Island on map for sustainable development

A NEW Manx Government building – Thie Slieau Whallian, the St John’s headquarters of the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture – is featured as the cover story of the December issue of Site Recorder.

The feature in the journal of the Institute of Clerks of Works and Construction Inspectorate, describes the building as ‘unique and prestigious’ and looks at a day in the life of clerk of works Albert Denham, of Port Erin business Erin Building Services Ltd, clerk of works for the construction.

‘It is a real coup for the Isle of Man,’ said Mr Denham. ‘The article mentions the building is accredited “excellent” by BREAM [BRE Environmental Assessment Method, setting out the best practice in environmental design], it is the first building in the island to get “excellent” and one of a few in the UK.

‘It’s a one-off building. It’s as sustainable as possible, it’s timber-framed and uses recycled newspaper for insulation, it has a hemp feature wall. It is quite an innovative building. It was superb to be involved.’

The magazine goes to industry members around the world, so puts the island on the map for sustainable development, he said.

The story followed an unusual route to be featured in the magazine.

‘Part of the magazine covers defects,’ he said. ‘Someone in the Isle of Man sent a photo of a little section of the St John’s building. It annoyed me because it was not finished. This is not a defect, it’s ongoing work.

‘I think somebody was being mischievous. I contacted the magazine and said this was a one-off building and we were proud of it. The editor called and said we would like to feature the building, it is nice looking. To be featured is good for the Isle of Man.’

The feature mentions Erin Building Services, which is also working on projects including Douglas Corporation public sector housing, the demolition and rebuild of three local authority properties in Port Erin, and re-roofing Isle of Man Post Sorting Office.

He said that limited time constraints on some projects didn’t always allow for the level of inspection they’d like.

He said: ‘For example, brick workers can do a lot of bad brick work and the faults can be missed purely because we are not on site. Our job is to make sure they (clients) are getting value for money, that workers are doing the job right. There is a place in Douglas that had no clerk of works, the problems are coming home to roost now. We do feel we are under used. Having us makes everybody’s life easier, we are another pair of eyes on site. People spend thousands of pounds on an extension, we make sure it is done right for a couple of extra hundred pounds, or it goes wrong and they spend thousands on lawyers’ fees.’

- IOMtoday

Signal Hill fire contained

An overnight veld fire on the slopes of Signal Hill above Cape Town has been contained, the city's Fire and Rescue Services said on Friday.

“Right now, we have some firemen and teams monitoring,” spokesman Theo Lane said.

Firefighters battled throughout Thursday to control several fires which were being fanned by strong south-easterly winds.

Several fire engines and helicopters were used to waterbomb the flames. There were no reports of injury or damage to property.

City fire chief Ian Schnetler said the first fire was reported at 10.38am on Military Road.
“We sent three fire engines to the scene and the fire was extinguished at 2.25pm.”

At 12.40pm another fire broke out near High Level Road, Sea Point. The fire was brought under control soon after 2pm. An hour later another two fires started on Signal Hill.

The SA Weather Service earlier this week issued a red fire alert for the Cape Metro.

- Sapa

Are you prepared for wind damage?

Cape Town - The South African Weather Service has forecast that the strong, gusting south-easterly winds currently being experienced will persist until the end of the week and are only expected to ease off late on Saturday, the City of Cape Town said on Wednesday.

“The City's Disaster Risk Management Centre and Fire and Rescue Service are accordingly advising the public to take precautions against wind damage and to be alert about fire safety,” spokesperson for the city's disaster risk management centre, Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, said in a statement.

“The strong, gusting south-easterly winds and high temperatures between the high 20s and 30s are forecast for the greater part of the week. These conditions are favourable for runaway fires that could easily become major blazes. It would be advisable to not even attempt to make fires during this time, especially not in open areas where the risk is very high,” said Chief Fire Officer Ian Schnetler.

The City's Disaster Risk Management Centre appealed to residents to take the following measures to prevent wind damage:

- Install straps or additional clips to your roof to secure it to the frame structure, in order to prevent roof damage.

