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It’s a one-and-a-half-room mud house to some, but, to 68-year-old Rebecca Mazinyo, it is her entire universe.
Within its cramped and dim confines, she sleeps, cooks, eats, bathes and prays – prays for the day she can move into “a proper” house.
Exacerbating her already tough situation is that the area outside her dwelling has been transformed into a communal dumping ground – a stark contrast to the sanctuary she seeks. Despite this, it serves as a resource for some of her neighbours; a place to scavenge for food.
The stench from the dump’s decay permeates the air but, for Mazinyo, this “is normal for me”.
She is among the more than 31 000 residents of the Zandspruit informal settlement, north-west of Johannesburg, who have had to contend with a lack of adequate housing, infrastructure and amenities, as well as unemployment and poverty.
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As if that were not enough, these residents also have to deal with exposure to pollution, poor waste management, and inadequate access to clean water and sanitation.
Despite this, Mazinyo has one message for South Africans:
Her steadfastness is as enduring as her makeshift home.
Since casting her first vote in 1994, she has witnessed her living conditions “deteriorate”, yet her faith in the ANC remains unshaken. She believes that the party, which has been at the helm of South Africa’s governance since the end of apartheid, simply “needs more time to address the issues that we as South Africans have been facing”.
“Life is tough. I don’t have a house and I struggle to get food, but I trust that the ANC will get it right and help us,” she told City Press as she emphasised that she has and always will vote for “Tata’s party”.
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With fewer than two weeks to election day, it’s rather unusual that there’s not a single election poster in sight.
She continues: “We cannot expect them to fix things overnight. We must continue to give the party a chance.
Her two friends visiting her seem to disagree as she speaks these words.
“We still live in shacks and mud houses and there are no jobs,” exclaims a visibly displeased Angelina Kehalutse, as she shakes her head in disagreement.
As the two try to get their points across, Mazinyo poses a question to her friend: “So, who should we vote for? The ANC is our only hope. I know that my living conditions are not the best but, what can I do – even the next political party that comes into power will also be power-hungry and nothing will change for us. So, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.”
To which Kehalutse, who, like Mazinyo, has voted for the same political party since 1994, without hesitation responds: “We need to bring back a white party. Under the ANC, the country has become rotten.”
When City Press visited the area four years ago, residents bemoaned how they had to share one communal tap, which, for many, was “a long walking distance,” however, now among Kehalutse’s bones of contention is how the community has, since August last year, gone without running water.
She laments:
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From apartheid to now
Meanwhile, speaking during the 30-Year Review Report’s launch earlier this month, President Cyril Ramaphosa admitted that, although the government had improved the lives of its citizens significantly over the past three decades, the promise of 1994 had not yet “materialised into a real shift for millions of South Africans”.
“We are contending with slow economic growth, high unemployment, poverty, inequality and underdevelopment. What is made clear by this Review Report is that the task of consolidating our democratic gains is not just the responsibility of the state. It is a responsibility that we all share. Just as we stood together to overcome Covid-19, just as we have united to confront other crises, we can overcome this period of difficulty in the life of our nation together,” Ramaphosa said.
Kehalutse continued:
However, just a few metres away from Mazinyo’s place, 59-year-old Catherine (who only gave her first name) is hard at work and feeling the heat from both the fire, over which she is vigorously preparing chicken stew for patrons of her boss’ tavern, and from the scorching sun.
Like Mazinyo, Catherine says she is “struggling; life is tough, but I will vote for the ANC”.
She explains that she will always be grateful to the ANC because “my first ever experience and exposure to electricity was because of the ANC”.
“All I knew were candles back in the day and the ANC gave me the gift of electricity,” she says as she smiles from ear to ear.
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Electricity 20 years later?
Meanwhile, about 40km away, at Madelakufa 2 informal settlement in Thembisa, a team of eight men and women clad in blue overalls, black boots and green reflectors are diligently laying the foundation for a project that, according to one worker, “will bring electricity to the community”.
It’s a quiet day in Madela 2 and the sound of a pick hitting the dry ground gets louder as one approaches. The blue portable toilets across the informal settlement give one’s eyes a comforting break from the sun’s reflection on the hundreds of shacks erected from corrugated iron.
With the work taking place just two weeks before the elections, one of the workers, who was unwilling to share his name, simply said: “People have been living here for almost 30 years and have never had electricity, and yesterday [Tuesday], all of a sudden, we started work here so the people of Madela [2] can have electricity.”
As she questions the timing of the “promised electricity, because the area has not had electricity for the more than 25 years that it has been in existence”, mother of four, Khuthala Maje shares Mazinyo’s sentiment and says her vote “will go to the ANC”. But, for her, it’s because “I might as well just give it to the [ANC]”.
“Voting for any other party would be a waste of my vote because everyone knows that the ANC will win anyway. I have no idea how, but that is the reality of it. So I might as well just give them the vote either way.”
Like his neighbour, 43-year-old Lucas Mayekisa, who has been unemployed for more than five years and has lived in Madela 2 since 1999, says the government is “toying with people’s needs and expectations”.
“They are busy promising us electricity. We saw some people starting to dig what looked like pole holes yesterday,” he says.
“We have not had electricity for more than 25 years, but now it is election time and, because our votes are needed, we are being told that we will have electricity soon,” explains Mayekisa, adding that he is “sure that, after elections, my community will not be on the minds of any politician, and we will not have electricity”.
According to Mayekisa, the portable toilets – many of which are locked because “we do not want dead children in there – smell and are drained once a week”.
The hustle continues
Similarly, like Catherine on the other side of the city, Sipho Zondi is hard at work, “trying to get some money”. After being unemployed for more than eight years, and saving up money from “hustling through odd jobs”, the 33-year-old started his own “small business”.
While it’s quiet, with no customer in sight as he speaks to City Press, expressing his despondence at the lack of job opportunities in the country, he quickly stands up and gladly serves two men when they visit his establishment.
As he continues to speak, he tells this publication: “I live in this informal settlement and it is not by choice. I live here with people who went to school, completed whatever they were studying and remain unemployed. So what is the use of the government?
“There are people who have to live in these conditions – even though they went to school, have degrees and passed well – because of a government that is failing them. The ANC is, in a way, to older people, what Kaizer Chiefs is to many – a team you are in love with and just keep on supporting, even though it keeps on losing and you are aware that there is no hope for it,” he says as he lets out a slight giggle.
