Looting her workplace left Zandile Phoswa with a six-month jail sentence and a criminal record that may prevent the young mother from ever finding another job.
Phoswa, 25, shares a room in the notorious Glebelands Hostel in Umlazi, south of Durban, with her unemployed partner and their three-year-old son.
Her salary from the supermarket in Umlazi's Mega City mall, where she used to work, also helped to support her mother and two sisters, who live in rural Mtubatuba near Richards Bay.
Now, Phoswa is running out of money and selling vegetables on the side of the road to survive, too ashamed to tell her family what she did.
"I am a mother to a threeyear-old boy; I must pay rent and I am also supporting my mom and my siblings back home in Mtubatuba. The father of my kid is not employed so he does not take care of our kid, so this is all on my shoulders," she said when asked what prompted her to join the looters on July 11 2021.
"Rumours were circulating on WhatsApp that SA was going to run out of food.
"I was running out of food too, necessities like sugar and baby formula. I panicked because the first thing that crossed my mind was my kid."
Phoswa said she then "heard a lot of noise from the shopping mall, people screaming and cars hooting. I was not working that day so I called a friend of mine and asked what was happening, and all she said was: 'Bring a wheelbarrow and meet me inside the mall.'"
Phoswa said when she got there people were looting clothes, microwaves and even coffins from the funeral parlour.
"My worst mistake was stealing from the place where I was working. The wheelbarrow was full of rice, maize meal, cooking oil and clothes for my kid and siblings. I went home and went back again.
"When I went for the third time I didn't see the cops outside so I thought I was still safe. I went back in and took a Smeg kettle, sneakers and cellphones from Mr Price. When I was coming out of the mall there were cops, soldiers and security guards. I have never been so scared in my life, I even wet myself. I was taken to jail."
Charged with public violence and housebreaking, Phoswa spent the weekend in a jail cell before her first court appearance in the Durban magistrate's court.
Then the magistrate postponed the case and she spent a further week in cells ahead of her bail hearing.
"I was finally convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment," she said.
After serving her term, Phoswa is surviving by selling potatoes on the side of the road. Her partner hustles for piece jobs.
She has gone back to her old employer and tried to apologise and get her old job back, but they don't want to hear from her.