- Be sure trees and shrubs around your home were well trimmed

- Determine how and where to secure your boat

- Maintain exterior insulation finishing system (EIFS) walls

- Protect windows and doors with covers

- Reinforce double entry doors

- Reinforce or replace damaged garage doors

- Secure metal siding and metal roofs

- Secure built-up and single-ply roofs

- Brace gable-end roof framing

- Ensure adequate insurance cover for possible storm damage

- Motorists were requested to watch out for possible broken trees and broken power lines along roadways

- Exercise extreme caution along mountain areas

“It is important to secure your property by affixing permanent wind shutters, which offer the best protection for windows, or utilising boarding,” Solomons-Johannes said.

The fire danger: RED warning for the Cape Metropole was still enforced and the general public were requested to apply fire safe practices.

Solomons-Johannes appealed to the general public to heed to the public advisory issued and to listen to the radio or watch television news for the latest weather forecast.

Any emergency and/or distress call could be reported to the 107 emergency number from a Telkom line. Cellphone users needed to dial 021-480-7700.

“The sooner you phone, the sooner help will arrive.”

- Sapa

Over 600 people affected by shack fires in W.Cape

Community leaders in Masiphumelele near Fish Hoek in the Western Cape on Wednesday said more than 600 people have been affected by shack fires.

At least 160 homes have been gutted over the past three days.

Disaster management officials are busy distributing building materials to families.

Home Affairs officials are also in the area to help those affected register for their identity documents lost in the two fires.

Community leaders are concerned that some of those affected are still on holiday in the Eastern Cape.

Residents said fires would not happen if government provided them with decent homes.

- Eyewitness News

Two of Government’s top-10 blunders for 2010

The housing corruption involving some 2,000 government officials is one of the most disgraceful public sins of 2010.

Minister of human settlements, Tokyo Sexwale, said in August this year that syndicates selling and leasing government housing were to be investigated. Numerous government officials, notably in Gauteng, North West and KwaZulu-Natal, are allegedly benefiting underhand from these deals.

The authorities' housing promises pose another fiasco. Sexwale announced in April this year that the housing backlog even exceeded the backlog in 1994: the figure has swelled from 1,5 million in 1994 to 2,1 million at present. Meanwhile the need for housing is growing daily; the number of informal settlements has already reached the 2,700-mark, of which at least 70 are inhabited by white people in shanty towns.

- Moneyweb

The other, would clearly be the lack of capacity in electricity, sewage and water bulk infrastructure not being planned for, thus affecting or rather bringing all further human settlement development to a grinding halt.

Cape Town on fire alert

Cape Town firefighters will be on high alert for the next three days, says the city's disaster management centre.

Spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said the weather service had "stepped up" its red fire danger warning for the Cape Metropole until Friday.

"Such extreme hot conditions are favourable for runaway fires and the city's disaster response teams and fire and rescue services are on heightened alert," he said.

Three days ago a fire razed 163 homes and left 700 people displaced in the Masiphumelele shack settlement at Fish Hoek.

"Strong, gusting south-easterly winds are forecast for much of the city today, which means that small fires could easily become major blazes," said the City's chief fire officer, Ian Schnetler.

- Timeslive

Blaze lays waste to hopes and dreams

Xolelwa Stofile was so excited when her boyfriend gave her a DVD player and DVDs for Christmas that she immediately set up the equipment and kept peeking at it during a family lunch.

She had planned to watch her favourite movie, Dirty Dancing, on Boxing Day, but hours before she had the chance, a fire destroyed everything she owned.

Stofile, 22, is one of about 700 Masiphumelele residents left destitute after a fire razed about 150 shacks at the weekend.

“I was sleeping when suddenly I heard people scream: ‘It’s burning. It’s burning.’ I grabbed my daughter and ran outside.

“I wanted to go back in my house and grab things, but the flames came too quickly. I got my first ever DVD player and DVDs for Christmas and that’s all gone.

