Victor Chibwe, an unemployed friend of Brenda's family, watches Brenda, her siblings and cousins from the doorway of the Mashila's house. Chibwe is one of the many members of South Africa's "lost generation"--adults in their 20's and 30's who have limited education because of the apartheid system's minimal spending on black education and the number of school boycotts held during the fight against apartheid.
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Brenda Mashila lives with her grandparents, three siblings and four cousins in a rural area just outside of Johannesburg. While much in South Africa has changed since apartheid's end in 1994 and urban areas are becoming more and more integrated, rural black still live much as they did under the apartheid system. Brenda's family lives in a small structure that has neither electricity nor running water. The nearest water source--a lake near the Mashila's home--is unusable because of cholera. Like many rural black children, Brenda does not know her parents because they left to seek work in the city. Her grandmother, Julie Mashila, supports the family on the meager salary she receives working as a domestic servant on one of the nearby farms.
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