Like many whites in South Africa, we had a maid from the moment we moved into our new house near Pinetown, Durban in around 1989 or so. Roughly 8% of South Africa’s workforce are thought to be domestic workers, the vast majority of whom are now earning R1000 or less per month (2003 figures). As late as 1999, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) estimated that the average wage for domestic workers was between R369 and R549. The large domestic labour force reflects both South Africa’s apartheid past and its current struggle with job creation, poverty and unemployment, where “Between 1994 and 2003, unemployment rose by 153 percent … Unemployment is still 115 percent higher than it was in 1994.”

But our maid was not just a statistic, or someone who had to make the bed.

Her name was Anna. She was a sangoma (a witchdoctor) who had worked for the previous owners for several years before working for us, and a wonderful person who we cared for deeply; we felt she was part of our family. We were there when she gave birth to a wonderful girl named Theresa, her third daughter, the other two being Anna-Marie and Christine. It’s difficult to convey the feeling of growing up during a time when Apartheid crumbled, realising that this person is cleaning your home because of decades of white-imposed superiority. It’s uncomfortable to say the least, especially when you realise that keeping her employed is at least giving her a home, and an income.

Unfortunately, a few years ago Anna died of TB, related to the fact that she had AIDS. Christine, by now in her late teens, then moved in and took over the domestic chores, looking after Theresa and also her own child Ephrim, a wonderfully bright boy whom my father treated as his own child, helping him with schoolwork, and even paying all his school fees to go to a school when the local government one in Pinetown was closed down. Despite being in the top five highest spenders on education as a percentage of GDP (more than 5%), around one third of South Africans over the age of 20 still have inadequate or no education, only 27% of SA’s schools have library facilities, and only 35.9% of pre-school students achieve the minimum literacy level needed to reach Grade 1. Ephrim, however, was fortunate that my dad was a firm believer in education (he himself was a lecturer) and insisted the he and Theresa go to school every day.

A few years later, Christine died of an AIDS-related illness, too, and then Anna’s third daughter, Anna-Marie now moved in to live on the property, Anna-Marie being the maid, and her husband, Reg, finding work as a security guard in Pinetown. Theresa and Ephrim had to leave and go stay with their uncle in Pietermaritzberg. My father continued to pay their school fees and, when he died a little while later, he ensured in his will that their school fees were to be paid from his estate until they had both matriculated. Fortunately, they are both in the clear (if the results of their AIDS tests are to be trusted).

Anna-Marie and her husband, Reg, are two of the most wonderful and warm people I have ever met, full of joy, laughter, and kindness. I loved them both as I would love a friend, brother, or sister.

However, I learnt not too long ago that Anna-Marie died from a suspected AIDS-related illness after contracting shingles for a second time. I say “suspected” because her test results were not given by the hospitals. My brother told me via email that Anna-Marie, Reg, and my mom had gone to four different hospitals, and none of them had done anything to help her, “not even so far as to give them the results of their tests”. My brother believes that this is “to manipulate Aids statistics so they can downplay the epidemic”: no confirmation of the results, so the official death will be recorded as related to shingles, and not AIDS. Also, while waiting in the waiting room at one of the hospitals “they witnessed three people die in front of them”.

Reg, devastated by his loss, told my mother, “We had better hospitals when the whites where running the country.” While it is true that the Apartheid government didn’t need to deal with the devestating AIDS epidemic that has gripped South Africa, it is astounding that a young black man who knows first hand what Apartheid meant would be driven to say such a statement.

I try to keep things in South Africa in perspective. I know its history fairly well, and am the first to admit that it has an uphill struggle to overcome past injustices. But, after witnessing three generations of wonderful people die from the same family, I cannot help but believe that their deaths are a direct result of a government that has forgotten the meaning behind their struggle.

Anna, Christine, and Anna-Marie were not lazy, and worked hard, wanting to provide for their families, and live their lives as best as they could, but all of them were largely uneducated and desperately poor, forced to clean other people’s homes because South Africa’s ANC-led government and the largely white-owned business sector have essentially failed in delivering much needed reform. Average black household income has fallen by 19%, and the largest growing disparity is now between rich and poor blacks. Add to that an inefficient and politicised state health system trying to combat AIDS with pseudo-scientific policies that is “in decline due to underfunding and the increasing penetration of private providers” (not to mention that South Africa’s National Aids Council was spearheaded by ex-Deputy President Zuma who claimed that him “showering” after sex was enough to ensure he didn’t catch AIDS), and South Africans should start asking some serious questions about the direction their current government is taking, because it is a familiar path that has been walked down before.

Anna-Marie, Anna, Christine, and millions more like them are confined to this situation for the rest of their lives due to the fact that the current government, just like the last, were unwilling to attempt to dismantle the legacy of economic apartheid and instead turned its back on the freedom charter because the small minority controlling the majority of wealth - still largely white capital - is allowing black elites to be part of the rich club. Mandela was quite clear about his intention: “We do not want to challenge big business that can take fright and take away their money … You can call it Thatcherite but, for this country, privatisation is the fundamental policy.”

The consequence of constant government failure and non-delivery was put in stark terms by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in its second transformation audit when they said:

â??We have been warning for some time that unless the countryâ??s poor begin to feel the economy has something in it for them, national reconciliation is likely to unravel. … The politics of promises and patience are yesterdayâ??s mode in the townships. … Experience has shown a humanly inevitable trend in the politics of redistribution â?? a threat of the process being captured by an interest group or groups, those with access to capital, networks and political backing … The roadblock to effective transformation in South Africa is poverty. This is perpetuated by non-functioning local and national institutions, and by high unemployment, compounded by skewed growth, which is constrained by the skills mismatch bequeathed by inadequate education and skills provision, and by inadequate investment.”

It is possibly for this reason that Desmond Tutu recently said that “We must beware the dangers of ethnic strife”, because massive concentrations of wealth continually held by a minority group based on racial lines must surely end in conflict, as has happened before (see The Graves Are Not Yet Full for an excellent analysis of this in other African conflicts). I can only ask, as he did, “What has happened to us?”

Iâ??m saddened and angered by Anna, Christine, and Anna-Marie’s needless deaths, even more so because I know that they will remain unknown to government ministers, politicians, or members of the business elite. Unknown to them, but not forgotten by me, nor my family.