‘Thanks to Mandela, my kids can write and read,’ South African family says

PRETORIA - France 24

A woman wearing an African National Congress (ANC) scarf over her hair stands near a portrait of Nelson Mandela infront of the Medi Clinic Heart hospital where the former South African is hospitalized in Pretoria on June 28, 2013. AFP photo

Twenty years after the end of apartheid, the Mahlangu family is still awaiting prosperity in their one-room home in the Mamelodi township in Pretoria. But they insist that Nelson Mandela gave them freedom – and that is invaluable.

Ten tough years in the ramshackle township of Mamelodi in Pretoria have not wiped the ever-present smile off Maria Mahlangu’s face.

Crammed in a one-room tenement without running water or electricity, with her husband and six children, Maria has a hard life. But she’s not one to dwell on it.

"I'm not the only one to live like this, there are thousands here," she says, her arm waving at the sprawling township located about 25 kilometres northeast of the Medi-Clinic Hospital, where former South African President Nelson Mandela has spent the past three weeks.