Author Faraaz Kazi said, “People don’t change, they come closer and closer to who they really are,” and one man has proved that he really is anything but a nobody.
Christian Rossouw, a 35-year-old member of the Randgate Boxing Club not only has dreams of becoming a household name in boxing, he has dreams of becoming the undisputed light-heavyweight boxing champion of the world – but he hasn’t always been this focused. However, he said he’s never felt this passionately about anything in his life.
Rossouw grew up in Krugersdorp with his siblings, in the care of their single mother. He explained that times were tough and they were eventually taken away from their mother by social workers. He was later placed in a home in Namibia where he said he was molested by one of the other children. “This went on for a long time but as I got older the molestation decreased, because I started resisting more and made more of a scene,” he said.
Rossouw said he was abused sexually, physically and mentally throughout his childhood, which resulted in rebellious and otherwise unsightly behaviour. “I used to break people down when I spoke to them because I had been broken down my entire life,” he explained.
Then his life took a turn for the worse. He was 25, got into a fight and stabbed a man in the neck in Windhoek. The man survived but Rossouw was arrested, found guilty of attempted murder and then sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment. He was released on good behaviour in the fourth year of his prison term.
When Rossouw was released from prison, he had a change of heart. “When I was released at the age of 29 I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to become a boxer. It was as though a voice in my head told me to go back to South Africa and become a boxer. At that point I had no experience other than from the fights I used to have in school,” he said. But, he followed his heart and travelled to South Africa. He started boxing at the Krugersdorp West Boxing Club and later moved on to the Randgate Boxing Club.
Since Rossouw started boxing, he has had 27 fights, of which only three have been losses. He now spends the time he doesn’t work during the week training, in the hope that he will some day become known for boxing instead of always carrying the stigma of having been in prison.
Rossouw is currently struggling to find work. He left school at 16 and only completed Grade 10. He currently lives and works on the auction grounds in Krugersdorp. “I was homeless until a few months ago. I started sleeping at the auctioneers’ premises. The owners found me there one morning, before I woke up, and instead of turning me away, they told me I could stay as long as I earned my keep.”
“I work over weekends. I get paid very little but the people who took me in give me food and a bit of money to survive on. If I had the means to get another job, I would, but I’m not qualified and I don’t have the money to go back to school,” he said. “I’ve had a change of heart, yes, but I’m still poor. I made bad choices but I have a dream. A dream is like a shoe that’s too big for your foot – it’s up to you to fill that shoe eventually,” he said.
Do you perhaps have more information pertaining to this story? Email us at randfonteinherald@caxton.co.za (remember to include your contact details) or phone us on 011 693 3671.
For free daily local news on the West Rand, also visit our sister newspaper websites Roodepoort Record, Krugersdorp News and Get It Joburg West Magazine
Remember to visit our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages to let your voice be heard!