“I know it means nothing. I’m more worried about my daughter and her burnt clothes. But, you know, I was just so excited. It was like magic when I saw that DVD machine.

Residents of Masiphumelele salvage what they can in order to rebuild their homes after a fire gutted a large portion of the settlement on Boxing Day. Photo: Matthew Jordaan

CAPE TIMES

“But now everything is gone,” she said, standing in front of a heap of charred mattress springs and clutching her seven-month-old daughter, Abigail.

The little girl’s white jersey and pants were smeared with soot.

Stofile said it was the only clothing she had for her.

Yesterdayscores of residents, their eyes red as grit and ash blew about in gusting winds, carried long pieces of wood on their heads and walked to the burnt area.

Others pushed trolleys filled with curled, blackened pieces of corrugated iron they planned to use in rebuilding their shacks.

Children walked between charred debris and collected cups and plates which could be salvaged.

Amanda Maibe walked slowly through the debris pulling a black bag behind her.

“This is what’s left of my life. I have a four-year-old son and he’s going to suffer. He has no clothes left. No toys. No food. It’s a bad day,” she said.

Clutching a blackened hammer and leaning on a door frame he had just erected, Siyathemba Mange, 27, frowned as he said he would work non-stop until he had finished rebuilding his shack.

“Sheesh, I’m exhausted. But if I don’t do this I have no place to stay. All my clothes and food is gone. I have to start from scratch.

“This is no way to start a new year. It makes me scared,” he said.

A neighbour came and gave Mange a handful of shiny new screws she did not need.

“What a gift,” a smiling Mange said as he compared the new screws to gnarled rusty ones he had been using.

Mange and other residents believed a man who was drunk and tried to cook had caused the blaze after he had left his oven on by mistake.

They said the man had not been seen since.

The City of Cape Town’s Disaster Risk Management Centre was assisting the residents and a community hall had been opened as temporary accommodation.

Hours after the Masiphumelele incident, firefighters battled a blaze on the lower slopes of Chapman’s Peak.

The route had to be closed off because of smoke.

Firefighters, engines, and three helicopters were deployed in an effort to extinguish the fire.

- Cape Times

Home builder struggles on

Sea Kay Holdings has narrowly escaped a liquidation claim lodged against it by the National Housing Finance Corporation (NHFC), but the company’s losses have mounted under a drastic housekeeping operation.

The JSE-listed developer of homes for the low to middle income housing market, released its latest financial results at the end of last week. This was after the group announced that it had reached a settlement agreement with the NHFC which had filed for liquidation in order to recover money owed by Sea Kay.

Sea Kay rose to prominence when it entered the JSE in 2007 with the promise of dominating the largely neglected low to middle income housing market. Under the stewardship of former CEO Corne Kruger, the operation grew quickly through both organic growth and corporate activity. Revenue reached R841m at the end of the 2009 financial year.

Harsh trading conditions and severe cash flow problems badly affected the group’s fortunes as reflected in the figures for the 12 months ended June this year. Sea Kay’s revenue declined to R647m.

Sea Kay’s performance was hit by significant impairments. The group posted an operating loss of R181m compared with an operating profit of R101.3m last year.

In its latest statement of results, Sea Kay said a decision was taken by the board to impair all remaining goodwill to the value of R90.4m.

The group also took a decision to further impair trade receivables to the value of about R29m. The latter decision was taken in light of uncertainties regarding the recoverability of the trade debts.

As a result of the settlement agreement, Sea Kay reclassified certain portions of its financial liabilities. This saw the group reclassify R97.7 m from current liabilities to non-current liabilities.

Explaining these drastic measures, the group said directors embarked on a process to address the uncertainties identified by management and alluded to in the auditors’ qualified opinion.

This process includes reviewing and restructuring of receivables and payables, to ensure that the group is in a position to operate adequately. The re-engineering process will also include a fundraising exercise.

