Andries Du Toit
Guest Author
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/ 20 April 2005

‘I think we will survive’

Katriena Sym considers herself lucky. She has a roof over her head, a husband who has found work on a farm nearby, and a lodger who contributes to the household expenses. "<i>Ceres is baie hard, en ek praat nou van hard</i> [Ceres is very hard and I mean hard]," she says, "<i>maar ek dink ons sal darem regkom</i> [but I think we will survive]." Sym is one of the seasonal fruit pickers who battles to eke out a livelihood.

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/ 20 April 2005

Hungry in the valley of plenty

The town of Ceres seems an unlikely site for the study of the dynamics of long-term poverty. From the top of Mitchell’s Pass, it looks like the fertile, sun-drenched valley described by advertising copywriters on the boxes of Ceres fruit juice. But life here is far from idyllic for the thousands of seasonal fruit pickers who eke out a livelihood in the midst of abundant natural resources.