2007
‘When the evictions happened in 2002, we saw the trucks coming and saw people being loaded into the trucks. We did not get any warning. We just saw people, our family members, being put into the trucks. My father refused to leave. I went with my mother but came back as soon as I could. We suffered because they just dumped us in New Xade and left us there. We were given tents and then from there, we started building out own huts. There was nothing there for us. There was nothing to do. We didn't know what to do. We just spent our days cooking and building huts, waiting for our food. We missed the land. We missed how Metsiamanong looked and how we knew about the land. There was nothing good about New Xade. We didn't know the land and didn't know what to do. We were very happy about the court ruling and were very pleased to come home. People might say that life is harder in the CKGR but life is more difficult in New Xade. Here, we know where to find food and berries, we know the land and we know what to do. I will stay here forever. It is very difficult to live here without water. If the borehole at Mothomelo is opened, everything will be fine. I wish that people overseas could please help us to talk to the government about water.’
‘We are really starving without water. We want to ask the world to campaign for the re-opening of the borehole and for goats. Please talk with the District Commissioner to bring our goats back. Please, if the government allows us to use the borehole, that will save us more costs. If we talk about Kaudwane [resettlement camp], it's like making us crazy. Even now we don't feel that we have been freed from Kaudwane. We want all these problems to end. But at least now we know that if we die tomorrow, our children will know how to survive.’
‘It will make us sick to go back to Kaudwane. We don't want to be beggars. We have our own rich ancestral lands. We want to stay here, we can get everything we need here. We don't need to go to Kaudwane, we don't know places like that. The area [Kaudwane] doesn't belong to us. We have no powers over that area. Being given food is not good. You don't know how long that person is going to keep giving you food. We know this land, we know what to do. We would not know what to do in Kaudwane. In Kaudwane, if you don't have food, you have to go and beg the government for it. Here, if we are hungry, we all go out and find some food.’
‘We are very happy to be home. Now we are back, we just want to be assisted to survive. You have to help us talk to the government, to get access to water and hunting to sustain ourselves.’
April 2006
