SOUTH AFRICAN SAYS VIOLENCE INDESCRIBABLE

Children's Express recently talked by telephone with several children from South Africa to find out about their lives under apartheid, or racial separation. Theona Canster, 15, lives in a township outside Cape Town.

People are dying. Some of them are dying for no reason - maybe for the color of your skin or the language that you speak. And to some people, (if) you don't look good or if you don't speak the language that they do, then you're not good enough.

South Africa isn't very good at the moment, because of the political system and all of the things going on.

Violence has taken more of our time, and more people are dying for nothing. Because violence is all over, all over.

I cannot say, "Those are the people that are causing the violence and those are the people that are not causing the violence." Violence is just in the air. People are just like animals around you.

It's been so bad, seeing other people die. It's just indescribable. I cannot even describe it. I cannot describe how I feel. I feel angry and miserable about it.

There's nowhere where it is safe in South Africa. You can go to the site where you think it is safe and then violence will just break out. There is no safe place in here. Unless, you stay in the white areas. Maybe, they are safe because (white people) don't die so much as we black people do. Apartheid still exists

Apartheid is a lot like oppression. (It) has not yet ended.

(If) we get the same education that the whites get, if everybody can be treated equally, if everybody can get equal rights (and be) treated as human beings, that would solve all the problems. If we can have the chance to vote, then maybe things will be much better.

If I could change one thing about South Africa, I would change where people live in the townships, because those people are not (living) how people should live. Some people don't even have fresh water and have to go long distances for water, to other areas.

I stay at a children's home. I don't stay with my mom and dad because our houses are small. Not all of them can fit into the house.

Maybe if I can get a big house and get to live in the city like the white people do, (then our family can live together). Living in a township, you get, for two families staying in one house, a two-bedroom house. Then in white areas, you get maybe one family staying in a 15-room house. And if there's a two-bedroom house for the black people, they make them as expensive as possible. And they do not increase the salary. Judged like cattle

(If I could,) one thing that I would give to my family is wealth and equality, because that is all that us black people don't have. If you're not rich, then people look down on you . . . you will be taken as a piece of crap, things like that. . . . And so I would like everybody to be equal, to be judged the same way, not judged like cattle, (like) they call us. That's what I mean by equality.

(When I think of the United States,) I think you people are living a pleasurable life because life in the U.S. is much faster. When I watch TV, I think you people are the most comfortable people. And I think that it would be delightful to be there because there are so many things to experience.