Chapter 5 - School Activities

We didn't have a watch or clock to guide us in terms of time. My brother and I depended on the sun to help us determine whether it was time to go to school or not.

In the morning, my brother would take a big stone, place it on the ground, and then mark where its shade was on the ground. If it happened that the next day the shade had moved beyond the previous day's mark, we knew we were late for school.

When we arrived at the school, the principal will be there, waiting to punish us with a cane for coming late. Corporal punishment was the order of the day. Mr Mashiane, the principal, used to keep a cane with him all the time.

During the athletic season, all the children had to run. The school principal ran after them with a sjambok. If you happened to be last, you would be beaten. When it came to running, I was hopeless.

Our everyday homework was to memorize poems word for word. The next day, each student will be required to recite it in front of other children. If you skip a word, you would be punished. My brother used to be punished in spite of trying to memorize every morning.

One day, upon arriving home from school, we found a snake ...

Snake on the ground...
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To find out what happened after they saw the snake in the house, read the book by buying it from: https://www.amazon.com/Memories-Life-Alexandra-Township-Know/dp/1483693805 (Amazon) or http://www.takealot.com/the-memories-of-my-life-in-alexandra-township-i-know/PLID36786983 (Takealot).


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Chapter 4 - Relocation to the Village

Following hospitalization, I was now free from screams and hallucinations.  My parents were still not satisfied. They consulted a traditional healer, who adviced them to move me from Alexandra to the village. According to her, the move would help me to be completely healed.

In 1953, I was sent to Ga-Molepo, Pietersburg, in the Sekuto rural area.  My grandmother and my grandfather welcomed me. My elder brother Job and my cousin Albert stayed with them also.

Albert was raised by my grandparents because his mother worked as a domestic worker in Pretoria. n His father was an Indian man, Tayob, from Marabastad, Pretoria.

My grandmother used to cut Albert's growing hair because children at school used to be astonished by his long black silky hair. We attended school at St Theresea.

In 1953, I did Standard 3, Grade 5. My class teacher was Mr Mashiane. We walked to school every morning. We went over the Sekuto Mountain. Albert was not happy to see me...



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Chapter 3 - Schooling

I attended school at Holy Cross, in Second Avenue, Alexandra Township. It was a Roman Catholic school.  I attended from Sub A, now Grade 1, to Standard 2, or Grade 4, from 1949 to 1952.

I became very sick in 1952. My mother took me to Dr Klas at the intersection of Third Avenue and Selbourne Street.  Afterwards, he started giving me intramuscular injections at home on a daily basis. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I used to have hallucinations. At other times I would scream with my eyes fixed to the ceiling.

I would point to the ceiling, 'seeing' frightening creatures...

Rose as a High School Student.

To find out which creatures Rose was seeing and what condition she was eventually diagnosed with read more from her book "The Memories Of My Life In Alexandra Township I Know". To order, go to: https://www.amazon.com/Memories-Life-Alexandra-Township-Know/dp/1483693805  (Amazon) or http://www.takealot.com/the-memories-of-my-life-in-alexandra-township-i-know/PLID36786983 (Takealot).

Chapter 2 - Games

As children we used to play at the intersection of Hofmeyer Street and Fifth Avenue.

Our neighbour's yard, Number 44, was full of children of different cultures. Amongst these children were Shangaan twin sisters, who used to do Shangaan traditional dance. We used to watch them, especially over weekends.

The Pedis, Sothos, Shangaans, Tswanas, and Zulus used to play together.


We played different games. The most popular game was...

Children playing 

Find out which exciting games we used to play by ordering or downloading the book at: https://www.amazon.com/Memories-Life-Alexandra-Township-Know/dp/1483693805  (Amazon) or http://www.takealot.com/the-memories-of-my-life-in-alexandra-township-i-know/PLID36786983

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Chapter 1 - Dark City

Alexandra Township, or the Dark City, as commonly known in the early fifties, is an old black township near Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa. It was called the Dark City as there was no electricity.

