Activist born of her child’s death
UNLIKELY activist and grandmother Nonjabulo Zananda boycotted the national elections on Wednesday, blaming the ANC government’s poor service delivery for the death of her daughter.
“She would still be alive today if we had a clinic, electricity and a road,” said the 54-year-old.
Nthembiso, 22, who had asthma, died on a winter’s day three years ago.
Zananda said she would never forget the bitterly cold day she strapped her coughing, wheezing daughter to a homemade wooden ladder.
With the help of her neighbours, Nonzame Mpoto, 50, and Mamthakomo Pikwa, 52, they carried and dragged the ladder through the steep, rocky landscape, which is dotted with a squalid collection of crumbling mud huts.
When the four reached the village’s main dirt road, Zananda prayed for a car to pass by.
“We waited for a long time . . . my daughter died lying on that ladder,” she said.
Zananda was heartbroken and could barely find the energy to do anything but raise her orphaned grandchild.
As a result, her friends said, she became little more than a skeleton covered in wrinkled skin.
But when her zest for life returned, the elderly woman threw herself into the village’s campaign for basic municipal services.
“My daughter is not the only one who has died in Bhipa because we do not have roads or a clinic.”
Zananda said the imbhawula — tin drums punched with holes and used as a brazier —
We waited for a long time . . . my daughter died lying on that ladder
affected the health of many villagers during winter.
Statistics show that of the 24 397 households in Ntabankulu, about 14 735 are headed by women. But a growing number of the men, once the sole breadwinners of families, are returning, suffering from tuberculosis and silicosis contracted while working in the mines.
Their families barely have enough money for food, let alone for transport to get free medicine in Ntabankulu, a town boasting a few buildings put up by the government and destroyed by years of neglect.
“People are dying in Bhipa,” said Zananda, adding that a clinic was desperately needed.
When Mandela visited the village in 1999, the elderly women remember being draped in traditional outfits, complete with head scarves and beads. They decorated their faces with white and red clay.
The women, who had only seen Mandela in tattered old newspapers, remember watching him in awe as he addressed and mingled with the crowd.
Mandela told them: “The development for our people, especially the rural poor, is a matter very close to my heart. We are greeting the dawn of a new life that is becoming increasingly dependent on electricity.”
Dawn has yet to break in this village — Simpiwe Piliso