Living like pigs...

These past days I have spent going through the many documents Ellen Chauke has provided me with. I am also in possession of a Wits students post grad paper which has a section dealing with the people of Silver Town.

I am shocked to read that the local government had to be forced by the courts to find an alternative home for the people living in Silver Town. They believed that these people were not their problem because they were on private property and this was a "private matter".

What a load of crap. The Alexandra Renewal Project is a government initiative and that piece of land was to be used to build a mall that would enhance the township.

I still have to understand where is the logic in building a mall for a community that does not have basic services such as a decent home.

Anyway fast ward to 2009...these people are living in shacks that the local government provided until they provide them with homes. This temporary plan has turned out to be more permanent than the community would have liked.

My last visit to Silver Town I saw pigs. Apparently these pigs that live off the communities sewerage sometimes raid the camp and eat of the small vegetable gardens that some residences started. I wonder if any of the people heading the Alexandra renewal project would live here...I really do not think so.

I tried getting a hold of them but the numbers I have are always busy, so tomorrow I am just going to raid the offices. I want to know what are they planning to do with these people and when? It is unfortunate that as they try and make Alex look better they are allowing people to live like pigs in the process.

The forgotten people of Silver Town

As you drive out of Setjwetla squatter camp on your far right lies clean looking shacks made out of silver corrugated iron enclosed by a fence with security protection.

First time I saw these homes I wondered what makes these people different to the people living in Setjwetla as these are also shacks by the Jukskei. Ellen Chauke answered, "This is a camp and we are meant to be moving...but it's been three years now."

Have these people been forgotten? Why are these people still here? Where do they come from? These are the questions I want answered and many more. I got court documents from the Ellen Chauke the community chairperson who has been at logger heads with the government for years. She showed me pictures of where she stayed before and the other community members. They did not stay in big expensive houses but they had decent homes far from a dirty river.

Silver Town does not have proper sanitation, the shacks are only big enough for one person with limited furniture and schools are far for most children. Nothing about Silver town says this is home but for the past three years the people living here have made it home not knowing if the proper homes they were promised will ever materialise.

Living next to the Jukskei river cannot be easy...the smell of the pollution, floods and the bad service delivery. One lady by the name of Margaret complained that it gets lonely as she had to send her grandchildren away as she no longer has space for them, "I am on pension and when you are alone you think too much...it's bad, really bad," she said.

Silver Town is going to demand a lot of my time because there is so much secrecy about it. The authorities throw you off and give you the wrong ward numbers when you ask them about Silver Town. I am going to spend some time going through the documents that Chauke gave me and choosing pictures that show where they come from and deciding on the type of pictures that show where they are now.

I have renewed energy for this project, especially now that I found a great story.

Day 5 and 6: Research, research and more research

Reporting on children is not as easy and simple as I thought it would be. There I was sitting behind my computer googling everything that involves children living by the Jukskei river...not much.

So I had to focus my search and try and find an angle. I then searched for institutions and organisations that are for children near the Jukskei river. I looked for clinics, children's homes and creches.

These were a bit easier to find. Everybody I called proved to be of no help to me. Luckily I found one lady, Portia Mongake who runs Abangani Nkosini/Alexandra Children's home. The following day I was in her home speaking to her.

Mongake's children's home shares a yard with two other organisations, a surgery and creche, and they are not connected in anyway. As we talk there are children all over her, we are sitting in the main house, (shack), that serves as an office, play area, kitchen, living room and bedroom. She takes care of more than 200 children and lives with 10.

Most of the children have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS, some their parents are too sick to take of them and the others the parents are unemployed. She provides food for all the children and makes sure they get funding for education and clothes.

This woman is not rich but she shares the little she has with the children. She tells us that things are not easy but she believes in the culture of sharing and teaches that to the children. The children do not have it easy and tells us a story about how one of the children was raped by an uncle...this makes her teary.

Mongake is not the only woman with a story.

Ellen Chauke was moved out of her home in inner Alex and moved to the banks of Jukskei into a very small shack. Where she used to stay now stands a mall. She was promised a home three years ago. Silver Town is home to many people with the same story as Chauke. It shocks me how people can be moved from their homes and put into shacks for a mall...where is the logic in that.

This projects is an eye opener and I know that there are so many stories like these therefore I am challenged to write these people stories in a way that gives a platform to their problems.