The group said a potential funder had been identified. “The most significant factor to continue as a going concern is that the directors procure funding for the ongoing operations,” said the group.

“In this regard, the settlement with the NHFC that was made an Order of Court on December 6 2010 is an important milestone for the group,” said the group.

The settlement effectively removed the liquidation applications against both Sea Kay and Sea Kay Engineering Services and re-opened the group’s ability to access normal credit lines.

The settlement involves initial payment of R44m to be made during January 2011 to the NHFC plus a guarantee of R6m that will be issued to the NHFC. Sea Kay has also committed to repay R65m to the NHFC over 60 months.

Sea Kay also pointed out negotiations with its debtors, including provincial governments of the Western Cape and Gauteng, were at a mature stage. Sea Kay said an amount of about R29.5m was likely to be paid directly from the Western Cape into the coffers of NHFC during the course of January.

The balance due to NHFC should be realised from the Gauteng Department of Housing “where adequate funds are available to achieve this,” said the group.

The turnaround of Sea Kay is taking place under a relatively new leadership.

Kruger resigned last year but remaines a shareholder. Pieter van der Schyf was made acting CEO early this year.

At the beginning of this month the group brought in Landiwe Mahlangu as non executive chairman of the board.

- The New Age

Cape man dies in shack fire

Cape Town - A man died in a shack fire in Khayelitsha on Saturday night, SABC News reported on Sunday.

Ten wood-and-iron structures were gutted in the Endlovini informal settlement of Harare, the Cape Town Fire Service said.

About 40 people had been displaced as a result of the fire and were taken in by family and friends for the night.

The cause of the blaze was unknown.

Police were investigating the incident.

- SAPA

150 shacks destroyed by fire

A total of 150 shacks were destroyed in a fire in the Masiphumelele informal settlement in Cape Town, the Disaster Risk Management Centre said on Sunday.

A Spokesperson for the centre, Wilfred Solomons-Johannes, said that three hundred people had been affected after 150 shacks were destroyed in the blaze which started at about 7am. By 10am the fire was under control.

Fifteen fire engines and a helicopter were used to battle the fire. "No fatalities have been reported," said Solomons-Johannes. "All persons have been accounted for."

A community hall has been opened for the next few days. People are being registered and also issued with building material.

- Sapa

CT Disaster Management battle shack fire

Disaster Management officials are battling a shack fire in the Masiphumelele informal settlement in Cape Town on Sunday morning.

Details surrounding the start of the fire are unknown.

Disaster Management spokesperson Wilfred Solomons-Johannes said there were no injuries thus far.

“The crews when on arrival requested additional fire engines and support to bring the fire under control. No persons have been injured thus far in the incident,” he added.

- Eyewitness News

Toilet choice now up to community

In a breakthrough in the open toilet controversy, Judge Nathan Erasmus has amended his initial interim order to allow community members to choose whether they want temporary enclosures now, or want to await a final solution in March.

The amended order means the City of Cape Town will be obligated to provide enclosed toilets only for those who opt for them.

It is a move that has been welcomed by a community leader in Makhaza, Khayelitsha, as well as by ANC Youth League member Andile Lili.

The city accused members of the community of being in contempt of court after they prevented city council workers from acting on Judge Erasmus’s initial interim order on two separate occasions.

Last month, Judge Erasmus made an order that the 65 toilets and enclosures be reinstalled as an interim measure pending a final ruling in 2011.

At the time the judge ordered that the toilets be enclosed with a corrugated-iron and timber structure, including a polyurethane door suspended on a steel bar that could be locked from the inside and the outside.

Residents, however, want the toilets to be enclosed with concrete instead, after the city initially installed open toilets.

Three residents, Ntombentsha Beja, Andile Lili and Andiswa Ncani, took the city to court to force it to replace the toilets.

But when officials from the city arrived on two separate occasions to follow through with the court order, the residents prevented them from doing so.

The toilet saga came to a head in June 2010 when the city demolished the remaining open toilets that were initially set up without any enclosures.

