Canvassing in Snake Park

This morning I joined Masesi Sekolo and her team of activists in Snake Park, part of Doornkop Extension 4 in the far western extremities of Soweto. I didn't know what to expect, having never been there before. What I found was both depressing and uplifting, a tribute to the human spirit and our unending quest for dignity whatever challenges our circumstances throw at us. A dedicated group of DA activists walking from shack to shack collecting names, phone numbers, ID numbers and other details which will be added to the party's Voter Registration Management System which enable us to keep track of our supporters. Two hours work and we'd added over 200 names, and this in an informal settlement which has been ANC territory for ever.

Mzesesi is a DA Communications Support Officer in Ward 50 of Johannesburg, a position she has held for 18 months. She joined the DA a short time before that, having had a spell of no political activity after leaving the ANC, disillusioned, in 2006. "I was a committed ANC supporter for years" said the 45 year-old Mzesesi "but in the end it was promises, promises and no delivery." She has lived in the same shack she built herself for 20 years. She shares it with her nieces as she is unmarried with no children of her own.When I arrive, guided in by phone from the main road, I find a niece carefully ironing her DA t-shirt in the kitchen.
It's an early sign that this community takes care of their appearance and their surroundings.

The informal settlement is home to several hundred people and is just across the road from a smart new RDP housing development sporting shiny solar water heaters and small gardens. Mzesesi, like so many others, had been promised an RDP house but is still waiting. This, even though she was on the list, with papers to prove it, but when the time came an ANC insider got the house. Years of complaining and appealing has got her nowhere. She feels with the DA there is a better chance of something happening.

There is no electricity in the settlement but some of the residents link illegal cables to the poles nearby. One or two shacks have aerials but I didn't see any satellite dishes - the people are too poor for a R350 subscription. Communal taps have been installed at intervals along the road and most seem to be working. Sanitation is confined to long drops in some back yards, there is no water borne sewage or piped water to individual homes. Even so, government statistics would classify these people as having access to potable water. Mzesesi says the incidence of HIV/AIDS is high and substance abuse is a problem. Compared to conditions in Alex, though, the place has the advantage of space and some land to grow vegetables. I got the impression what the people living here needed was hope, something to look foward to. "The people here are dead even though they are alive" Mzesesi remarked. She is doing her best to improve things for her community.

We set off with the 15 activists, mostly unemployed young men but with one or two middle aged ladies as well, and began our house-to-house canvassing. Opposite Mzesesi's shack is a corner shop, set up by a Pakistani man. A few doors away is spaza shop owned by a local. "The corner shop prices are better, so most people go there" says Mzesesi. "A Grandpa (a headache powder) costs R1 but at the spaza shop it's R2." I ask about xenophobia. "No, everyone excepts him, they like his prices. The spaza shop also does business, they have different customers." If only such tolerance was found in other townships with foreign shopkeepers.


One of the first people we meet is Gordon. He is very tall, wears a woolly hat, jeans and a toothy smile. We go over to chat. "My mother is a Coloured" he explains. "She is still alive. She made me think about why Coloureds are discriminated against by this government. What is your policy towards Coloureds?" We get into a discussion about employment equity and land, and I ask him if he has heard of the First Nation Party which is campaigning for the rights of the Koisan people, the original inhabitants of Southern Africa. He says no. I tell him about our policy of giving title deeds to shack owners, which impresses him a lot. He adds his details to the VRM sheet and takes a leaflet. "I read a lot" he says. "I left school at 16 and went to Botswana as an APLA fighter but when I came back I could not find a job." He now sells vegetables from his shack. "I don't need to be rich. I am happy." He had his ID book with him and I'm fairly certain will vote DA on May 7th.

Further on we pass a man cutting the grass behind his shack with a strimmer. He stops and comes over to say hello. "Do you have a job?" I ask. "No, I have a business cutting grass and I employ two boys" he replies. I ask him about the DA. "I like Bantu Holimisa, he's strong. Will you join up with him after the election?" I explain the DA's policy towards coalition partners and he seems satisfied. I introduce myself and he does likewise - "I'm Saddam. He's my hero, like Bin Laden." I leave it at that - he obviously likes strongmen. I guess a vote for Bantu Holomisa is better than one for the ANC.

Then along the street - if one can call it that - is the Lukhani Apostolic Church. It made me realise a church does not need a steeple or a brick tower or an organ or piano. It just needs a pastor with a love of God and the will and charisma to attract a following. This church was a shack with a name on it and a phone number prominently written on the front door. Unfortunately the pastor was not around - I will have to return another time to find out more.

Opposite was a shack with woman washing clothes and a man tending his mealies. Next to them another shack with a very smart front yard and concrete stoep which was getting a wash from its owner. Around the corner was a larger shack, the closest thing I'd seen all morning to a house, with a bakkie in the driveway and a man cementing up one of several brick pillars which with palisade fencing made up a very imposing boundary wall to his property. I asked Mzesesi why the occupant was spending so much money on a property he does not own. "They get the materials off the building site where they work." A neat, if dishonest, solution. It got me thinking how people living like this discern right from wrong? They have nowhere else to go, the government does not give them title to the property they live on, so perhaps they justify this petty thieving with the twisted rationale of I take what's on offer, if no-one provides decent services for me how can this be wrong?

Here we are on a Saturday morning and people are getting on with their lives in exactly the same way anyone living in the suburbs would - sweeping the yard, doing the washing, some home improvement, mowing the lawn. Just imagine what energy would be released if they owned these properties and had some paid work. This is what the DA title deeds campaign is all about and it's gaining traction.

We assemble outside Mzesesi's shack and have a team photo. Everyone is very upbeat. I'll see them all again next Saturday for the election agent training.