In Pretoria West Poem by Gert Strydom

Years ago my car
was in for repairs
and I had to work overtime
and the work’s small bus,
took me home one night.

We first had to take other people home
and in Pretoria West
I saw a place,
where very poor white people
lived together like in a commune
in houses
with asbestos thin walls.
.
I could hear a drunk
and his wife argue
and somewhere a baby
cried disconsolately
and thin dogs,
sneaked around the building
afraid of being kicked.

There where teenage girls
chatting with boyfriends
at the windows of cars
and a mother screamed angrily
at one of them,
to immediately come home.

Still there were other people
who were driven there
by life and fate
and I saw people,
sharing the little that they had
with each other.