?I want to move out of South Africa. I am not feeling safe. I hate South Africans!?

You can see the anger and betrayal written on this woman?s face as she says these harsh words. She shows no hesitation in making her feelings known.

Nomathamsanqa Ndlovu* is a 24-year-old woman from Zimbabwe. She owns a salon in Khayelitsha, the biggest township in Cape Town. She was a victim of the recent xenophobic violence.

She arrived in South Africa in 2005 in pursuit of a better life after the political crisis in her country crippled the economy.

The perpetrators of the violence tried to break into her salon and she was forced to abandon her business for three days.

She came back after the violence had died down but the business has been very slow. Some of her customers came to see how she was holding up ? the same people who were shouting ?Foreigners must go?.

No apology

?They are so pretentious,? says Ndlovu.

?If there is one thing I have learned is that no Xhosa likes me. Not even one came to apologise. Most of them are happy about the violence. You should have seen how joyful they were.

?South Africans have jealousy. They say we are taking their jobs. I created my job, no one employed me.?

Ndlovu believes the xenophobic attacks were triggered by greed.

?They are greedy and evil and that won?t change.?

She believes the only reason they still come to her to get their hair done now that she has returned to Khayelitsha is because she is good with hair. ?They like my magic touch, not me.?

As a result, Ndlovu is planning to emigrate to Australia, despite the obvious financial obstacles in her way. ?They want us gone,? she says adding that she hopes to be out of the country by the end of July.

Ndlovu wishes that Zimbabwe can sort out its internal turmoil.

?We can leave this country and go back home to rebuild Zimbabwe.?

"One of them"

Mohamed Vally (35), a car mechanic from Mozambique, experienced the attacks first hand. His attitude was warm until he realised that he was talking to a South African ? ?one of them?.

He will never forget how vicious South Africans were towards foreigners.

He believes South Africans are lazy.

?They don?t want to work; they want to be served on a silver platter.?

Although Vally saw humanity from some of his customers he has made a conscious decision to keep them at arm's length.

?During the attacks three of my customers called. They asked if I was okay and offered me to stay in their homes. They are not all bad but they cannot be trusted.? Vally?s relationship with his customers has changed.

?It?s all about business. I don?t go any further than that.?

Vally said: ?The worst thing during the attacks was seeing people that you normally share jokes with entertaining the violence. It was very disturbing to watch.?

Deadline

So, after all this hurt and betrayal, is reintegration really possible?

The government has set the end of August as the deadline for reintegration. It has implemented campaigns teaching people about how to live in peace and be tolerant of foreign nationals.

What about the attitudes of the foreign nationals?

Vally believes nothing has changed. His community is as xenophobic as ever.

?If you are at a grocery store they stare at you, whispering insults. Reintegration has not helped anything. Maybe they are busy plotting the next attack.?

Like Ndlovu, if an opportunity to leave South Africa presented itself to Vally, he would not think twice about leaving.

South Africans are experts on forgiveness.

Famous for our peaceful transition to democracy and our ground-breaking Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we now have to turn to our fellow Africans and beg forgiveness. For how else are such broken relations ever to be mended?

*Real name withheld for security reasons.