The destruction of the toilets led to a violent confrontation between the city and the community.

As part of his amended order, Judge Erasmus said he would also instruct police to urgently investigate the conduct of “any individual or group” in contempt of his order.

The police must also file a progress report with the court by March 7.

He also directed Lili, a community leader and ANC Youth League member, not to act in a manner that would “frustrate the implementation of the court order”.

The judge also went on to criticise Lili before addressing him directly in court.

“I can see you have some control over the community,” said Judge Erasmus.

The court had earlier viewed two DVDs of what had happened when the city arrived to reinstall the toilets.

“This is just interim relief so the people can have some measure of dignity restored. You have to do your best to act as a leader.

“But on the other hand, I will not tolerate any conduct by any person or group that will frustrate people’s access to their rights,” he said.

Earlier, the residents’ advocate, Thembalihle Sidaki, told Judge Erasmus that the reason that members of the community had prevented the city from reinstalling the toilets was because the city had “provoked” them.

“The city came into the community waving around the court order (as if to say) ‘ha, ha, ha’,” he said, adding that it created an “atmosphere of acrimony”.

Outside the court, Lili said he was “happy” with the amended order and that people could now choose whether they wanted to have the toilets installed or not.

Asked what reaction he expected to get from the community as a result, he said: “Everyone will feel very comfortable and happy with this.”

Costs of the amended order are to stand over. The matter resumes in March.

- Cape Times

On the other side of the mountain

Southeasters are in Cape Town's contradictory DNA. On Long Street and surrounds the wind is usually flirting with the hemlines of short-skirted blonde Euro-travellers or messing up the hair of messed-up hipsters. Another yawned accompaniment to the beautiful setting draped with beautiful ones.

Along Symphony Way, a stretch of road in Delft, to the north of the city, behind the airport and far removed from the shadow of Table Mountain, the wind is more palpable -- everything is already exposed here.

On a slow day the wind makes the ubiquitous white dust move in mini-dervish whirls on the tar. On harsher ones, it connives with the sand and the sun to ensure that the experiences of those dumped here -- the poor, those to be forgotten -- are inextricable from the lines on their faces.

Situated along this unforgiving stretch with a few bushes apparently yielding litter rather than any fruit is the Symphony Way "temporary relocation area", built by the city's Democratic Alliance-run municipality in 2007 at a cost of more than R30-million. It is also known as "Blikkiesdorp" (Tin-Can Town), Silver Town or just plain Blikkies.

It is a dumping ground for humans. Somalis and other foreigners who survived the 2008 xenophobic attacks and then outlived the expiration date on their original refugee camps are here, as are some street kids cleansed from Cape Town before the World Cup -- ironically, others have since been evicted.

Illegal occupation


There are Delft backyard dwellers who, at the instigation of then DA councillor Frank Martin (he was expelled from the party over the incident), occupied unfinished N2 Gateway project houses across the road, were evicted and then proceeded to occupy, for almost two years, the pavements in protest. They were, in November last year, ordered by the courts to move, pretty much, across the stretch to Blikkies. They're all in there. And then some.

There are more than 1 600 18m2 units -- much smaller than a shipping container -- some with as many as nine or 10 people living in them.

Thirty-two-year-old Shahieda Isaacs's four children are mopping up the remains of their mutton curry and roti when I join her and two other community members for supper in her rectangular box of a home.

The food, cooked in a tiny kitchen semi-partitioned from a larger sleeping area, is delicious. Isaacs sends her 12-year-old off to buy a litre of cool drink from the local spaza.

Spazas line Blikkiesdorp and it is apparent that here, as in informal settlements around the country, a hyper-localised economy exists. Money circulates among the poor, rather than being siphoned off by large supermarket chains -- largely because expensive and unsafe public transport and a lack of penetrative will by these chains makes them inaccessible to the poor.

It is a perversely positive result of ghettoisation in a time of economic recession.

