Mother City News November 2020

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WARNING: May contain strong language

25 NOVEMBER TO 15 DECEMBER, 2020

Breaking the echo chamber in the city bowl and beyond.

People live here Woodstock families survived apartheid, but now developers are trying to force them out.

Ons dak nie...Generations of neighbours who have lived in Woodstock’s Bromwell Street all their lives use the street as a communal lounge on a Saturday morning. While Roslyn Smith dances to music from a portable speaker and teenagers play one bounce around her, the threat of eviction hangs over their lives as a company owned by estate agents and investors now own the houses and are trying to evict them so they can build flats in what is an increasingly gentrified area.

Steve Kretzmann

The steel-framed window which has missing panes taped up with transparent plastic is the only source of light filtering into the grimy kitchen in which 80-yearold Brenda Smith sits on a chipboard

bench. Radio-friendly hip-hop plays from one of the three overflowing bedrooms and various members of the extended household come in and out of the kitchen to make tea or get something out of the fridge, which entails lifting the entire door off as the hinges are broken.

A pot of water to be used for bathing one

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of the children is being heated on the two-plate gas stove.

Smith, referred to by everyone as ‘Aunty Brenda’, appears serene as her sons, daughters, their partners, and her grandchildren make use of the kitchen.

Aunty Brenda was born in this house and, although the roof leaks, plaster is

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falling off the walls in chunks, and there is only one cold-water tap and one toilet shared by the house’s 15 inhabitants, she says she’d like to remain in it for the rest of her days.

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25 NOVEMBER TO 15 DECEMBER, 2020

From Page 1 Whether her wish is granted is in the hands of Western Cape High Court Judge Mark Sher, who is currently deliberating judgement on the pending eviction of six families who have been living the a row of attached cottages in Bromwell Street, Woodstock, for generations.

The approximately 40 residents of the five cottages squeezed between gentrified factories and warehouses in lower Woodstock call Bromwell Street home, with tenancy The among the Woodstock individual Hub paid families R3,150,000 for the stretching five properties, with back a an Investec century Bond registered or more.

These for R6,5m coloured families survived the apartheid government’s brutal Group Areas Act, but now the company that bought up the residential row in 2013, The Woodstock Hub, is determined to kick them out. It is believed The Woodstock Hub, which has estate agents such as Samuel Seeff of Seeff Properties, and investors as its directors, plans to demolish the cottages and build high-end apartments.

Asked via email why he chose to buy properties from which generations of tenants would have to be evicted in order to push ahead with plans for development while there were many untenanted industrial buildings in the immediate area, Samuel Seeff neglected to respond.

Charnell Commando, who has lived in number 124 Bromwell Street all 33 years of her life, says she remembers the cottages being owned by Mohammed Syms. Before him, when she was a child they paid rent to “two white guys”. But Syms was shot dead, says Commando, and the cottages were inherited by his sons Reza and Erefaan. It was Reza and Erefaan who sold the row of cottages to The Woodstock Hub in 2013. A deed search reveals The Woodstock Hub paid R3,150,000 for the five properties, with an Investec Bond registered for R6,5m.

Reza and Erefaan had inherited the properties in 2006.

“Before Mohammed died he told my gran then they can stay here ‘till the day they die, they just need to pay the rent, he’d never sell,” says Commando.

Commando’s father, Willen Nel, says the rent was R1,500 a month before the properties were sold to The Woodstock Hub, which was when they stopped paying rent because the Syms stopped collecting it, and they did not know who to pay it to.

The Bromwell Street residents were never told the properties they were living in were sold, says Commando, the first they knew of it was then they received eviction notices in 2016.

She said they were initially under the impression the property had been sold to the owners of The Biscuit Mill, which abuts the row of cottages, which was why after receiving the eviction notices, they staged a peaceful protest at the popular high-end Saturday market there.

Facing homelessness should the eviction order be executed, the Ndifuna Ukwazi Law Centre which is assisting the residents, argues the City has a constitutional obligation to provide temporary emergency accommodation within a reasonable distance of the residents’ places of work and schooling.

The City has argued the constitution does not specify the location of temporary emergency housing, and have offered to accommodate the residents at the Wolwerivier Temporary Relocation Area or the Kampies informal settlement

Under threat… Donovan Smith and his mother Brenda Smith in the kitchen of number 128 Bromwell Street. Brenda, who is 80-years-old and was born in this house, hopes to remain in it for the rest of her days, but a development company has bought it and is trying to evict her and her family. Photo: Steve Kretzmann

Not moving… Willem Nel, who was born in number 124 Bromwell Street 55 years ago, says if the families are evicted from the row of houses that have been bought up by The Woodstock Hub, then they will be “dead people”. Photo: Steve Kretzmann

in Philippi.

