Disabled boy in need
Grandparents pray for help
A GRANNY and grandpa from a rural village in the Eastern Cape coastal hills pray every day that help will come for their disabled sixyeargrandson.
Asihlangule Petani has a deformed leg and, though it is painful, they say he won’t give up trying to play in the dusty grounds with siblings and friends in Tsaba village in Chalumna, 40km from East London.
Grandfather Jeffrey Petani, 80, said he and his wife, Nowethu, 72, are tired and poor but won’t give up on the four children whose mother is absent and whose father is unemployed.
The oldest of the children is seven.
Asihlangule’s left leg is so deformed he can’t wear a shoe. He complains repeatedly of pain, Petani said.
He said they take care of him, although they cannot afford to support him.
“It is also difficult for us to care for him as we don’t have enough money to take him to clinics or buy him proper shoes when he needs them. Currently he wears old soft shoes borrowed from his siblings,” he said.
Petani said Asihlangule’s mother was “nowhere to be found”.
“We don’t even have a child support grant for him. He depends on us for everything from our little social grant we receive.
“It pains me to see him trying to play with other children and some laugh at him because of his disability.”
Local community leader Bonisile Dyani said the family lived in an old rondavel built in the 1970s and had nothing.
“This family is poor. They can’t even afford to have three meals a day. They can’t even buy uniform for all their grandchildren as there is no other income in the family,” he said.
Nowethu said she was too frail to look after Asihlangule and his siblings.
“I don’t have any powers any more and the money we have is never enough to feed and clothe him,” she said.
She said they prayed hard for Asihlangule to get special shoes so that he can attend school like other village kids.
“It is in our prayers that we can get that support and be able for him to get a social grant, and that someone will make him that special shoe to fit him,” she said.
When the Saturday Dispatch team arrived at his home yesterday, Asihlangule was playing with other village kids.
“I can’t run like other kids. I want to play soccer and help my grandparents. I am not feeling well at times because of the pain,” the boy said in front of his grandparents.
Nowethu became tearful as she spoke of her distress at her grandchildren having to understand the pain of poverty at such a young age.
“They know that we are not well off and that is bad. We have been trying to hide that from them but they can see that their home is not the same as others in the village.
“My dream is to see him walking to school like other kids so that he can get an education before we die.”
Any help would be gratefully received, they said. — bonganif@dispatch.co.za