Cape Town - With the wind blowing strongly, it’s laundry day in the
field not far from the new District Six flats, and washed clothes have
been pinned down on the grass with bricks. On the horizon, Danny “Rasta”
Mukwena is approaching with his friend and neighbour Edwin Shaba.
Mukwena and Shaba are two of the dozen people who have made a place for themselves to live under the soil of this field.
Mukwena and Shaba are two of the dozen people who have made a place for themselves to live under the soil of this field.
Danny "Rasta" Mukwena emerges from a stormwater drain in District Six that he uses to wash himself. (Masixole Feni, GroundUp)
Looking
down on the field from the top of the hill, plastic covers can be seen
covering what look like holes in the ground. These are the homes of
Mukwena, Shaba and the others.
“I arrived in Cape Town in 2011
from Venda,” says Mukwena, “after my cousin who lives this side called
me and told me that there were jobs available. I came by bus.”
But he never managed to contact his cousin and ended up spending R40 a night from his savings to stay in a lodge.
“I stayed there for two weeks before I got kicked out because I could not afford to pay anymore.”
‘I heard about this field...’
He
found work on a construction site where he worked for six months. He
managed to rent a room in Khayelitsha’s SST for R350 a month but after a
year was told to leave because he could no longer afford the rent.
“I
started living on the streets of Cape Town because I had nowhere to go.
I heard from a few people around that every morning there was a spot in
Cape Town, where they would gather in case someone looking for workers
came along. I went there and when I arrived many others were there.
“You
had to be fast. Each time a car came around you had to jump and ask the
driver if he was looking for workers. It's there that I heard about
this field. One of the men who I had become friendly with told me that
there was a place that he lived in that I could also live in, seeing
that I had nowhere to go,” says Mukwena.
Mukwena on the field which he has made his home. (Masixole Feni, GroundUp)
When he arrived at the field and saw how people lived, he says, he was surprised because he had never seen anything like it.
“It was unbelievable seeing people living underground in what looked like caves. There were about 15 people there at the time.
“Because I had no choice, I took up the offer and I started burrowing my own place”.
Hard to find work
Inside
the small hole covered with plastic sheeting, Mukwena has his
belongings and blankets. He crawls into the hole to sleep, laying
plastic on the ground and covering it with one of the blankets, given to
him by District Six residents, then lying down and covering himself
with another blanket.
The sheeting helps to keep the rain and sand out when it is windy.
Folding a blanket, Mukwena tries to keep his home orderly. (Masixole Feni, GroundUp)
Getting
work is hard, he says, and when he does find work Mukwena buys food
which can be cooked easily over a fire using tins as pots.
He and
his neighbours use the nearby stormwater drain to wash, going
underground into the drain to collect water. For cooking they ask for
water in the nearby houses and at the shelter for the homeless.
Mukwena says living underground is not ideal, but the worst is when the neighbours use drink and drugs and turn to crime.
“Sometimes
you will come back and find that your belongings have been stolen
because there is no door or secure place to leave your things. We also
have trouble with law enforcement who on a daily basis come here and
confiscate our things,” he says.
Mukwena's home is a hole dug in the field. (Maxisole Feni, GroundUp)
Can’t afford to go home
Asked
why he does not go to the shelter, Mukwena says it is not safe and the
food is “old and terrible”. Also, he says, he has to pay R10 in order to
sleep there.
He still has no idea what happened to his cousin and
he says he cannot afford to go home to Venda, where he has left his
grandmother and older brother.
Shaba met Mukwena while he was also looking for work. Mukwena showed him the field and he ended up living there too.
“I
came to Cape Town from Pretoria last year September by train, also
hoping to find work because life was very difficult back home. My
parents died when I was still young so growing up was tough.
“Being
homeless is not fun and we end up living in these kinds of conditions,
but there is nothing we can do but survive,” said Shaba.
Washing in the stormwater drain (Maxisole Feni, GroundUp)
Hassan
Khan, CEO of the Haven Night Shelter Welfare Organisation, said for the
first five days in the Haven shelter there was no charge. After that a
fee of R10 a night was charged.
“If people cannot afford the R10
then we offer them work around the shelter, for example cleaning, for
two hours, and we give them R10 per hour. We are trying to get people
away from begging.”
“We are aware of the people living on the
field and we do have fieldworkers who go out there and tell them about
the work we do, but it’s up to them whether they want to come to the
shelter or not.”
(Maxisole Feni, GroundUp)
This article was originally published on
GroundUp.
