I remember this I can’t do this [abortion] because I will end up to be green. I can’t do this.

Lerato heard about Zivuseni from her councillor at a ANC meeting. “The councillor told us that there is this thing. We went to Town Hall, Krugersdorp. We did not even put the identity document (ID) when we apply for this job. Our coordinators tell us we are going to Leratong Hospital to work there. Then come with the ID copy and bank statement. Then we sign the contract on that day and we start to work”. Lerato was pregnant whilst in Zivuseni. She went on four months unpaid maternity leave.

I was so stressed because everyday I must pray [beg] to my boyfriend. Please I need something. So if I am working I have my own money - there is no need to beg. It is not nice that we get no leave. No money. At least no matter it is not a full month – we make the things [meaning they should get partial payment for maternity leave]. So it’s not fair – no leave.

Lerato has a choice when it comes to sex and is skilled in utilising her cultural beliefs to negotiate this terrain. “I have a choice. I can say no. I can’t do sex. Sex I will do it after my child is 12 months old. My child is still young now” [her Xhosa cultural practices suggest that a woman must avoid sex until the child is a year old]. She collects R300 rent from each of the two shacks she has on the property of her RDP home in addition to the R1,900 to R2,200 she earns for her EPWP efforts. There are two income earners within her home, her boyfriend works in the engineering sector in Mpumalanga province and visits on weekends at least twice a month. The boyfriend provides an additional source of income as well as food, municipal fees, clothes, airtime, milk, pampers [disposable baby napkins], medicine and transport for their baby. Additionally she receives R1,000 a month in cash as an ‘allowance’ on the 25th when her boyfriend gets paid, “He is stingy vele [does not part with money easily Lerato must account for why the money is needed] he is counting my money and the grant”. She is reliant on this additional financial support from her boyfriend to subsidise her expenses. In December, for Christmas, her boyfriend sends her R2,500. Lerato’s monthly expenses include R1,500 on food, R300 on transport, R300 for her lunch at work, R300 crèche and R70 for her television license. Additionally she has clothing accounts at Rage for R150 and Ackerman’s for R250.

Lerato spends R250 on Avon cosmetics and R200 on maintaining her hair, “that money for Zivuseni – it is for my cosmetics”. She receives a child support grant of R350 for her baby. Her

total income inclusive of EPWP, rent and grant is R3,250. She is also considering erecting another shack to increase her income, “even a space is there for another shack”. Utilising Finn’s monetary definition of the working poor (2015: iii, 7 & 49), I can conclude that Lerato does fall into the category of the working poor earning below the threshold of R4,125.

Lerato’s political activism with the ANCYL is important to her,

The politics show you where you are coming from and where you are going to. If you are not voting you don’t have a power to fight your right. If you vote you have your rights… if you want a house you say I want a house just because I am voting.

She also belongs to the Street Committee in her neighbourhood,

I am going there to meet that people… we have to be together…not fighting…if that one does not have, take your salt and give it to this one. We are together, yes … I solve the problem at location [the area in which she lives], yes.

Although Lerato’s EPWP contract is coming to an end, she will still be able to survive, “because I have the rentals. But other plans have fucked up [interrupted] because I am not going forward as the contract is ending”. Her dream is for her child to be successful, “I want my baby to have a better life, not ending in matric only…maybe going to WITS [University of Witwatersrand]”.

4.2.3.1 Lessons from Lerato

Lerato is an articulate young woman with a well establish community and political network. In her early youth Lerato’s education came to an abrupt end due to the death of her mother.

Throughout the findings of this research it is consistent that mothers’ have been responsible for the education of their daughters’ and when the mother is unable to fulfil this expectation the daughters’ education is terminated. Thereafter she had no financial support and very little influence or power over critical decisions in her life she was wholly dependent on the sporadic generosity of her elder bother. She was then forced to join the informal job market due to her lack of an educational qualification coupled with limited skills. The termination of Lerato’s education has resulted in her joining EPWP as there was no other avenue available to her.

Lerato has previously accessed a government job creation intervention and is able to access other government opportunities in this regard. She also has access to other income generating streams including leveraging her Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) home through the rental of outside rooms, childcare grant and an allowance from her boyfriend. It is through these alternative income streams that Lerato can afford other debts like her clothing accounts. In relation to finances she considers her Zivuseni Reloaded stipend as just enough cover her expenses for cosmetics. Lerato is highly engaged in both community and political activities and considers herself a community leader. She gained access to EPWP via her political network via her local councillor. When she fell pregnant and went on maternity leave

Lerato did not receive her stipend for four months this increased her reliance on her boyfriend and severely increased her economic vulnerability. Lerato has managed to leverage her cultural practices in order to gain continued financial support from her boyfriend by not allowing him to include his surname on the child’s birth certification until such time that he complies with the payment of the two lobola’s and not allowing her boyfriend to introduce the child to his family in Limpopo province until these cultural requirements are fulfilled. Lerato exhibits high levels of agency in her ability to access both community and political networks and how she is able to use her cultural capital to her advantage.