About a year later, on 23 March 2017 According to heads of argument with legal assistance from Ndifuna before the High Court, Ukwazi, a successful following the initial recusal application The families eviction order, which against the Acting was granted to the Judge Leslie Weinkove offered to pay rent new owners by Judge was brought after to The Woodstock Hub, President John Hlope Weinkove made and had written a letter to and set for execution disparaging remarks on 31 July 2016, against Commando, them in 2016 making this the Bromwell Street which indicated bias offer, but The Woodstock residents approached on his part, resulting Hub directors had the court to suspend in Weinkove being their eviction and sought never communicated replaced by Judge declaratory relief for Mark Sher. with them. the City to fulfill its In December 2017 obligation to provide the residents filed an accommodation in the vicinity of application for leave to amend the relief Bromwell Street. The City was as a result they sought. This was ultimately granted instructed by the court to engage with on 13 August this year. the residents on the matter.

The relief related to the location of

temporary emergency housing came after the residents refused to move to Wolwerivier as it is remote, far from work opportunities, schools, and other amenities.

Wolweriver is a temporary relocation area consisting of 26.5 square metre corrugated iron houses clustered three kilometres from the N7 in the far north of the city. It is a wind-scoured desolate area surrounded by empty land and was established in 2015 as a Temporary Relocation Area (TRA) for families moved from the Frankdale informal settlement situated next to the Vissershok landfill.

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From Page 2

A world apart… The Neighbourhood Goods Market at the Biscuit Mill was one of the forerunners of the gentrification in Woodstock which has seen families who have lived in the area for generations being evicted by developers who snapped up properties. Right behind the wall at the back of this altered warehouse, six poor and working class families who have lived in Woodstock for generations, face eviction by The Woodstock Hub, a company owned by investors and estate agents such as Samuel Seeff. Photo: Steve Kretzmann

The City then offered the Bromwell Street residents housing in Maitland, but this was vigorously opposed by the existing community and the option abandoned.

They were then offered plots of land in the Kampies informal settlement in Philippi, where they were to be given building material to erect their own shacks. There they would have to draw water from a communal standpipe and use communal toilets. The City promised they would provide electricity once they had erected their shacks.

Commando said the City took them on a site visit to Kampies.

“We went to Philippi with City officials.

They didn’t want us to speak to ‘We people there, I grew don’t know why, up here. and people there It’s part of our were protesting heritage. If we about lack of go out of here services. We we’re weren’t allowed just dead to hear what people.’ people had to say.”

Aunty Brenda’s son, Donovan Smith, said when they did speak to people living in Kampies they advised against moving into the informal settlement.

“People in Philippi said we don’t think you should come here because you’re not going to like it here,” said Donovan.

The question of the City’s constitutional obligation to provide emergency accommodation close to where the Bromwell Street families have been living, was heard in the High Court on 16 November.

The City, represented by Advocate Karrisha Pillay, argued in line with the City’s heads of argument that there was no constitutional obligation related to the location of emergency housing,

Taking charge… Charnell Commando, who is spokesperson for the approximately 40 residents of numbers 120 to 130 Bromwell Street in Woodstock, says they offered to pay rent to the new property owners, The Woodstock Hub, but they were ignored. Photo: Steve Kretzmann

and that emergency housing was by its nature not bound by the standards set down in the Housing Act. According to reporting on the hearings

by James Stent for GroundUp, Advocate Sheldon Magardie, for the residents, “questioned why the City had not planned emergency housing in the inner city when the negative consequences of gentrification were already evident”.

Stent reported Magardie as saying “if it was open to governments or the state to plead inability to comply, then rights would not be worth the paper they’re written on”.

When Judge Sher asked The Woodstock Hub’s Advocate, Ross Randall whether The Woodstock Hub did not have a social obligation to the residents to help them secure decent housing, Randall reportedly replied the

court “could not force Woodstock Hub to ‘fork out further money’, stating the company was losing R24,000 a month as it paid for the residents’ water, electricity, “and other costs”.

However, Commando said the families offered to pay rent to The Woodstock Hub, and had written a letter to them in 2016 making this offer, but The Woodstock Hub directors had never communicated with them.

Judge Sher, according to Stent’s reporting, noted that the City was replicating apartheid policy by “exporting the poorest of the poor to the periphery” of the city.

He has reserved judgement, with his ruling only expected next year.

Asked what they would do if Judge Sher ruled the residents must move to Wolwerivier or Kampies, Willem Nel,

said: “If they don’t give us a place in Woodstock or Salt River, we aren’t going to move out of this place.”

“We grew up here,” said Nel, “It’s part of our heritage. If we go out of here we’re just dead people.”

