It's hard living in tent city - Sowetan

Acting Pretoria high court judge Jody Kollapen ordered the municipality to erect temporary shelter for the squatters. Judge Kollapen ruled against the municipality's plan to move the squatters to a site in Struben Street, near Marabastad.

 

He said though the council's emergency housing suggestion was not inhumane, it would create problems since people would have to commute to their places of work. On Friday I spent a night in the tent village with my colleague photographer Bathini Mbatha to experience the daily challenges faced by the squatters.

 

At first the squatters - mostly unemployed Zimbabweans and Mozambicans - were reluctant to welcome us. But after explaining the reason for our visit they warmed up to us. Our host for the night was Richard Ngodoni. He stays alone in his tent. His wife and two children went back home immediately after their shack was demolished. Zimbabwean Achmond Ndukula said: "A day before the police pounced on us some people came here saying they wanted to check on our situation to see how they could help.

 

"The next thing we were surprised by a group of aggressive police officers in the company of the same people who had visited us the day before. Our shacks were burnt down." Each tent accommodates up to six people. The residents said their shacks had been bigger and built to their individual needs.

 

The residents were preparing dinner on open fires when we arrived just after 7pm. Waiting for a dinner of pap and chicken necks, scantily dressed and barefoot, children aged between one and four years huddled around the fire with their parents in one of the tents. The parents said the children were badly dressed since most of their clothes had been destroyed when their shacks were set on fire.

 

"We use the open fire to cook and keep the children warm, but once we go inside the tents to sleep it's very cold," said a woman who identified herself only as Liza. "I share one blanket with my boyfriend and our two children because our blankets, clothes and belongings were burnt by police."

 

Most of the squatters came to South Africa for economic reasons, and some have been living in the camp for seven years. Three-year-old Njabulo's eyes are teary and blood-red from the smoke of the fire on which his 38-year-old father, James, is cooking pap in a paint tin.

Njabulo and his one-year-old brother, Benjamin, share a tent with their father and mother Sophy Nkosi.

 

Nkosi, from Mbombela in Mpumalanga, runs a snack shop from her tent, where she also sells fruits and vegetables. Her boyfriend is a security guard at a nearby construction site. "We cannot afford rent and taxi fares to travel between Mamelodi and Mooikloof, so we have no choice but to put up with the life here," she said.

 

There are about seven such open fires around the camp. Men eat together in groups of five and seven while women eat with their children.

It's 10pm and everyone has had a meal and it is bedtime. The number of fires around the camp are dwindling as residents disappear into their tents to sleep. With one blanket each, Mbatha and I go into Ngodoni's tent to sleep. With a carpet on the floor, Ngodoni's tent is relatively neat, with his scant belongings immaculately packed.

 

He has "constructed" a bed using eight beer crates and a pile of cardboard boxes for a mattress. "It is unbearably cold on the floor, but it is good that you will be sleeping there to feel it for yourself. I wonder why you guys left the comfort of your beds, warmth of your blankets and bedrooms to spend the night here," Mbatha said sarcastically.

 

An hour later Ngodoni is snoring but my colleague and I could not fall asleep as the tent got colder. Three hours on ... I still found it impossible to fall asleep because the tent was freezing cold. So we took our blankets and headed for our car. At the crack of dawn, those who have jobs were already up, making fires to boil water to bath.

 

Aug 11, 2010 | Sipho Masombuka