Day 4- News diary meetings

The real work started today. We had two meetings, one meeting was amongst the different groups as they set up their news diary and the other with our assigned mentor.


In the first meeting, each member had to say what they plan on doing regarding their given subject. My group, we are focusing on people living by the river, we had plenty of ideas; the floods, the dead people found in the water, the diseases, the agriculture, lifestyle change amongst the different classes, gender issues and family issues were top of our list.


We kind of had it figured out and gave each other ideas on how to incorporate multimedia with our different stories. Some of the ideas were better told using still graphics, others just text and others just video. With some of the stories we thought of ways to incorporate the different media.


The second meeting was with our mentor, Margaret Renn. She took our ideas, reworked them and gave them a better focus. I am now researching on children living by the river.


I find the topic interesting because children do suffer the most when it comes to pollution, poverty and all other social ills BUT I feel that it is overdone. Hence in my research my challenge is to find something different about the plight of children and find a different way of telling it.


It was either women, children or stay at home fathers staying by the river. I know my bias is very obvious but we all have our passion in life. I would love to some how incorporate the plight of men who are raising children in these conditions.


And yes the rich will be represented. And I will also explore storm water drains along the Jukskei River where children play not only in Alex.

Day 2 and 3 - Preparations for story ideas

For two days we had back to back lectures about Juskei and multimedia reporting.



We also went through different websites to get ideas for our website. I realised that there is more to this project than just reporting on peoples' stories.



We have to think about the whole design of the website, how we want our stories to form part of the website. When thinking about my story I need to consider how I am going to use audio, if I want to use it and how I want my images to tell the story.



Everything is going to need planning. I cannot just think of a story and go out there and write it, I constantly need to have the bigger picture in mind.



One of the speakers, Dr Diane Duke spoke about the condition of Juskei river. She told us how the whole river is polluted, even by Zoo Lake and Craighall Park. Nobody is safe from its condition.

I was glad to know that the Juskei does not end up in Johannesburg drinking water but unfortunately for Pretoria residence, Juskei flows in to Hartbeespoort Dam which is Pretoria's source for drinking water...but it does get cleaned.



A polluted river affects people by the river in so many different ways. It is not physically and psychologically healthy, and children are not safe as they could get hurt playing. Another problem that arises when a river is polluted is, it says something about the community living around it. For example the people in Alexandra use the river as the dustbin as there are not enough dustbins in the area. Service delivery in the area is also very slow. The politics of our country just jump out at you just looking at the conditions.



BezValley is another place of interest. The surburb used to be posh, there is evidence of that by just looking at the structure of the houses but things have changed. BezValley is a shadow of what it used to be. I am sure the old people there will have plenty to say about their history and the present.



Things are starting to get clearer for me as I have more of an idea of what to do. My focus will be gender and family...I think.

Day 1- Visit to Jukskei

My mother said "Poverty smells", after yesterday I believe her.

I went to Alexandra yesterday after ten years and was shocked that things have not gotten any better but got worse.

People living by the river in Alex have it bad. These people are living in shacks build so close together breathing space is a luxury.

That part of the river is beyond polluted. The people here do not have proper anything; there is one tap per 50+ shacks, one toilet per 50+ shacks and electricity does not exist in these parts of town.

I was told that people defecate in a plastic bag at night and when morning comes they dispose of it in the river. Some of the ladies told me that the rats nibble on their babies at night or if left unattended.

Clearly the people do not have it easy at all. Some ladies that I spoke too told me that home is in Limpopo where they live in better conditions but they came to Johannesburg for the money.

I got so many story ideas just being in that environment. The stench of rotting everything, watching children play and have fun in the dirt, and listening to the people talk, my mind went crazy with story pitches.

But this created a dilemma; I am not sure I want to focus my stories on Alex, I think I should move to other parts of the river as I am sure that there are other people living by the river who have stories to tell.

Maybe I should highlight the plight of the rich and having to live by a dirty river, or maybe the plight of middle class people who seem to be forgotten when discussing the struggles that come with living close to such pollution.

I am caught between my role as a journalist trying to write a story worth reading and that will highlight something and my role as a black woman and telling the story of my fellow black people in a dignified manner, while holding back the emotions of seeing how far we still have to go as a people and as a country.