Meanwhile, life in 120 to 130 Bromwell Street continues. The children attend schools in Salt River and Woodstock, the teenagers play soccer for local clubs, and on Saturdays Aunty Brenda comes to the stoep as the collection of lifelong neighbours and family members use the kerb as a communal lounge, sharing glasses of beer and playing music from a portable speaker while a mere 50m away, seemingly inhabiting another world, wealthier Capetonians drink smoothies and lattes and buy expensive titbits at the Biscuit Mill.

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25 NOVEMBER TO 15 DECEMBER, 2020

Food review

Van Hunks smokes on Kloof Sadé Allcock On the corner of Kloof and Upper Union Street in Gardens lies an institution: Van Hunks – frequented by the old, the young, the social and unsociable, the misfits, oddballs and everyone in-between.

Sure, it may not be the most Instagrammable spot in the inner city but quite frankly its lack of pretension and ‘take it or leave it’ attitude is refreshing amongst all the verdant plants and overpriced pints vying for a spot on the historic Kloof Street.

Best of all, Van Hunks offers something for everyone. You can smoke in silence and enjoy a cold beer on the balcony, play backgammon, watch sport or make friends. Incredibly, the waiters are always friendly and extremely helpful, with a seemingly endless reserve of patience for their often boozed-up clientele.

As a student or young professional on a budget in the Mother City, Van Hunks is an invaluable haunt. They have happy hour every day from 5pm to 7pm and food specials from Sunday to Thursday. A double gin for R20? Count me in.

We recently ventured out on a balmy Wednesday evening to convalesce on the Van Hunks balcony and absorb the sounds of the city in summer. We ordered the snack basket for two as a starter and the steak special as our main. The snack basket contains a mixture of sticky chicken wings, jalapeño poppers, deep-fried calamari rings, samoosas and spring rolls for R100. The steak special

was fillet steak grilled to your preference with mushroom or cheese sauce and chips for R70.

Overall I found the food to be enjoyable.

It is pub food so I didn’t set my expectations very high and I was pleasantly surprised. The snack basket disappeared between the two of us faster than you could say “jalapeño”

and the mains were similarly demolished.

My steak, however, was slightly overcooked, I ordered medium-rare and it was more on the medium side, but for R70 I wasn’t about to kick up a fuss. Amidst all the food, many gin-and-tonics and more than a few tequila specials were knocked back. Who can refuse when two El Jimador gold tequila’s are R28?

All in all Van Hunks comes well recommended

blended together. Light and easy drinking but nevertheless gorgeously flavourful, Groote Post has once again delivered an excellent wine. The price shows it too, coming in as a more expensive wine at R258 at The Darling

Wine Shop.

Last but not least on my list is the Withington Malbec. Malbec is not a very well-known cultivar in South Africa, accounting for less than 0.05% of total

vineyard plantings. This Malbec is a voluptuous and full-bodied wine, perfect for an after dinner cheese platter and a chat with friends. The Withington Malbec can be found at The Darling Wine Shop for R125.

whether you’re looking for a place to have a quiet drink or a jol with friends. Just maybe don’t bring your conservative mother-in-law as she may never recover from the shared bathroom situation.

Wine

A glass full of Darling Sadé Allcock Darling is a small inland town about an hour’s drive up the west coast that holds a very special place in my heart. It is where I spent the majority of my childhood and where most of my family still resides. It is within this little valley that I first began to cultivate my love for wine and to no surprise, it is a town surrounded by wine farms. So, for this month’s column I decided to take a look at some of the outstanding wines from Darling and surrounds.

Starting off with a lighter wine, the Ondine Chardonnay from Ormonde is divine. This Chardonnay is subtle and delicate but rich and full-bodied in flavour and at an average price of R85 a bottle it’s rather a bargain.

As far as Rosé’s in the area go there is always the Darling Cellars Pyjama Bush Rosé.

I have praised this wine so many times that at this point I will simply give it an honourable mention.

A recent favourite addition to the wine rack is the Groote Post Salt of the Earth 2018. It is a 67% Shiraz and 33% Cinsault blend. These two varietals, outstanding on their own, form something truly special when

25 NOVEMBER TO 15 DECEMBER, 2020

Mother City News

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Book review

Coventry: Getting to the bottom of things There seems to be no local version of ‘being sent to Coventry’. There may well be distinct versions of it in other cultures but it is largely accepted as a particularly English saying, and it does typify a particular trait of Englishness. I could as easily say, there may well be no other culture that displays the particular social practice of sending someone to Coventry. At least, not to the extent they have a saying for it.

It speaks, I would hazard, to an unwillingness to engage in direct confrontation, an underlying passive aggression, war by attrition. It emerges from a misplaced sense of manners; one does not wish to cause a scene, but one must still have one’s way.

It is the most passive of aggressions. So passive that, as Rachel Cusk states in her collection of absorbing essays – brimming with pithy observation, wit, and at times delightful iconoclasm – nobody even tells you you’ve been sent to Coventry. It is a slow process, like the receding of a tide, largely unnoticed until the realisation of your social isolation dawns. It is equally difficult to accurately trace the exact cause.