Blikkiesdorp's children


Isaacs says it's difficult trying to raise her children -- two boys and two girls -- in such a claustrophobic space. Her ­daughters share one bunk bed, her sons the other, while she shares the main bed -- piled high with washed and neatly ironed clothes -- with her husband, Ridwaan.

There is no privacy here and Isaacs is concerned that by the time the government eventually moves the family into a house (in 2016, they say, but she isn't holding her breath) her children will be hitting puberty.

"If you think about it, it's heartbreaking, but you don't give up hope," says Isaacs.

Ridwaan is unemployed and Isaacs earns R850 a week cooking lunch for a company in Epping, of which R70 a week goes on her transport costs, which she says she tries to offset by baking koeksisters to sell every Sunday.

Isaacs says her biggest expense is clothes for her children but how has she been coping with the rising costs of pretty much everything?

"We get by like we always do. I'm lucky because my children never go to bed with an empty stomach, like other children. You just get by, but the main thing is that all my children's school fees are paid. That is the most important thing," says Isaacs.

There is a matter-of-fact determination in Blikkiesdorp -- and some ingenuity too.

At some point I stumbled across an inflatable pool near the hok (shack) of Lamees Solomons (29).

Nothing to do


Solomons and her husband, Shamiel, say the pool is for the "children in the camp. Most of these kids really battle, man, so we try to do what we can." The children in Blikkiesdorp have perennially runny noses from the dust and there is a sense of perpetual boredom about them: aside from the gravel, litter and mangy dogs, there is nothing here. And nothing to do.

Solomons says she has two informal fruit and vegetable stalls and also sells perfume. Her business is doing well, so the couple buys and prepares food for the children here twice a week.

"We're community, mos, we're family, so we must do what we can to help one another. Sometimes there are hundreds of children here for the food," says Solomons.

Earlier in the week Ashraf Cassiem, erstwhile chairperson of the Anti-Eviction Campaign (AEC), stood over a shallow hole in the pavement along Symphony Way: "Man, this is where we used to make a fire, this was where my tent was! I still lay in bed at night picturing those times," says Cassiem, beaming.

The memories of the AEC-organised occupation and barricade of Symphony Way from February 2008 until November last year by the 139 families who protested their evictions from the N2 Gateway and the lack of decent housing options sends an obvious rush through Cassiem.

He mainlines anti-establishment activism and is a hyperactive mixture of Che Guevara's revolutionary tendencies and Bugs Bunny's mischievousness; an ever-present cigarette replacing the cigar and carrot.

Cassiem's is a large grin, toothless on one side of his mouth: a restructuring courtesy, he says, of the police sticking in the boot on October 18 2000, when Cassiem, with community members of Tafelsig in Mitchell's Plain, united to stop a neighbour, Charles Lategaan, from being evicted from the house he rented from the government.

The formation of the AEC


They were met with police brutality. Six people were arrested that day and -- at a time when government's 1996 economic policy shift towards Gear (growth, employment and redistribution) was increasingly causing the poor to fall behind in their electricity, water and rental payments -- 17 families in the area were evicted.

But it was an act of community resistance that would lead to the formation, a month later, of the AEC, a radical, anarchic, self-confessedly "crazy" umbrella body for 10 community organisations in areas such as Gugulethu, Hanover Park and Mitchell's Plain.

The AEC fights against evictions, water cut-offs, poor health services and for better housing and free electricity for the poor. As Cassiem describes it, the AEC is about contradictions and "living politics" where the interests of affected communities -- rather than those of academics, NGOs and funders, as is sometimes the case with leftie social movements -- are paramount.

"The AEC is an idea. Ever changing. It is an organisation that is not an organisation. Something that listens to nobody, but listens to everybody," says Cassiem.

So, is the AEC the face of a brave new world being determined by the poor? Cassiem laughs. There is nothing new or brave about being poor or struggling for something better, he says: "It is what people do and have been doing for hundreds of years just to stay alive.