The Dark City was divided from north to south by the following main streets, namely, Vasco Da Gama, John Brandt, Hofmeyer, Selbourne, Rooth, Rooseveldt, and London. From east to west, it was divided by twenty-two streets or avenues.

My father, Isaiah Rakoma, left Ga-Molepo village in Pietersburg for Johannesburg in 1938. He got married to my mother, Hendrica Ngwanankwana Manyama, in 1939 in Pietersburg.

In 1940, they were blessed with a son named Jonas. His name was later changed to Job.  A certain traditional healer adviced my parents to rename him after my late father's brother Job... This was because...

Rose and her parents, Josiah and Hendrica Rakoma, during her Graduation Day.

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Introduction: Facts About Alexandra Township

Alexandra Township
Picture Credit: Art and Design website (pria.org). Visit the website for more of their fantastic pictures.

Alexandra Township in Johannesburg is a sprawling ghetto township, some twelve kilometers, north-east of the city centre.  It is surrounded by wealthy suburbs like Sandton, Kelvin, and Wendywood.

Driving through Alexandra leaves one with the overall impression of squalor and desperate poverty witnessed in the polluted streets, the overcrowded shacks, and the many unemployed people milling about the streets.

The story of Alexandra goes back to 1904 when it was very much part of Johannesburg's farmland.

In 1912, Alexandra was proclaimed a native township, and by 1916, the Alexandra Health Committee was established to manage Alexandra.  This settlement accommodated around thirty thousand people then.  The Committee received no funds from the city council for managing the township.  The roads were untarred, no rainwater drainage system, no streetlights, no sewerage system, and haphazard shack settlement took the appearance of a ghetto.

In 1948, Alexandra was administered by the Peri-Urban Areas Health Board, and through the issuing of permits and passes, further settlement of people in the township was controlled. Police raided homes, checking on passes, and residents not in possession of relevant documents were systematically moved out of Alexandra.

Alexandra Township has been under threat of demolition many times in its ninety-year-old history.
A friendship between a church Pastor and a cabinet minister is what finally saved the township from demolition in 1979.  The church minister was the Reverend Sam Buti, who initiated and drove the Save Alex campaign in the late 1970s, and Dr Piet Koornhof, minister of cooperation and development during the apartheid government.

In the early 1990s, the township was racked by violence in the run-up to the first democratic elections in 1994.  Violence broke out between residents in the men's hostels and residents at the south of the hostels, an area that became known as Beirut.

In 1998, a development plan was drawn up, planned to reduce Alexandra's population and divide the township into development zones.
Superblocks, three-storeyblocks, were to be built to house 3,000 people.  Total cost to be R3 billion. An athletes' village was constructed in 1999 for the All African Games on the Far East Bank area. It was called Tsutsumani and consisted of 1,700 free-standing, semi-detached, and simplex units.  These are now occupied by Alexandrans who have been on the housing waiting list and qualified.

In February 2001, President Thabo Mbeki announced the Alexandra Renewal Project and that an amount of R1.3 billion has been made available, and that over the period of seven years, the township is  to be upgraded.

In the last decade, there have been flickers of hopeful private/public sector investment in Alexandra, in the quest to uplift Alexandra’s quality of life.  In year 2000, the Bombani Shelter for Abused Women was opened, run by three volunteers from the community. Later Alexandra People’s Centre opened, providing an information centre, a help and complaints desk, as well as a centre for the payment for local rates, electricity, and water.

After the World Summit on Sustainable Development, a resource centre used at the summit was donated to Alexandra Township. It consists of sixteen computers, a call centre for five operators, an audiovisual centre with two televisions, two video machines and a screen and cameras, and a conference or education room.

In an effort to bring tourists and their money into the township, tours in Alexandra are now conducted. The township now boasts several restaurants and bed-and-breakfast establishments.

Source: City of Johannesburg website

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