Twenty years after the end of
apartheid, the Mahlangu family is still awaiting prosperity in their
one-room home in the Mamelodi township in Pretoria. But they insist that
Nelson Mandela gave them freedom – and that is invaluable.
By Charlotte BOITIAUX in PRETORIA, South Africa (text)
Ten tough years in the ramshackle township of Mamelodi in Pretoria
have not wiped the ever-present smile off Maria Mahlangu’s face.
Crammed in a one-room tenement without running water or electricity,
with her husband and six children, Maria has a hard life. But she’s not
one to dwell on it.
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| Maria Mahlangu (in red) with her children, Sugu, 25, (in pink bathrobe), Zweli, 9, and Pride, 7. |
"I'm not the only one to live like this, there are thousands here,"
she says, her arm waving at the sprawling township located about 25
kilometres northeast of the Medi-Clinic Hospital, where former South
African President Nelson Mandela has spent the past three weeks.
Established in 1953 to house black citizens, many of whom were
forcibly relocated from the neighbouring Pretoria suburbs, Mamelodi
today has a population of around 200,000 people.
Maria may be poor, but as she frequently notes, she’s “free” these
days. "I am free because I have the opportunity to get out if I want.
Before (during apartheid), thinking like that was not possible," she
says, sipping coffee on a rickety chair.
Like the overwhelming majority of South Africans, Maria worships
Mandela – or Madiba as he’s fondly called. "Demigod" and "saint" are
just some of the superlatives she uses to describe the anti-apartheid
icon. Instead of criticising the economic legacy of the father of the
‘Rainbow Nation,’ she maintains that there has been major social
progress in the post-apartheid era and her family has gained from it.
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| The Mahlangu family share this washbasin with 15 other families in the township. They use it do their dishes and laundry and also to collect water for cooking and drinking. |
Above all, Maria praises the access to education in the new South
Africa. It hardly matters that she has to go to the other end of the
township subdivision to fetch water and do the family’s laundry, or that
the toilet - in a deplorable state – is shared between 15 families. "My
five children go to school,” she says proudly. “They also eat there,
the canteen is free. Thanks to Madiba, my children can read and write.
They know how to think, they can get away from here," she says,
laughing.
In the family’s dusty front-yard, two of her children use a piece of
wood to engrave Mandela’s name in the dirt. "They are young but they
already know he’s their hero,” she notes proudly. "I educate them in
Mandela’s honour, in the spirit of his message of non-violence. When he
is no more, we should never forget his teachings and his values."
My government has not let me down’
Nearly two decades after the country’s first free election in 1994,
which brought Mandela to power, South Africa today is still plagued by
vast income inequalities and the wealth disparities between racial
groups persist.
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| Eight members of the Mahlangu family live in this one-room tenement. |
While the country has seen the rise of a new black middle class, with
the average black household income increasing over the past 10 years,
it’s still just one-sixth of the average white household income,
according to the latest census figures.
But Maria is not unduly upset about the new economic apartheid. "What
do you mean? That we live in misery and the whites have money, power
and beautiful homes? Well, all the better for them,” she shrugs. “All I
can say is my government has not let me down.”
Without state funding – which provides the equivalent of 22 euros per
month for each child – the family would not be able pay the rent of 400
rand (about 30 euros) per month.
The monthly income of about 240 euros that her husband brings home is
just sufficient for the family of eight members to survive.
"I would like to give my daughter makeup for her birthday, but I
cannot," she laments, looking fondly at Sugu, her 25-year-old eldest
child, strolling in the sun in her baby pink bathrobe.
The biggest problem, she acknowledges, is electricity. "I had a
generator before and we could run the TV. But it broke down six months
ago," she adds, staring at a warm, empty refrigerator occupying space in
the one-room home.
But not everyone in the township shares Maria’s optimism. Clutching a
rosary in one hand and a cane in the other, James Zulu, a neighbour,
joins the conversation in the Mahlangu yard. "You think it's okay to
live in the dark these days?" he grumbles. "I'm not angry, but I think
we deserve better. I'd like to take a hot shower. I’ve been showering
with cold water from the tap for too long.”
But Maria and Sugu merely laugh. "Yes, yes, we saw you naked the
other day", they tease him. "I would also like have my own toilet," he
continues, ignoring the two women. "The ANC can do that for me: give me a
little more dignity.”
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