CHRIS MCGREAL, Johannesburg | Friday
HENRIETTA Mqokomiso knew what was coming. Alexandra township council served the demolition order a week ago and branded her house with three yellow crosses.
On Monday, while the domestic worker was working, an official banged on the door and told her children that a crew would be around the next day to pull down their home.
At dawn on Tuesday Mqokomiso (50) said she could not believe that the government that liberated her from apartheid would destroy her home of 12 years and dump her on a piece of barren land. That was too much like the days of forced removals.
But several hours later her house stood in ruins and she was left miles away with nothing more than a few pieces of corrugated iron and told to build a new home.
“This is the worst day of my life,” she said. “I don’t mind moving, but they must give me another house. That is what is driving my head crazy – to go to a shack. We’re going to use paraffin in a shack and I’ve got electricity in my house. I’ve got water and a toilet. I won’t have that in a shack.
“Apartheid was better than this.”
In recent months thousands of people have seen their homes demolished in Alexandra, Johannesburg’s oldest township. At first the government targeted squatters and justified the destruction as a life-saving measure to remove shacks from the banks of the Jukskei river after it tested positive for cholera.
But there were no cases of the disease, and the authorities are now condemning ordinary, well-built but technically illegal homes such as Mqokomiso’s. They say it is part of a project to upgrade the township.
Mqokomiso built her house in 1988, during the apartheid years when it was almost impossible to obtain permission to build legally.
Over the years her yellow house swelled from its original one room to four. The bathroom was brought inside. Running water, a prepaid electricity meter and a phone were added.
“I built this house. I built it with my money and they are coming today to break this house and not give me anything. Where do they expect us to live? Outside? In the street?”
At 7.40am the wreckers’ lorries and bulldozer arrived. The demolition crews are widely scorned as the Red Ants for their bright boiler suits. Most carry crowbars. Some have shields. A few wield pump-action shotguns after violence against earlier removals.
With military-style precision they sealed off both ends of the street. The Red Ants descended on the first house. They are well practised, and what differences there are with apartheid’s forced removals are apparent. They generally speak kindly to the occupants and carefully lift their belongings into the street and on to the lorry.
The wrecking crew swarms over the roof, lifting the corrugated iron. The men break the walls around the windows and lever out the frames without so much as cracking the glass. All of this will go with the owners to wherever they are sent. And then the bulldozer moves in and pounds the house to nothing.
While Mqokomiso awaits her turn, she agonises over where she will be sent. Her best hope is Extension 7 on the other side of Alexandra. Not only is it close by, but there is a fair chance of getting a new house in the coming months.
What Mqokomiso most fears is ending up in Diepsloot, a new township and squatter camp 40km from Alexandra. She has never been there but has heard the stories of overcrowding, waterlogged land and no basic services.
Mqokomiso grabs the first official to pass her door. Does he know where she’s going? Extension 7, he replies.
But later the sheriff says she is not on the list for anywhere, which means she automatically ends up in Diepsloot. Mqokomiso cannot believe it. The sheriff is wearily sympathetic.
“I’m sorry my darling. There’s nothing I can do,” he says.
Diepsloot, Mqokomiso says, will be a disaster. It is miles from her job and she cares for two teenage nieces and an eight-year-old grandchild. They will have to be pulled out of their schools because the bus fares alone from Diepsloot would eat up most of her R1 300 a month pay.
It is 11am before the Red Ants get around to Mqokomiso’s home. By then all her belongings are piled into two dozen rubbish bags in the street, with the television on top of the microwave kept under careful watch.
Mqokomiso watches much of her home destroyed but does not care to stay for the bulldozer’s work. Her belongings fill half a lorry which takes an hour to grind its way to Diepsloot before pulling to a halt on a crowded muddy street pinned in with shacks on either side.
She was led between the shacks to a tiny patch of empty land – no more than 20 square metres – and told that this was her new home. The council provided nine poles and 10 pieces of corrugated iron for her to build a shack.
“It’s worse than I thought. There’s no water, there’s not even a toilet. There’s not enough room to fit in all my things. Look at this soil. It’s wet. It’ll be flooded in the rains,” she said.
After protests, she is led to another, larger patch of ground. This one at least has a raised concrete base. The existing residents gather around and say she is not welcome.
Mqokomiso wants to flee but she cannot abandon her belongings.
“For this we blame the [African National Congres]. They were supposed to build the houses first and then move us. How could they move us with no houses?” she asks.
But there are more pressing concerns. “We have to start to build now. We need somewhere to sleep tonight and it’s going to be cold.”