"Middle-class people may feel insecure now because of what is happening [economically around the world] but we have always been living with insecurity," he says.

According to Cassiem, the strategies and tactics the AEC uses are not especially of this time, but honed over a longer trajectory that goes back to community activism against apartheid.

With coffin-bearing marches on government officials, land occupations and events such as the Poor People's World Cup that was held in protest during Fifa's tournament, there are also actions more vital to the everyday.

Stealing basic rights


The AEC reconnects water and electricity for those who have been cut off because of arrears. It holds workshops to teach families how to spread the methods to access what is considered a basic right. It is, admittedly, becoming harder with the introduction of pre-paid electricity meters, but Cassiem says there is a way around those too -- it's more dangerous and includes having to scale electricity poles, but there is always a way around these things.

There is also very physical resistance. I am sitting in the four-roomed government home in Mitchell's Plain of Siyaam Cassiem, Ashraf's mother, with whom the 43-year-old activist lives, with his sister, Faranaaz, and her adult son.

Cassiem is shooting the breeze with Izaan Fredericks, a bra (brother) from the community who would prefer I didn't use his real name. Fredericks is trying to kill time and keep his mind off the craving to smoke tik (methamphetamine) -- from which, he says, he's been clean for almost two weeks.

In walks Boeta Whitey, a retired caretaker, coming from a local primary school -- where he used to work -- bitching because he was unable to get a grandchild's report card because the school fees had not been paid. From Boeta Whitey's vivid Afrikaans description of his conversation with the school secretary, it sounds as though Franz Kafka might be sweating in his grave.

The conversation shifts to Boeta Whitey and his unpaid bills. Fredericks remembers warding off the municipal workers who had come to cut off Boeta Whitey's water supply: "Sometimes you choose a knife and your most evil look, get a couple of the bigger guys around and just stand in front of the door and don't let them in," he says. Boeta Whitey laughs.

More seriously, Cassiem talks passionately about how community activism has facilitated social ­cohesion, roping in gangsters as sentinels to keep a lookout for the police when illegal connections were happening and keeping bored unemployed youths active, away from drugs and giving them some purpose -- and hope.

"There were times when we would just all get together and sleep in and in front of the house to stop them from being evicted," he says.

I join Cassiem on an errand while Fredericks mumbles something about visiting a nearby neighbour and wanders off with a promise to meet later. Later never arrives, Fredericks having never arrived at the neighbour's house.

A state of turmoil
There is a listlessness to both Cassiem and how the movement is defining and articulating itself on the ground during the time I spent with him in Cape Town.

The movement appears to be in a state of turmoil: a press release had just gone out announcing a new executive leadership and accusing Cassiem of corruption.

Cassiem denies the accusations, saying this is part of an attempt by various academics and funders to "hijack the movement".

"People want to control the AEC, but they don't understand that it is uncontrollable … This hijacking feels kak, because I know these people and have struggled with them. It feels like a knife in the back, but you're not dying," says Cassiem.

While this sideshow unfolds, Cassiem says it's "distracting from fighting the struggle; instead we're fighting among ourselves".

The AEC has also been using the law to fight against evictions, and for housing. But Cassiem believes that the "law still exists to protect evictions -- it happens eventually".

He is dismissive of Constitutional Court judgments such as in the Irene Grootboom and Joe Slovo cases -- the latter involving the AEC -- saying the "judgments coming out of the Con Court aim to show that the judges are listening to us, but that's it".

But the AEC does have a guerrilla approach to the law and how it can be manipulated. Its members rock up at local magistrates' courts, check out the court roll for eviction cases and then -- often to the surprise of those facing evictions -- present themselves as legal counsel.

Cassiem says the aim is to "frustrate and prolong evictions and to prevent default judgments because people aren't aware of their rights, not even in courts, or, worse still, [are] bullied by their lawyers into accepting an eviction".

Passing a smoke
Cassiem is reflecting on the role of the law in his mother's sitting room in Mitchell's Plain. He exhales the smoke from his cigarette, leans over and offers her an entjie (a puff).

