On a chilly weekday morning, gogo Thozama Toti sits next to a stove, watching her granddaughter prepare a meal of noodles.   

Another grandchild waits patiently on a bed inside the dilapidated three-roomed mud house in Emaxelegwini informal settlement near Ngcobo in the Eastern Cape. 

The 68-year-old grandmother already knows the noodles will not be enough to feed all twelve members of her extended family. Hunger is a constant presence in their home.

Gogo Toti shares her home with her five adult children and six grandchildren. 

Living with arthritis, she says life has been a struggle since moving to the settlement from her village in 2002, about 10 kilometres away, in search of work.       

Gogo Toti found employment as a domestic worker, but by 2021 at the age of 63, arthritis forced her to stop working.

Today, all five of her adult children, aged between 31 and 45, and her three oldest grandchildren, aged between 18 and 23, are unemployed. 

The twelve family members survive on an income of R4080 per month.

The family is mainly dependent on gogo Toti’s old-age grant of R2,400 and they receive child support grants of R560 each for three of her youngest grandchildren, aged between three and ten.

“The grandchildren need to eat and also have clothes on their backs, so their grant money goes to those needs,” she says.“

Eating on borrowed money

Gogo Toti says she has to borrow money from family or friends every month to buy food. 

“On a monthly basis, I spend R2,000 on groceries and the rest goes to credit because during the month I have to borrow money for food,” she says. 

“Meat is a luxury nowadays because we have to prioritise samp, mealie meal and other essentials. For meat, we buy the cheaper soup packs, which don’t even last a month.”

Gogo Toti shows Health-e News her empty fridge. On the shelves are a few pieces of chicken and bread. 

The noodles being prepared that morning are only enough for the youngest three grandchildren. 

For gogo Toti and her adult children, skipping meals has become part of daily life. 

“I resorted to eating breakfast and supper only,” she tells Health-e News. 

“In a family as big as ours, the older children also have to skip lunch sometimes.”

Surviving with chronic medication and little food

Gogo Toti says she always tries to make sure she has something in her stomach before taking her arthritis medication. 

“I sometimes walk to the nearby Masonwabe township and do a small piece job, just for a meal,” she says. 

“It is not an easy life, but there’s nothing else I can do.”

As she watches her grandchildren finish their noodles, gogo Toti smiles. 

“What worries me most is seeing my children without work,” she says. 

High unemployment and below minimum-wage piece jobs

Her daughter, Nontembeko (34) says she occasionally finds piece jobs, but work has become increasingly scarce. 

“In a small town like ours, work is hard to find,” Nontembeko tells Health-e News. 

“You have to rely on foreign shops that pay peanuts. Every time you complain they tell you, ‘Take it or leave it, Sisi’. There are many people who need a job.’”

According to Nontembeko, these jobs in local shops pay R200 a day, below minimum wage. 

She says the child support grants of two of her five children help the family survive. Her three oldest adult children are also unemployed.

“We’ve gotten used to this situation because we have been living like this for many years,” says Nontembeko. 

“I’m hopeful that one day our situation is going to change for the better.”

For gogo Toti, the rising cost of food has made life even harder. 

“I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a decent meal with salads and some chicken,” she says. 

“Food costs keep rising and government doesn’t seem to be doing anything to lower the prices.”