In many countries in the world you need not lock your door during the day or have a fence around your property. You need not be scared for your child to be raped. You need not see who is following your vehicle while driving home from the airport or the bank. Living in the city in South Africa… I think we are more used to survival than we ourselves realise.

First defence – high wall with spikes and electric fence connected to an alarm. Beams/ Robo guard early warning system inside property. A big dog, like a Boerboel, outside the house and a little dog, example Jack Russel, inside the house.

The combination of a big and small dog works very well. (Dogs gets poisoned often)

Second defence would be burglar bars on every window and security doors outside every door, including sliding doors. You need to put razor wire inside your roof to prevent them from gaining entry by removing tiles or the corrugated iron.

Some people put beams inside their roof as well. Private Armed response security companies respond if your alarm is activated.

Even with all this, armed robbers still gain access. It might just take them a little bit longer to get in. But making it difficult is giving you a chance to wake up and realise something is wrong. Movement sensor lights outside shows you why the dog is barking.

Best close the curtains before dark. And do not look with the lights on inside the house.

If they see an opportunity they will take it. They attach the steel gate to their vehicles and pull them off the rail. They attack as you leave to take children to school or coming back from work.

Driving put most people living in Gauteng in the Code Yellow.

Stopping at an intersection, in Code Orange… stopping anywhere in Code Orange. Handbag, laptop, shopping bags gets hidden out of view to prevent smash and grabs. A buddy system must be in place.

You tell your partner where you are going, which route you are planning on driving and when you will be back. We use a community tracking and panic system called E-block watch as well as other applications tracking our phones.

I asked my son if he feel safe in our home and at the school. His reply was “ Veilig is net ‘n woord. Ek weet nie hoe dit voel om veilig te voel nie” Translated to English that would be “Safe is just a word. I do not know how it feels to feel safe” We stay in a good area. But we hear them walking outside and on the roof at night. I push the panic button. Phone the police and so far … They’ve only been able to get in once.

Every time you find your weak spot and try to fix it.

Very few men in the cities carry a handgun while at work. The Government persuaded most people to hand in their weapons a few years ago and the weapons got destroyed. With our new law, knifes are being taken from people in the street.

People are being told never to resist the robbers. That they will then kill you…. Most older people are killed during robberies. Tied up and dragged through the house. On the farms they get tortured first. Hacked to death with pangas or raped in front of their husbands and then burned.

You may search for South African Farm murders, if you do not believe me.

But before I paint a too dark picture of my beautiful country… We are not scared of earthquakes, tornado’s, hurricanes, volcano’s or even snow storms! Only humans