I'll huff and I'll puff ...
HUMAN Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale has no doubt been reading up on the Three Little Pigs. The house of straw was no good against the huffing and puffing of the Big Bad Wolf, nor was the house of wood. But with the house of bricks he could huff and puff as hard as he liked and the little pigs were still able to cock a snook at him through the window.
It seems that of the RDP houses built since 1994, 1.5 million might as well have been built of straw or wood. Forty percent are built so badly they need work on them and a further 20 percent need to be demolished and rebuilt.
Here's a suggestion. Why not get people to build their own houses?
I once met a very wise man in local government who said: "When a man builds his own house, it doesn't fall down."
It was in Angola, at the small seaport of Lobito, where a slum had developed of appalling stench and squalor. I've never experienced anything like it anywhere else in Africa.
A new mayor – a man named Orlando Costa – arrived on the scene and found the slum unacceptable. He cleared it in no time at all and with a minimum of bureaucratic activity.
He selected a healthy plateau just outside the town. He put in tarred roads and street lamps plus occasional communal wash-houses and a clinic, which was run by the Church. Then he set up a brickworks nearby and sold the bricks at cost.
People poured out of the slum and started building their own homes. Every one was different, there were no plans, no bureaucracy. Each home had its own character. Some were miniature castles, complete with battlements. It was wonderful to see.
And not one ever fell down. When a man builds his own house ... As Costa also said: "We Portuguese are terrible planners but we're good improvisers."
This was, of course, just before the civil war. Those houses have no doubt since been pounded into rubble. But the idea of assisting and harnessing individual ingenuity surely still stands.
Maybe Tokyo needs less rigidity and more improvisation.
Cumbersome names
IT'S ODD THE way the Department of Housing has suddenly become the Department of Human Settlements. Why the cumbersome evasion? Similarly, the Department of Foreign Affairs – everyone knows what it means – has become the Department of International Relations and Co-Operation.
It's not quite Orwellian – in Nineteen Eighty-Four the Ministry of Peace was responsible for war, the Ministry of Love propagated hatred – but there seems to be a kind of fudging, a reluctance to accept that, in "human settlements" for example, Tokyo Sexwale, actually is responsible for providing houses.
Where does it end? Does the Department of Health become Department of Preventive Measures and Epidemiological Control? Education might be considered to sit better as Pedagoguery and Intellectual Development; Agriculture as the Department of the Horn of Plenty(Except that's too simple. Cornucopia would be better).
No, let's end it where it already is. Apart from seeming to duck the issues, the new names are examples of appallingly ponderous English.
More fool you
RECENTLY this column mentioned Tom Fool (real name Thomas Skelton) who entertained and lampooned authority at Muncaster Castle, England, in the 15th century.
Reader Ian Pillay asks if this means that anyone who makes fun of politicians is a fool?
"Thanks to Thomas Skelton we have 40 million fools, or more, in South Africa."
Total boredom
A SNIPPET from Bizarre World, by Bill Bryson (Warner Books).
After shooting and wounding his wife and young son, Louis Pilar, of Rheims, France, told police that a three-week strike by television technicians was to blame. "There was nothing to look at," he explained, "And I was bored." Fortunately his wife did not seem to mind being shot at. From her hospital bed she said: "I don't blame my husband. It really has been very boring in the evenings."
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Tailpiece
He: "You're A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K."
She: "What's that mean?"
He: "Adorable, Beautiful, Cute, Delightful, Elegant, Foxy, Gorgeous, Hot."
She: "Oh, that's so lovely. What about I, J, K?"
He: "I'm Just Kidding."
Hospital visiting hours: 10am to 8pm.
Last word
A rumour without a leg to stand on will get around some other way.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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