By: Brighton Dube
A Break Diver in South Africa
[Edited slightly by staff editors for clarity, paragraphs, and spelling, but in general, the English and grammar remain in the style of the author.]
I’m a 35-year-old man from Zimbabwe currently living in South Africa. I’m a second-year Computer Science major with a 3.65 GPA at the University of the People.
I have always been fascinated by computers since I was in high school. Growing up, computers were a luxury and not many families had a computer at home. The first time I actually saw a computer was back in high school when I was fourteen! However, I didn’t get to use one until I was a senior in high school in 2002!
Every day after school I would pass by a local internet cafe and spend 2-3 hours surfing the web. Back then, we were still using dial-up internet and it was painfully slow. A simple web page would take a whole 2 minutes to fully load up and most of the time I spent waiting for websites to load.
In 2007, at the age of 22, I bought my first PC and in 2011 I was finally able to get Wifi at my apartment and I started teaching myself web design. Since then, I’ve taken a number of online courses on web development, software development, and blockchain development. In 2018 I created my first crypto-token, Loonie, on the Ethereum blockchain. Unfortunately, the crypto bubble burst at about the same time and my project didn’t take off. I learned a lot from that failed project, from coding smart contracts to creating a blockchain and even a bit of Linux server security. (I had to learn how to secure a Linux server because some dude kept hacking into my server and mining my coin during pre-mine and because he had a faster computer than mine, he would get all the blocks and each time I had to abandon the chain and create a new one.)
The bottom line is, I love coding and I’m always learning new things to become better at what I do.
The most exciting news, is that I joined this amazing community, Break Diving and I want to contribute my time and skills to help make it bigger and more awesome. Up until March this year, things had been going well for me. I mean I wasn’t rich or anything, I was just doing fine. I had even planned for a vacation with my wife in the Philippines. I had booked my flights, hotel rooms, and everything was set. I was just waiting for April the 4th, the date scheduled for our flight. Covid-19 was all over the news at this and I was starting to get worried that we might end up failing to go. Then the worst news came, the first case of Covid-19 had been recorded in South Africa, then 7 more, then 12. Right away, we decided to go to the offices of Qatar Airways to have our flights rescheduled to an earlier date. However, it was almost impossible to get an earlier date as most flights were getting canceled and fares were skyrocketing.
We eventually decided to postpone our vacation and had our flights canceled. Instead of a refund, they offered us a travel voucher valid for 1 year. On that same week, South Africa went into a full lockdown and my troubles began. My job was a no work no pay kind of job and the company has since been closed for four months now due to the pandemic.
Because I had no income, I used up my entire savings in the four months that followed. I tried to find another job, but very few companies were hiring if at all and freelancing wasn’t producing much fruit either. Things have been really hard for me and it’s also affecting my marriage.
I recently signed up with Takealot, a South African e-commerce retailer to do food and parcel deliveries. I have to work 6 days a week, 13-14 hours a day just to survive. However, a series of unfortunate events have been taking place since I started. First, I drove over a screw and I got a flat tire. I didn’t notice until the tire was so damaged I had to replace it. While I was changing the tire, I noticed the CV boot was broken and the CV was losing lubrication as I was driving. I had to replace the boot. It just seems as though the money I was now making was going into repairs, I mean, I was already spending half my income on gas! What else could go wrong?
Well, two days ago I blew my head gasket! This just completely destroyed me! To replace it I need $800, that’s my entire month’s income before gas! I have only worked for 2 weeks!
The $50 Break Diving Hardship Grant has really helped me a lot. I will be able to buy food for me and my wife for at least 3 weeks. Of course, we will need to be extremely frugal, but this help couldn’t have come at a better time and I would like to thank Break Diving for their generosity. May God bless this amazing community.—
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: I am an ambitious problem-solving Full-Stack Web Developer leveraging a powerful set of technology skills to create masterpieces. I’m always eager learn new skills and help others achieve their dreams. I work hard every day to create a better version of myself.
Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash
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