/ 6 May 2011

Crying out in the wilderness

Crying Out In The Wilderness

Dihatshwane village just outside Mafikeng in the North West is arguably one of the most neglected villages in the province. Most of the homes are built either with mud bricks and rocks or corrugated iron. A few are built with cement bricks. There is not a single low-cost government-built house.

Two boreholes provide water for a community of just over 200 families and a single white gravel road runs through the village. Though it is all but forgotten — Bella Dithipe grew up there. “We wake up at 1am to go and wait at the windmill so that we can be the first to get water,” she said. “There might not be wind in the morning and that means we won’t have any water.”

The second borehole, where the pump is driven by a diesel, generator, is further down the road. It is the Mafikeng municipality’s responsibility to provide the diesel but residents say this happens so rarely that a local farmer has taken it upon himself to assist. “There’s a white man from Buurman who gives us diesel, but sometimes we wait two or three days without water,” said Malebogo Chabalala, another resident.

Despite failing service delivery, the ANC looks set to hold on to power in the North West province in the upcoming local government elections. Mmanaledi Mataboge takes us inside the challenges facing one of SA’s poorest provinces.

In winter, when there is little wind, the community relies on the municipality to deliver water with trucks — “only when the community leader goes to ask them. But it happens once in a while,” said Chabalala.

When residents are desperate they use dirty water from the windmill’s dam, boiling it before drinking it. “We all get running stomach as a result, but what can we do? We have been voting ANC but they have not done anything for us,” said Chabalala.

Mafikeng mayor Desmond Jabanyane admitted that there had been no development in Dihatshwane, although the village had been on a programme to get water since 2006. He laid the blame at the door of the district municipality. “Ngaka Modiri Molema is the water authority. They’ve got money from the national government for such projects. They were supposed to advertise for a contract last year, but they are moving too slow.”

Budgets
In the 2009/2010 financial year R6-million was budgeted to provide water for four poor villages, including Dihatshwane, but this was not taken up because the Ngaka Modiri Molema district did not contract service providers. Another R5-million has been budgeted for in the current financial year.

Jabanyane said the Mafikeng municipality had budgeted R19-million for housing but it was waiting for allocation numbers from the human settlements department. “When human settlements allocates housing numbers, we are expected to prioritise places that should benefit. Dihatshwane is one of them.”

As a child, Dithipe first attended school under a tree and later moved to a rondavel. The school then moved to the back room of the home at a resident who was better off financially than his fellow community members. Today, the Dihatshwane Primary School is a cement brick building. But the four classrooms are filled with primary school learners and Grade R pupils attend classes in a shack next door. There is no secondary school.

The villagers rely on a bus to get to Mafikeng. A mobile clinic visits Dihatshwane once a month, but not always — as in March — despite the clinic being just 10km away.

When the Mail & Guardian visited the village last week ANC campaigners had not yet set foot in it. But the Democratic Alliance and the Congress of the People (Cope) had visited the village. “The ANC just put up posters. They haven’t spoken to us once,” Dithipe said.

Despite this, the ruling party is guaranteed to retain the ward that includes Dihatshwane. Residents were too loyal to consider other political parties, Dithipe said. “The DA says we should stop voting ANC because the party has been making lots of promises that it does not fulfil. They say they’ll speed up the building of houses.

“I don’t believe the DA. I will still vote ANC. I’ll continue voting for the ANC until I die, even if I don’t get anything.”

The Chabalalas live in a four-roomed mud house they built in the early 1990s. Their nine-year-old and 11-year-old boys fetch water three times a day. They each push a wheelbarrow laden with three 25-litre containers.

Suzan Chabalala, Malebogo’s elder sister, said everyone in the family was a card-carrying member of the ANC and they were not giving up on it. But Malebogo interjected: “Wena le mang? [You and who?] “Come 18 May I’m voting a different party — the DA. Maybe they’ll do better than the ANC.”

She was worried about the future of her two children. “Many young people sit around the village and do nothing. Even these kids of ours will finish school and sit here in the village,” she said.

Suzan agreed: “I keep shouting at my parents asking them why they chose to settle in this village. You can’t even see whether it’s a village or moraka [cattle ranch]. It’s so unattractive.”

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