It‘s a hard life with no food – even with a grant

from The Herald

Sbongile Dimbaza HERALD REPORTER

PEELING paint exposes a greyish surface, evidence that the house has not seen a dab of fresh paint in years. Deep in the centre of Kwazakhele, sandwiched between rows of identical houses where poverty has become normal, lives a family of five where the breadwinner is confined to a mattress placed on a dirty wooden floor in the corner of the room.

A makeshift table covered with a blue curtain serving as a tablecloth gives “decency” to this distressing sight.

Noxolo Class, who lives with her grandmother and three siblings in this two bedroom house stands over the stove where a pot of hot water boils.

A shrug suggesting uncertainty is all she manages when asked if she is preparing to cook supper.

In a faint voice, her 58-year- old grandmother who has no use of her legs says: “If we boil water it gives us hope that we will find something to eat.”

“Though nothing is going to be cooked, in our minds we convince ourselves that we are going to have food. After two or three days without food you begin to ‘eat your hope‘ because you start to realise that life has no favours.

“It does not sense what emotional state your family is in. You do the only sensible thing. You swallow your pride and start begging or just keep your head high up and pretend that everything is normal.

“My children have learnt to cope with their situation and not eating for days has become part of us. They have learnt that praying gives hope,” Mbabela said.

LOAN SHARKS

Though her eldest son gets casual jobs at the harbour, he sometimes comes home after weeks with a small pay packet.

Mbabela‘s situation has been aggravated by the fact that for years, she has lived a vicious circle of paying a loan shark who takes her money and lends it to her again.

There are 51000 households which the Eastern Cape government has identified as living below the breadline.

Poverty knows no racial boundaries and with food prices and other key commodities ever increasing, people across all racial groups are finding it hard to live above their means.

Premier Nosimo Balindlela indicated in her state of the province speech last month that she aimed to eradicate poverty in the province.

Social development spokesman Gcobani Maswana said the government had budgeted R40-million to be spent on poverty reduction programmes in the province‘s poorest or least developed municipalities.

Last year, the province spent R20,5-million on food security projects.

“The government has been engaging communities in poverty reduction programmes and our target is to halve poverty by 2015 in line with Millennium Development Goals.

“The department has begun researching a more suitable poverty eradication model. There will be a poverty summit early in the financial year where details of the model will be finalised.

“We have established a provincial poverty eradication committee to look into this,” Maswana said.

JOBLESS DUE TO ILLNESS

Algoa Park-based Johan Gouws, who lives with his girlfriend and their eight-year-old child, said he lost his job as a mechanic three years ago after he suffered a heart attack. Since then, things have been tough.

The family survives on a R940-a-month state grant and he has to pay R475 for rent and R300 for groceries plus school transport for their child and other expenses.

They live in a modest two- bedroom flat in a government- owned complex.

“Sometimes we virtually have nothing to eat and we have to ask friends for help. The grant I receive ‘melts on my hands‘ and every month we live from handouts,” Gouws said.

The state grant made a difference, he said, but more was needed as most people had no source of income. “I have heard that people in some areas receive food parcels from the government. But I have not heard of anywhere in Port Elizabeth where this is happening.”

A few blocks from his flat is another struggling family of two where no-one works. They are open about the fact that they beg while most people consider a white person who begs as “unusual”.

Julia Mentoor said they were not asking the government to hand them money, but to create enough job opportunities, especially for those who lived below the poverty line.

Mentoor said the focus was always given to “fattening” communities that were already developed, rather than giving special attention to poor families.

“Every day food prices increase. Poor communities are not considered when these decisions are made.

“If the government has a plan to address poverty, how come it never challenges the big corporations? If it feels the prices are justified, why can‘t it subsidise communities that are struggling?”

Missionvale resident James Fortune said he had been working as a painter for years. Price increases were becoming unbearable, he said.

From the casual jobs he gets, he makes between R300 and R500 a week depending on the size of the job. Sometimes he goes without a job for a week.

“I have a family to feed, school fees to pay and taxi fare to budget. My children have learnt to go to school without lunch because there‘s none to give them.

NO MONEY FOR TAXI

“Many families in the community have grown accustomed to poverty. Moaning at the government has not helped. These days I walk to work because there‘s just no money for a taxi,” he said.

His neighbour Nina Bosman belongs to a group of unemployed women who run a community garden. They sell some of their produce to nearby businesses. When they started entertaining the idea of a community garden, she said, they asked for state assistance with gardening equipment and seedlings. Nothing came of that, however.

“We only enjoy the benefits of our project once we harvest and sell the stuff. During the off-season we pick up scrap metal and sell it to feed our families,” Bosman said.

Fellow gardener Nokuthula Tyhamzatshe, 21, lives in a one-room shack and looks after her two siblings.

She said life had been tough after their parents had died from Aids-related diseases five years ago.

“If we manage to buy a loaf of bread, we make sure that we eat two slices each and save the rest for tomorrow. I have no faith in the government because it has done nothing for my family. I survive because I use my brains and my hands to support my family. If food and paraffin prices go up, I worry because those are the main things I buy,” she said.

Gelvandale pensioner Regina Pillay, 73, takes care of seven children and two grandchildren. She only has a double bed – some of the children sleep on the floor – a kitchen table and two benches. Her pension is the main source of income.

Pillay said two of her children received a grant, but they spent it on alcohol. Her pension does not last the whole month and she is forced to borrow money from loan sharks.