Brexit,
shutdown,
Eskom
WHAT a state the world is in today. The Brits have Brexit. The Americans are headed for another federal government shutdown over the Great Wall of Mexico. And we have Eskom.
A message comes this way to say that from tomorrow we'll be in Stage 5 load-shedding. Stage 5? That's when Eskom employees come round to your home and blow out the candles.
Another message comes in. What's the difference between South Africa and the Titanic? The Titanic had its lights on when it went down.
Oh, woe is us. Here we are on St Valentine's Day with no guarantee at all that we'll be able to actually see the gals that seize us and smother us with love and kisses, because we're likely to be in the dark. Hoo boy! Scary!
AND on top of it all we have this housing shindig between eThekwini municipality and the province, telling us Durban's shacklands are here to stay – or for the next 60 years at least. We just don't have the resources to provide proper housing. How negative can you get? And when they say 60 years, they actually mean forever.
But is it really that hopeless? Let me tell you about the best housing scheme I ever saw anywhere in Africa. It had minimal cost. People were helped to build their own homes.
It was at the Angolan seaport of Lobito, in the south of the country. Lobito had a dreadful slum district set in a dank and swampy depression on the edge of town. It buzzed with mosquitoes and malaria. It stank. It was the kind of place at which the better-class cockroach turned up its nose.
The mayor of Lobito – a fellow named Orlando Costa – decided enough was enough. He found a healthy plateau outside town. He set up a municipal brickworks nearby, where people could buy bricks at cost.
He put in roads and streetlights, demarcated plots and built a communal wash-house on every other corner. Anyone who wanted a plot had only to ask. It was buckshee.
The slum just emptied. People bought cheap bricks and started building their own solid homes.
Building plans? Costa just laughed. "When a man builds his own house, it doesn't fall down," he told me.
The slum emptied of its own accord. No two houses on the plateau were alike, none of the deadly uniformity of planned housing schemes. Some were double-storey, some like miniature castles with battlements. It was wonderful, the place had such character. The Church put in schools and clinics. It was a vibrant community, proud and self-confident.
And all achieved with minimal bureaucracy, minimal cost. People were simply given the opportunity to uplift themselves..
Ought we not to be looking at something like the Lobito model? Nobody lives in a shack out of preference. If it could be done there, why not here?
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "How do you tell the difference between a present he buys you 'cos he loves you and a present he buys you 'cos he's feeling guilty? The guilty present's nicer."
Tailpiece
A DOG walks into an employment agency and says he's looking for a job.
"Wow, a talking dog!" says the consultant. "I'm sure we can get you a job with a circus."
"A circus?" says the dog. "What does a circus want with a plumber?"
Last word
If I only had a little humility, I'd be perfect.
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