Grandma gets a new home
Margaret is overjoyed after receiving her very first house.
Margaret Kunene sings softly outside her new home, “I feel like like dancing,” she tells the News.
She was one of the people who were moved from the Tudor Shaft informal settlement on Tuesday, 13 September to the new houses at Extension 13 in Kagiso.
“They moved us here from Tudor Shaft. It was hard living there and now I finally have a home of my own. Sometimes I wake up at night and pinch myself because I still don’t believe that this is true,” she said.
The 54-year-old previously lived in a Kagiso hostel, but had to move to Tudor Shaft, which was established as a transit camp for communities affected by evictions when various West Rand mining companies folded.
As previously reported, Extension 13 was occupied illegally by community members who spread rumors that land was up for grabs. The police tried to calm the situation and evict the illegal occupiers but they resisted and the incident turned in to a full-blown protest. The Red Ants were eventually called to forcefully remove people who did not want to leave, and during the riot the area was badly damaged. In excess of 110 newly built houses were damaged, five houses were petrol-bombed and windows, doors and kitchen sinks were either broken or stolen. The Mogale City Municipality opened a case of malicious damage to property and one suspect was arrested.
Affectionately called Gogo (which means grandmother), Margaret says she is glad that her new home was not affected.
“They gave me my ‘happy letter’; it’s a title deed but they call it a happy letter because it makes you happy. When I received it I couldn’t even talk, I cried because I couldn’t believe that I would also have a house made out of bricks, with a roof and a geyser and I am so grateful,” said Gogo.
A neighbour who did not want to be named said that everyone in the neighbourhood knows Gogo as the grandmother who is always with her grandchildren and who is happier than all of them for receiving a house.
“It is a brand new start for my grandchildren, they now have a home to call their own. It gives them dignity and safety because Tudor Shaft was not a good place to raise them,” she told the News.
Tudor Shaft residents had previously protested, asking for housing because the area was on radioactive ground which was harmful to their health.
Gogo has huge plans for her new home.
“The house is not big enough for me and my grandchildren but it is filled with love and I pray that one day I will be able to make it bigger so that each one of them has a bedroom,” she told the News.
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