It is still freezing cold when we get out of the 5 vehicles and approach the elderly man in the wheelchair with the wobbly right wheel making his tiresome way towards a spot of early sunshine. The aluminium cooking pot on the fire is scorched, because there is no money for gas and the electricity has been cut off coming November 14 years ago, here on this godforsaken piece of sand called Klein Akker, squashed in between Wallacedene and Kraaifontein where 18 white families struggle to survive. The poorest of the poor of Cape Town’s Afrikaners. This is not the Cape Town of Waterfronts and cinemas and tourism attractions…
18 families..
With three taps, 5 thirsty trees and 6 chemical toilets. And chickens, pigs, dogs, cats, goats…
There is nothing. Only the makeshift shelters and the dogs, which is surprisingly well cared for. I enquire about the sheet of corrugated iron propped up against one of the huts with the sponge mattress and one or two blankets underneath. Is that where the dogs sleep?
“No sir,” says the little redhead with the freckles – “my dad sleeps there.” I want to know where she goes to school and she starts explaining. “I walk with them in the morning and again in the afternoon,” explains the tall woman with the ponytail. “The cars knock them over and they are sexually molested if they are on their own. We leave very early in the morning for school. It is 14 kilometres there and back, twice a day. But these days we have a lift in the morning.” Bus? Taxi? “With what money?”
“Hiya James!” we hear as far as we go. They know Boere Krisis Aksie’s (BKA) people here.
The tall, blonde guy with the bright eyes is rinsing his razor under a tap. He is surprisingly well dressed. “Don’t take a picture, please,” he says. He doesn’t want the people at his work to know how he lives. He earns R900 a week and R34/hour overtime on a Saturday. Today he stayed home because he needs to fix the leak in the roof of his mother’s hut before the winter rain comes again. The beds remain damp all day and icy cold at night.
A skinny woman in pink peeps around the corner. “Is there anything we can do for you, Madam?” Bella asks. “If you maybe have a bag or purse for me, my love, I’d appreciate,” she says. “As for the rest, the Good Lord provides all I need.”
Tienie and Alida is in a conversation with a beautiful, dark haired girl standing by a rusty caravan. She tells of walking kilometres every day with her CV looking for work. But opportunities for a white person without higher education… not in the New South Africa. There was a coloured man who offered to help her earn some money if she came with him, “…but I’ll rather go hungry than sell myself…”
“Call me aunty Carry” says the woman whose parents came here from Northern Ireland. Had a Scottish grandfather, “…listen, I can still speak the Celtic language.” And she demonstrates. I am stunned. “Books, help us with Christian literature, magazines, anything to read. One becomes an idiot if you don’t exercise your mind. We’ve got to read.”
When we start handing out the bedding, clothes, foodstuff and pet’s food there is trouble. “Don’t hand it out publically,” Annemarie begs, “ The black people around takes our stuff. They are more than us and they say they need it more. So they just grab it when you are gone. Rather make it up in a parcel and bring it to our homes.”
It is time to go. She calls me aside by the struggling potato plant which she hopes will yield a crop. “Don’t you know anybody who can help my son become a model? He is such a very handsome boy, and he can’t stay here. See what becomes of the children.” She points towards the area behind me. I know, I saw it when we first came here this morning. The children of my people are playing their innocent childhood away on a rubbish heap…
Thank you Bella, James, Jolene, Tienie and your wife, Alida and Luzanne and Hanalie from Front Nasionaal Western Cape and Boere Krisis Aksie for taking my hand in this outreach. There is so much work, I am grateful and humbled.
Daniël Lötter
Front National Information Dept
South Africa Today – South Africa News
