Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Long road to Freedom Day bliss
Imizamo Yethu fire victim finally moves into her temporary shack
WHAT Silindokuhle “Sili” Khonkco missed most after her shack burnt down in Imizamo Yethu in Hout Bay, was “my independence. Being on my own,” she said.
The 24-year-old, who fled with only a handbag containing her ID book and cellphone, is one of 15 000 people left homeless on the weekend of March 11 and 12 when a huge fire destroyed a large part of the informal settlement.
Khonkco’s shack was razed at the furthest point up the mountainside where the fire started and in which her beloved neighbours, a couple and their 2-year-old son, died.
She has been spending many hours in long queues to make three different applications for housing.
During the first few weeks after the fire, Khonkco stuck it out up on the mountainside, together with 183 other fire victims who were taken in by neighbours or relatives whose shacks still stood near the debris of so many others.
The authorities initially focused on fire victims in the temporary tents in the village. They carried donations up into the mountain.
By the time a second fire hit Imizamo Yethu on Sunday night, April 16, leaving one person dead and over 400 people homeless, Khonkco had become “so afraid of flames” that she moved down to the tents in the village.
She said she was too scared to make a fire up there anyway and so she lived for weeks without electricity or fresh water, hoping the council would erect temporary shacks there. It has since become clear no shacks would be allowed there again.
Once down at the tents from Tuesday night, April 18, Khonkco engaged Imizamo Yethu city councillor Bheki Hadebe, demanding to know when temporary shelter for herself and the other “forgotten ones up the mountain” would become a reality while people were “absent from their jobs because it takes so long to register in the queues”.
The councillor explained to Weekend Argus: “We assumed those up the mountain had rebuilt their shacks. We were not aware that they, 183 people, were staying with friends and relatives. That’s why we’re reacting now only.
“Conditions are unbearable in the tents and we’re building temporary shacks fast. Three more temporary relocation areas have been identified and will be serviced soon.”
Khonkco found space in a tent with 14 fellow fire victims.
On the first night, she almost caught a taxi back up to her friend on the mountainside. “I don’t know the men in the tents,” she protested.
Yet she stayed and slept safely that night covered by two duvets donated to her by Stellenbosch- based businesswoman Die Biervrou, Vanessa Geldenhuys, and her 8-year-old daughter, Mila.
Khonkco slept on the hard tent floor without a mattress. Around her, others slept in beds they carried out of their shacks before the flames engulfed their shacks.
She’s been dropping out of queues for donations and temporary housing frequently to ensure she’s in time for work – preparing fish in the kitchen of one of Hout Bay’s favourite seafood eateries, Fish on the Rocks.
During the crisis, Khonkco made time to attend the memorial service of her neighbours and to join her relatives for Easter Sunday celebrations.
On Wednesday, she was among a group of fire victims who stood watching council workers dismantle the tents.
On Freedom Day, construction workers swarmed like ants across the site carrying sheets of metal that form the roofs, walls and doors of the temporary shacks. The noise of the hammering and drilling was relentless. They have erected 400 temporary shacks.
Khonkco and about 10 other women and children were cramped into the changing rooms, but found it more comfortable than the tents. It was warm and there were showers.
Late on Thursday evening, councillor Hadebe informed Weekend Argus Khonkco had moved into a temporary shack. Most of the other 183 people were also granted shelter. Despair turned to relief. Her independence restored a month-and-a-half after the fire destroyed it. Freedom came almost overnight. And it happened on Freedom Day.
“It’s unbelievable!,” Khonkco exclaimed.
henriette. geldenhuys@ inl. co.za