People are always finding ways to keep busy in Phaphamani informal settlement.
On my morning visits to some of its households in the past week, I’ve often been greeted by the sounds of a hammer rapping on nails: bam, bam, bam. Here and there, people repair their leaking roofs, replace rusty zinc sheets with new ones or seal off holes in old roofs.
People are always finding ways to keep busy in Phaphamani informal settlement.
On my morning visits to some of its households in the past week, I’ve often been greeted by the sounds of a hammer rapping on nails: bam, bam, bam. Here and there, people repair their leaking roofs, replace rusty zinc sheets with new ones or seal off holes in old roofs.
I’ve also noticed that the mud-houses prevalent here are surrounded by muddy shallow trenches, as if thy were dug to direct rainwater away from the door – a reminder of the residents’ constant attempts to keep the rain at bay. Yet, time and time again Mother Nature has her own plans.
Just as soon as residents reckon their roofs won’t leak anymore, or a spring under their mud floors won’t burst, the rain returns more cunning and malicious, and leaves behind more damage than could be anticipated.
“How long have we lived like this?” The rhetorical question was flung at me by a 71-year-old woman, Nofikile Mvava, who has lived in Phaphamani since 1998, when she arrived here from Fort Brown, just outside Grahamstown, where her husband had worked as a farm labourer.
“The floor in my grandchildren’s bedroom is so damp, it’s probably drier outside,” Mvava tells me in one of my visits to her house, on a sunny day. “I’ve had to move their beds to a room with a dry floor for now,” she added.
During the recent rains the walls of Mvava’s master bedroom collapsed, and only because she had noticed the inevitable on time, no-one was hurt and none of her possessions were damaged.
However, this means that what was once her kitchen has now been turned into the kids’ bedroom.
Phaphamani is a test of human endurance: it has an oppressive air, as if time stopped moving forward and you’re now living the same day over and over again.
The kind of developments that translate into progress – building proper houses, installing electricity, paving streets, etc – are just not happening here.
Every sunny day I go visiting in the settlement, I pass houses where people sit outside in the sun, whiling away their time with laundry, fixing the roof or other chores.
When I began my research into life in Phaphamani two weeks ago, I had a bucketful of enthusiasm. But as I’ve come to know some of the locals, I too have become slightly lethargic and as dispirited they are.
Their disinterest even spreads to their children, some of whom are often visible playing around the settlement, not at school even though they are at least of preschool-going age.
“Everyone keeps asking about how we survive,” a resident, Nobengi Mpepho, told me.
‘Everyone’, it turned out, is politicians, NGO representatives and Rhodes University students – the kind of outside visitors who show up in Phaphamani with words and concern every year.
“We’ve become used to political people coming here and promising us everything we desire,” Mphepho said. “We never see them afterwards.”
Tired of being lied to, some residents now embrace protesting on the streets as the way forward.
At least public demonstration has resulted in Makana Municipality beginning to install electricity in Phaphamani, although that too is currently stalling.
“It’s time for another march since the UPM leaders have now been cleared of any crimes,” said Mpepho, referring to the recent acquittal of three community activists belonging to the Unemployed People’s Movement, for their involvement in a violent protest in February this year.
“There’s no sitting down now, because if we do we’ll never get up and protest again.”
* This work is produced with the assistance of the Anthony Sampson Award, granted by the Anthony Sampson Foundation, to foster in-depth, quality journalism.
