Folks say they get as big as tennis balls!
Saturday night, about 7pm, I heard strange noises all around. Then I opened my door and saw what was just a regular Joburg hailstorm! Accompanied by a most amazing lightning show and the whole thing lasted well over an hour. I hear there are more great storms to come…
A visit to a Fine Town
Keith Hambly, the President of ONPHA and E.D of Fife House (a Toronto supportive housing organization for PLHIV) was here the last couple of weeks. He was part of a Rooftops week-long workshop on Housing and HIV/AIDS, but came early to visit the housing sector in Gauteng.
Last Saturday, Josie Adler took Keith and I south of Joburg. She wanted to impress upon us what will happen if planning is allowed to run amok (just like home, in many ways). After the expansion of the city to the North, it’s now heading south, and not in a good way. Many
informal settlements (newish word for squatter areas with lots of tin shacks and some RDP houses). As part of the Black Sash movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sash), Josie worked here in the 80s and 90s, doing hard but real community development.
One of her accomplishments is in a settlement called Finetown. She worked with members of the community to set up a school, which has now been running for over 20 years. They scrounged and begged and did it for their kids. We were privileged to meet with two of the original activists, Victor and Emily, who told us the story as we sat in the schoolyard.
Victor, Gogo Catherine, Alice, Emily and Teboho, Keith
Behind us is part of the original school. After some more begging and scrounging, Anglo American Mines ponied up for a 2 storey addition and a “crèche” (daycare). That’s all good.
Finetown school, part II
But then they got what they really wanted, which was to have the government deem it to be a legitimate public school. That means they no longer had to find ways to pay teachers and supplies, and parents were relieved of that financial burden. BUT, in the “beware of what you ask for” mode, things have not turned out the way Victor and Emily hoped for. The new teachers, unlike the original ones, don’t live in Finetown. They have no attachment to the community or the struggle. Victor told us that the School Trust had built up a nice reserve to do more capital work and now the teachers want to use it for bonuses. The parents are being left out of decisions and are no longer welcome as volunteers either. So it goes…..
And, oh yes, there was the Pistorius verdict:
Hard to think someone could fire four shots into a room the size of a broom closet and not think he was killing whoever was in there, but apparently the Crown didn’t make the case on that… The decision was a surprise to many, there were calls for the judge to be fired, word on the street is there will be appeals and some are convinced that he will get off without having to do any time. It consumed the media for a week and now it’s died down. We will be subjected to it 24/7 in a about a month, when the verdict will be decided. There is a special TV channel devoted to this, so it will no doubt ramp up again.
HIV/AIDS and Housing in sub-Saharan Africa
Last week, Rooftops and some local and regional partners held a workshop and seminar on the issues of HIV/AIDS and how they relate to the housing problem. I learned a lot, not much of it very good news. It’s not “the end of AIDS” is South Africa, not by a long shot! There was a lot of data, a lot of power point presentations (I’m going to start a NO PPT movement, I think!)
South Africa’s leadership missed the boat on HIV/AIDS in most of the early decades of the plague. Mandela picked his battles and this wasn’t one of them but his successor, Thabo Mbeki (1999-2208) was an out and out AIDS denialist. Only after his demise did the ARVTs (anti-retroviral therapies) become available to all.
In 2008, a Harvard researcher estimated that Mbeki’s policy caused the death of over 300,000 South Africans. And during his term, the country only achieved 30% reduction in mother-child transmission, whereas neighbouring (and much poorer) Namibia achieved 85%.
Here are some numbers for you to ponder:
- 1 in 5 South Africans have HIV and it is suggested this may ramp up to 1 in 2 over next 25 years
- 18% of children under 17 have HIV
- HIV is now a manageable disease, but many socio-economic factors work against that.
- Poor housing conditions here also mean lack of sanitation and potable water
- ART (anti-retroviral therapies) need to be taken daily and with food. Food costs money.
- Having safe sex (putting a condom on in a tin shack you share with 9 other people) is more difficult/unlikely.
- TB is the concurrent disease here, not hepatitis. Over 88,000 people die of it each year.
- Think of sitting in a taxi van in winter, all the windows closed, with a seat mate that has TB.
- Earning a livelihood here often means being a migrant. That means poor housing, poor nutrition, poor social supports. All this is a recipe for bad stuff happening.
- Other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are almost as bad, but S.A. is the worst
Paste and read the link below, it will make you cry (it’s good to cry about this):
At the workshop, folks came from Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Cameroon, Kenya, Zambia, Malawi and Uganda and told their stories, hopes and struggles. So I met some great people of course and spent quality time with Keith talking about Rob Ford and other really important Canuck things. At one point, I looked across the table and noticed that 6 participants had their shoes off. This seems to be very common here. There is a young man down the hall from NASHO who always walks around barefoot!
Hermien, Nicodemus, Aloysius, Timothy, Mercy
Part of me wishes it was back home….
Thanks to the twitterverse and other e-gods I am avidly following the Somerset Ward election race. I know everyone is trying to have a car-free campaign, but my favourite campaign thing is to go out in the car at 4 am, not wearing a seatbelt, ignoring stop signs and red lights and decorate lawns with non-recyclable coroplast signs! So much fun….
Go Cat Go!
That’s it for now, folks!
My gap year in Joburg 