Hallo, my name is Sam..
Everyone calls me Sam, but my real name is actually Samantha George, and I got a certificate for ballroom dancing when I was only five years old. I still jump and dance to wherever I want to be. Myself and some of the other kids sometimes sing along and throw our bodies around until it freaks out the aunties at the Kid’s Club. And then we laugh because they are so stervy.
I am the smallest in the netball team and my frocks are always too big. I don’t worry, because the teams that play against us think that I am very small, and then I surprise them, because I am the fastest in our team. We play most of our netball games on Sundays in the park, and most of the times my father causes some scandals at the netball court. He talks far too much when he is drunk and then everybody laughs at him. I try to stay far away from where he is, because it is embarrassing in front of all the people.
I was one of the first kids at the Kid’s Club and still remember the Hot Chocolate church services on Thursday nights. I went in my pajamas and always arrived there with a hand full of five bobs, because I was good with the gambling machine at the aunties’ games room, First gamble and then church.. The gambling machines are not there any more, and so the five bobs are a lot less.
I always want to know everything about everyone. I want to know what the teenage girls talk about on Tuesday nights at the Monique group. One night I was eavesdropping and heard them talk about boobs and bra’s and boys, and just kept quiet. I knew I would have to use the stuff one day, so I filed it in my brain. I wish I was two years older so that I can sit inside with the other girls. In winter it feels like my toes are freezing off while I stand outside listening to them.
I have a special gift. I can make myself invisible and that is how I hear and see everything. The grown ups think they have secrets….hahaha.. Invisible Sam knows everything.
My picture is posted at auntie Tish’s store at Streetwork where she works when she is not in our Badsberg Close. The photo has been there for many years and to me I still look the same. I am not really getting bigger. Maybe one day I will not have boobs and bra’s.
I like it at auntie Lisa’s house at Streetwork. We go there every Christmas and then we swim, jump on the jumping castles and slide on the slippy slide. And we get face paint and run potato races. And we get gifts. I always get nice stuff and I think I am the auntie’s favourite child.
People say I am clever, because my mother is very clever. My school marks are always good. My brother is also very clever and he is in high school. He does not go to Heideveld Secondary. He is too clever for that gangster school. My brother and I are both in the Coons. He plays trumpet and I play simbals. New Year’s Day is a wonderful time.
I also have a brother and a baby brother. Actually he is not a baby any more, because he knows how to let the wind out of the tyres of the cars parked in the yard. I really wonder who taught him that. I think he is also clever, because he understands things very quickly and remembers how to do things.
We stay in the back of Mama Jones’s yard. We all call her Mamma, but she is actually our great grandmother. Our house was build with vibracrete and the new Kid’s Club class is next to our house. It was exciting to see how the class was built en how boeta Armien had to measure and cut to fit it in .
We also have pigeon cages in our yard.Racing pigeons. I wonder how it works, because people take bets and win money, nearly like gambling. And with the gambling machine gone from round the corner, I will have to make another plan. It is a pity that I cannot listen to what is being said at the meetings. They just speak a little to soft. I am sent to the shop quite often to buy bread and milk and loose cigarettes and sometimes the people give me five bob for my trouble.
If I don’t know what to do with myself, I walk around in the neighbourhood and look for people to listen to what they are saying. If I want something, I will keep on and on and on until they would say yes. It is probably also one of my gifts. And I never give up. And I am invisible.
Everybody who stays in Heideveld, says it is a junk place. I say it is because they have forgotten how to dance and jump with joy.