It is a moment that I have seen shared between mother and son on several occasions, and shared between people in Blikkies, in Mitchell's Plain, in Bel Har and in Hout Bay hundreds of times. Loose cigarettes are cheaper when passed around.

That night the crescent moon hovers over Hout Bay's Hangberg informal settlement. The shacks, perched high on the hill, shudder to some big-beat dub music.

A mere two months previously, in September, the community had been in violent conflict with the municipality after the City of Cape Town tore down shacks built along a fire break and attempted to evict residents. Petrol bombs and rubber bullets were exchanged with abandon. Arrests and injuries mounted and, before calm returned, it appeared as though Gaza had been brought to Hout Bay, say residents.

Yet, on a December Thursday night, through a side door that misleadingly appeared to be the entrance to a shack, more than 300 people were crammed into a large dancehall called the Red Lion.

Rastas were flaying the air with their dreadlocks, marijuana was being cleaned in vast quantities on tabloid newspapers and bottleneck pipes were being stuffed and blazed on the dance floor.

Almost every informal settlement in Cape Town has its own "Dub Session", apparently, but Hangberg's is especially cherished because of the expansive views from the informal settlement's club over Hout Bay harbour. And the hard-as-nails beats.

Was this the brave new world?

I am reminded that there is nothing heroic, or new, about people getting on with their lives by what appears a Sonic the Hedgehog-lookalike rasta in that I-and-I Afrikaans patois laced with English so favoured in Cape Town: "I-man, just do what I-man just do," he says.

Source: Mail & Guardian Online

Teen tells of horror fire

A teenager has described how she woke up to the sound of screaming yesterday morning as a blaze ripped through a room next to hers in Mitchell's Plain, killing three younger relatives.

Bishara Ali, 16, was asleep in the front room of the Somali family’s three-bedroomed house when the fire started just before 8am.

Thirteen people - all family members - were sleeping in the house in Eastridge at the time. Safaa, 11, Abduragmaan, nine, and Hassan, five, were killed.

“My sister Anab was shouting something about turning the electricity off, and there was a mattress on fire on the floor of the sitting room,” Ali said. “I followed two of my nephews outside to call for help, and saw smoke, thick and dark, coming from the window of the middle room.”

Five children and an adult cousin, Iqra Ali, 20, were asleep in the room, which had two bunk beds.

According to Bishara Ali, the fire began in one of two mattresses on a top bunk.

“Iqra was sleeping there, and woke up when she smelt smoke.

“She carried the burning mattress into the sitting room without realising the second mattress had also caught fire.”

While family members tried to extinguish the mattress in the lounge, the fire spread through the bedroom.

Bishara Ali called their father, Mohammed, at 8.07am from her cellphone. He was opening his tuck shop across the road.

“I’m asthmatic, I couldn’t get anywhere near that smoke. I said to him: ‘I don’t know who’s alive and who’s dead, but something is wrong in that room, please come.’”

Neighbours, alerted by the screams, came running with rocks and buckets of water.

Norman Bailey, 51, a tradesman, used a slab of concrete to break burglar bars that had trapped the children inside. He pulled two children, Maryam Ali, 12, and Shurkri Al, 18, through the window, but could not save the other three.

When the fire had been extinguished, Bishara had returned to the room.

“I could see that Abduragmaan and Safaa were hugging, but they looked like ash. Hassan had crawled under the bed. The children’s father couldn’t handle it, he just ran.”

Anab, the mother of the dead children, is four months pregnant. Her other two children - Fatima and Hussain - were in another room and escaped the blaze, but were treated for smoke inhalation at Mitchell's Plain Day Hospital.

Cape Town Fire Services spokesperson Theo Layne said officials were still investigating the cause of the fire, but suspected the children had been playing with matches.

Neighbour Maria Duncan, 52, was “very proud” of the way the community came together to help the family and said they put the fire out “long” before firemen arrived.

- Cape Times