RAISING A STINK!
The shanty sections of Parys are a testimony to post-apartheid separate development and perceived corruption, writes MADALA THEPA
PARYS in the Free State is a town that is out there, a good two hours from Joburg.
It is as poor, agitated, aggravated, openly flawed and sinful as a wet dream.
The white community in town have faded lives – rich to rags sob stories, men and women who are daily tested on the street and asked to raise their voice above the din of this hectic era of “black power”.
Most of them work as car guards, if they ’ re not engaged in the self-immolation ritual of boozing.
Nothing much to this place except that its youth are brash, loose and unfearful, and, like other youths in the country, have taken to the street to demand service
– articulating the small-town feeling of abandonment.
Kroonstad, a few hours from Parys, is also on the edge. Its youth took to the street on Thursday in protest
– the same day the Parys youth blew their tops.
Parys is where the premier of the province, Ace Magashule, was born – a man now hounded by the tragically competitive souls who used to hang around him, laugh with him, break bread with him and tell him he was great and irreplaceable.
The few houses on Nzeke street in Ghana section are still trapped in a time warp.
Dimakatso Makhokolo (62) who built her house in 1992 on Nzeke Street, says:
“I haven t
’ tasted change. In apartheid it was the same thing. Even today we still use the bucket to relieve ourselves. We dig manholes in this yard, which we use as a disposal when the municipal workers decide not to pick up the buckets.
“You should smell the stink in this yard. Basically we’ve run out of space to dispose of this. It is so dehumanising because whenever they come to pick up our stuff, they first have to line them up on the street.
“To see your stuff on the street and see people covering their noses when they pass by is not a good feeling.
“If municipal workers don’t come we sometimes put the bucket, as full as it is, on the side of the shack and cover it because we no longer have space [to bury it],” she says.
“They ’ ve made toilets available in areas where there are no houses. Mbeki section is quite new but they have toilets already. Why do we have to wait this long?”
Ngwathe Local Municipality won’t comment except to say some people in Ghana section have occupied the land illegally. Lizzy Sepitla stays there. “I’ve lived here with my family for eight years. I don’t know what they mean when they say we are here illegally, ” says the 34 year-old mother.
“No water taps, no water as you can see. Those people on the other side are much better because at least they have the buckets. Here, we have nothing.
“We dig a hole and when it’s full we close it and dig another hole some place in this yard.
“We don’t have water tanks coming to us because they say we are staying here illegally. We don’t even use their water because it is unsafe to drink. You find condoms in the water sometimes.
“When we need water I wait for my husband to come back home so we can go get it in Lusaka or anywhere else.”
The local clinic in Old Location, or Tumahole, have a register of people coming to consult after drinking water. They mostly come for diarrhoea. But the nurses say the problem is no longer widespread because the municipality started testing the water.
“Magashule is fixated with Old Location, where he grew up. Go and see for yourself. Where he stays is different from this. The roads are tarred; there are street lights, toilets and water,” says Sepitla.
All this is true and feeds into the separate development theory. There is Magashule Street where his family house is situated and further down is his house
– big and lavish enough to make a neighbour living in a shack a tad too bitter.
The older generation loves Magashule, while the youth despises him. The old point to his good heart and deeds, to the fact that he built walls for his neighbours and put solar geysers on a few houses next to his.
The young point to the Fezile Dabi stadium that lies unfinished since it was started in 2010 as a sign of monumental failure and rampant corruption.
thepam@sundayworld.co.za