Before his death, teen felt comfortable in Kabul
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A teenager described in a blog
post from his home in Afghanistan how he felt more
comfortable there than in his native South Africa,
which has a high crime rate. Just weeks later, he was
killed by Taliban gunmen who stormed a Kabul aid
office where his family lived. "If you're going to be constantly paranoid that you're
going to die if you go out, then there's no point in
being here," the 17-year-old Jean-Pierre Groenewald
had written. He was buried Friday in South Africa
along with his father and sister. The three were fatally
shot in the Nov. 29 attack in the Afghan capital, according to a family member in South Africa. The Nov. 1 blog post, which was sent to The
Associated Press by a Groenewald family
representative, sheds light on the unusual life of a
young foreigner who had lived for more than a
decade in a country beset by conflict. Many foreigners, including diplomats and contractors,
maneuver with security entourages around Kabul, a
frequent site of suicide bombings and other attacks.
But Jean-Pierre Groenewald said he had been riding
his bicycle alone to visit friends there since he was 13,
though he was too scared to do the same thing during trips to South Africa. "My grandparents always made this huge thing of the
crime rate in Pretoria, and I do know that facts
support their warnings," Groenewald wrote. "Here there's only the threat of bombs and stuff like
that. No big deal right? Actually it is a big deal but
since I grew up here I'm not really phased by those
threats anymore," he said. The teenager said he learned to take security
concerns in stride from his father Werner, who the
son said had not followed the advice of security
advisers from other organizations "to go on lockdown
every time there's a minor threat." Werner Groenewald, 46, worked as a pastor at a
church in Pretoria, South Africa's capital, before
leaving with his family for Afghanistan in 2002. There,
he led the local activities of Partnership in Academics
and Development, an aid group with offices in
Redlands, California. The family lived in floors above the group's Kabul office. A funeral service was held on Friday for Groenewald,
his son and 15-year-old daughter, Rode, at the same
church where the father had worked. In a symbolic
gesture, a pastor lit three candles — one for each
slain family member — and blew them out. Groenewald's widow, Hannelie, was composed during
the ceremony. She said in a statement that she had no
regrets about living in Afghanistan and raising her
children there, saying it was God's calling. Hannelie Groenewald, a doctor, said an attack had
been expected in Kabul on Nov. 29, and that she had
been called to a meeting at a hotel to serve as a
member of a medical team in the event it happened. "Little did I know that the attack would take place a
few hours later at my house, killing everybody I
dearly loved," she said. In a separate funeral service Friday, family and
friends paid tribute to Pierre Korkie, a teacher who
was killed in Yemen on Dec. 6 during a U.S. raid on al-
Qaida militants who were holding Korkie and
American hostage Luke Somers. American officials
say militants killed both men. Uniformed students from a South African school
where Korkie had taught escorted his flower-laden
casket in the city of Bloemfontein. In his last blog post, Jean-Pierre Groenewald also
talked about school, new friends, his Christian faith,
travel to China and other countries and the "pros and
cons" of life in Afghanistan. "All in all, I love this country. I love the life I'm living. I
wouldn't change any of it, even if I could," he wrote. At the end, he said: "That's all I have to say right now.
Maybe I'll be inspired to write another post on life
here, but that's for another day."
