Yesterday, we were driving through Kliptown, a suburb of
Soweto.
Even if the government built 4 room houses or brick houses
to improve the living conditions of post-apartheid townships, one can still see
a lot of shacks and informal homes.
The poorest areas are considered by some as a memory of what
Soweto use to be: an accumulation of old “matchbox” houses, with no running
water, no electricity, often isolated from public facilities and facing a lot
of disease, crime and other natural element issues.
Even the township’s habitants are disgusted by these areas
and the people living in the poorest camps as they bring many problems.
There, to survive, to cook or keep yourself warm, you have
to lite a fire. The fire is not only a commodity; it is also a place to meet
with your neighbors, friends, and community.
But often, the fires become uncontrollable. This is what we
experienced yesterday: a few shacks caught fire, creating huge flames and very
heavy, dark smoke.
Soweto’s fire station is only a few minutes’ drive from here
but nobody came. The fire ended up being controlled and stopped by courageous
young men walking on the top of the shacks with big buckets of water to stop
the disaster.
What we saw was solidarity of a community, amazing men not
afraid of climbing a shack that could be the next to burn. However, there were
also a lot of drunk guys lying on the street, freezing kids, rubbish everywhere
and in all this… no firemen.
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