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HOMELANDS a Narrative Inquiry Into Home and Belonging in an Informal Settlement in South Africa

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HOMELANDS a Narrative Inquiry Into Home and Belonging in an Informal Settlement in South Africa HOMELANDS A narrative inquiry into home and belonging in an informal settlement in South Africa PIETER DE VOS © Pieter Francois de Vos November 2014 Edmonton, Alberta CONTENTS 1. Introduction P. 1 2. Prologue P. 19 Narrative beginnings 3. Travelogue: Part One P. 27 July to October 2012 4. Christopher P. 111 5. Benjamin P. 161 6. Trevor P. 177 7. Donald P. 197 8. Travelogue: Part Two P. 248 August & September 2013 9. Epilogue P. 315 Narrative threads & insights 10. Bibliography P. 359 TO DRINK ITS WATER By Ingrid de Kok 1 Home is where the heart is: a tin can tied to a stray dog. The only truth is home truth: preserves on the winter shelf. Those who carry their homes on their backs live for hundreds of years, moving inch by inch from birth to lagoon. 2 Beside the beaten path to the veld where I once played, dry riverbed and unwashed clothes grey lizards on the rocks. My shadow squats in the shade of a thorn where children sift and store the remnants of corroded bins. Over the path, the rocks, the tree, marauding sky, fiercer than memory. * * * INTRODUCTION This book is an experiment. It traces its origins to South Africa — the country of my birth and the country where I undertook doctoral research from 2011 to 2013 in an informal settlement known as Woodlane Village. What follows is the product of this homecoming. It is an attempt to make sense of the experiences of home and belonging through the stories we tell about our lives and the places we live. At the heart of this book are the interlocking and crosscutting narratives of four men who live in this community — Donald, Christopher, Benjamin, and Trevor — and myself as we inquire into these concepts and our common connection to South Africa. As a former South African of Afrikaner ancestry, the mixing of spirits and stories that occurred across the racial divide was profound and took each of us into uncharted territory. I remember spending countless hours in conversation with them and others in Woodlane Village. Exchanges occurred in a variety of settings including around campfires, on the streets, on the football pitch, in automobiles, in shacks where warm breaths condensed on cold metal roofs, and in the bustling townships around Pretoria. I recall numerous instances where they narrated their personal histories, drawing on past experiences to frame present-day realities and to project their imaginations into the 1 future. They spoke of shadow lives. In some cases, the stories were confessional in nature, disclosing a multitude of struggles. Other times, they were self-aggrandising, as individuals spoke of past accomplishments or of their prowess in navigating the dog-eat-dog world of South Africa. There were stories of grief and crushing losses, stories of hopes and dreams, stories of quiet resignation and defeat or of rage and defiance. Some stories divulged truths and promoted intimacy; others obscured the ‘facts’, deflected responsibilities, and manipulated situations for personal gain. Stories were a form of currency, exchanged in a marketplace of relationships. As a whole, the narratives in this book convey the nuanced and complex ways we make sense of home and belonging. Although, the stories are situated within Woodlane Village they speak to the larger experience of being human. They speak of love and loss, of adaptation and resilience, and of the yearning to live in community with others despite the forces pulling us apart. In this way, they offer insights of universal relevance, while also addressing the unique realities of post-apartheid South Africa. This is a book of stories, but it is also a book about stories and the way they shape our existence. The human condition is defined by dynamic tensions that require response, resistance, reconciliation, accommodation, and acceptance. We experience our lives forwards and backwards. Present-day insights can overwrite past understandings and shape our visions of the future. Storytelling allows us to refashion our personal and collective histories. One can argue that the most elemental form of agency is the choice we make in the stories we tell: what we choose to divulge and what we choose to omit; what surfaces and what gets pushed under. As Kelly (1997: 51) points out, “To tell one story is to silence others; to present one version of self is to withhold other versions of self.” 2 * * * SITE OF INQUIRY It is a Monday evening in mid-August 2011, the end of a winter day in Pretoria (City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality).1 The sun hovers low in the sky, preparing to plunge below the horizon. Plumes of smoke rise from shacks as residents of the informal settlement prepare meals and seek warmth over wood fires. The temperature has dropped to around 2 degrees Celsius — frigid enough that even the delegation of Canadian academics is finding it uncomfortable. We are here on a site visit as part of a bilateral exchange with South African researchers to compare and contrast homelessness between the two countries. The settlement spreads over 8 hectares of land on the corner of De Villebois Mareuil and Garsfontein roads near the exclusive Woodhill Golf Estate. It sits immediately adjacent to a gargantuan Dutch Reformed Church with a congregation of over 7000 people. Woodlane Village is comprised of 846 households representing around 3000 people from Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, and provinces in South Africa. Most of the residents are political and economic refugees. Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality provides potable water and latrines to the village. In addition, the area is fenced off and guards are posted at the entrances of the settlement not only as a measure of security but to limit its growth. The fence keeps others out and the residents in. I feel the irresistible urge to wander the camp by myself — to dive into the sensory stream of this place without the voiceover and surveillance of a tour guide. I break away from my colleagues to search for signs, clues, and symbols to help me understand this locality. I am in a confluence of narratives that flow in and out of Woodlane Village: the stories of the residents who live here and 1 The City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality forms the local government of northern Gauteng Province and includes the City of Pretoria. 3 their experiences of migration, home, and belonging; the stories of those who fought to keep them out of Moreleta Park; the stories of the Dredges2 who have fought to keep them in; the stories of my family and our history; the stories of South Africa as it makes sense of its past and charts an uncertain course to the future. It is hard to imagine that people here spend the bitter cold in shelters made of little more than plastic tarps, recycled cardboard, scraps of plywood, and zinc. Yet despite the makeshift construction of the buildings, the settlement has an orderly feel. There is a sense of care and pride. The shacks are organised in rows separated by wide lanes that permit easy access for motorised vehicles and also serve as firebreaks. Some of the properties are set up as grocery stores and spaza shops. Others have gardens. On warmer days, colourful laundry hangs from clotheslines and children play in the dirt roads between shacks. But on a miserable winter day like this one, people hunker down to avoid the wind that cuts across the open fields, ripping at the tarps. The settlement is reminiscent of the camps I witnessed in Haiti after the earthquake in 2010, although the shacks here impart a feeling of greater permanence than did the canvas tents in Port-au- Prince. On the scale of durability, zinc and plastic sheeting outrank fabric, much in the same way as stone does wood. * * * Ascribing a measure of permanence to Woodlane Village is ironic, given the history of this settlement and its precariousness in the heart of the affluent suburb of Moreleta Park. It was created as a temporary settlement in 2009 by court order following years of 2 Colin and Denise are married and live near Woodlane Village. They are devoted Christians who have advocated for homeless people living in the Moreleta Park and Garsfontein areas for over a decade. Their social justice efforts led to the creation of the settlement and they continue to do community development work in the village. 4 advocacy and legal battles by Colin and Denise Dredge — a husband and wife who, as an act of faith, intervened on behalf of homeless individuals squatting in vacant land near Woodlands Boulevard Mall, the self-proclaimed “Fashion Capital” of Pretoria. The Dredges and the non-profit organization they founded in 2003, Tswelopele Step by Step, 3 directed their early efforts to improving the living conditions of the squatters, but they were eventually drawn into defending their human rights in the face of repeated harassment by the metro police. The Garsfontein police, stoked by vehement complaints from homeowners and businesses in the suburb, tried to drive the squatters from the land. Instances of property destruction, violence, and shootings were reported.4 The convoluted story that unfolded included: two raids in 2006 where the belongings of the squatters were burned with the municipality claiming it was an operation to “eradicate alien vegetation” and the police stating it was a crime-fighting effort5; a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court of Appeal that the eviction of the squatters by Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality was illegal6 and that the government agencies were responsible to rebuild the structures demolished in the raids; the early morning razing of fifty more shacks on August 16, 2007 by police and security personnel in defiance of the interdiction; the subsequent court case that ordered the police to replace the torched shacks within 12 hours7; the non-compliance of the Safety and Security Minister, Charles Nqakula to this order, followed by a legal case where Adriaan Vorster, the attorney siding with the squatters, argued that: “If the 3 Tswelopele is a Sotho word meaning to lift up, empower, and liberate.
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