Cusk muses on this very peculiar aspect of social relations in her second essay in this collection, which also provides its title. The first essay is about driving, a subject on which she gives pause for thought as she considers what it signifies to consciously choose not to learn to drive; how the lack of what might be argued an unnatural freedom determines our lives are by necessity more contained, manageable, in a sense, neater, and less

wasteful. This theory also presumes one’s ability to live close to one’s work or, ideally, to live and work in the same place. To suggest to the domestic worker in Khayelitsha who has to negotiate the anarchy of minibus taxis and failing public transport that her lack of an automobile is a positive attribute would be insulting in its arrogance. But Cusk is English, and she’s considering England, not South Africa.

If you can accept that, and in any way appreciate the understatement that defines English wit (in contrast to the American penchant for slapstick), you’re likely to derive great pleasure from the way Cusk thinks, particularly in the six essays that are collected as the first part of the book. Here she also considers rudeness, teenagers (her own), divorce, and home making, in which she offers such diamonds as the following: Noting that in the “moderately grand” houses she grew up in, the best rooms were always the ones least used - the drawing room with its “dustless ornaments”, the spare bedroom where the “white bed sheets were always crisp and clean”, the study with its “unread leather-bound volumes” - she muses that “In their way these rooms were expressive works, attempts to perfect reality and hold it in an eternal moment. They told me something about the person – my mother – who created them. What they seemed to suggest was that she would never be happier than in the home she made for us, at the times when we weren’t there.”

For anyone who has grown up in a family that, if not wealthy enough to realise the perfect room only ever created for the external gaze, at least aspired to it, the insight is devastating. It is also liberating,

and comic in that it makes clear the ridiculousness of the assumption that we structure the spaces we inhabit to please an unknown and unknowable standard that is not ours.

What is particularly attractive is that Cusk does not produce statements such as these as definite. Unlike Alain de Botton, say, whose philosophical musings reach a denouement, Cusk produces them as a sort of by-product of a conversation with herself, to which we as reader are invited to participate. She freely considers other possibilities; that yes, things can also be viewed in a different light.

Besides the glades and views she leads us to, there is also the fascination of seeming to being privy to how her thoughts unfold, how her mind works. Which is a deceit, of course.

What is written is carefully chosen, likely to have been edited, rewritten and re-edited.

The art is in making it appear so natural, for the logical progression leads to unexpected places yet is incredibly pleasing in its tidiness.

The second part of the book departs from considering the personal, and moves to considering work by the artist Louise Bourgeois, Catholicism, ‘women’s writing’ (as opposed to writing), and creative writing courses, all of which provide new, or deeper, insight.

The last section comprises what might better be described as reviews, although reviews which have the depth and form of the essay. How much you enjoy these depends on whether you are familiar with the novels she’s writing about. I’m slightly ashamed to say I have not read any of the seven she covers, except perhaps D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow but if I have read it

So for the record by Anton Harber

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart

Outstanding book which looks at the intersection between the media and state capture, focusing on the Sunday Times investigative unit and how they were manipulated by state security agency as well as the behind the scenes stuff around Gupta leaks. Plenty of tidbits which I didn’t know, really well written, highly recommended.

Wow! This is an extraordinary piece of writing and storytelling from a wild imagination. Piranesi is a child of the House, a collection of many halls, which house an ocean and numerous statues. He keeps detailed notebooks on the House, and his interactions with the Other - his only friend.

But a discovery of other writings lead him to think that he is mad, or missing something.

Full of beautiful imagery, surprising turns, and never quite what you expect - this is a haunting, frightening and gorgeous novel. In case you wondered, I enjoyed it very much.

Unique and highly recommended.

Steve Kretzmann

This is really cool fantasy. The worldbuilding, both in terms of geography and magic-system, is expertly constructed and brings a welcome breath of originality to the genre. Questions of inherited power and the justifying narratives of imperialism are explored with a deft hand while maintaining a clear position on the issues. It is also, quite simply, an engaging story, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next installment. (Bonus points for the very casual this-is-absolutelynot-a-big-deal queer representation)

Short reviews by staff at The Book Lounge, the best indi bookstore in CapeTown

is so far in the past I can no longer remember.

However, I would gladly take the time to read them merely to come back to Cusk and reread what she had to say.

One exception is Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoir Eat, Pray, Love, which spawned the movie by the same name. I haven’t read the book, and having had the misfortune of watching the movie, don’t plan to. In any event, I have Cusk’s wonderfully dry and considered critique, which by its very thoughtfulness, eviscerates the thoughtlessness of Gilbert’s bestseller. If you, too, hated Eat, Pray, Love, perhaps for reasons you didn’t take the time to fully understand, you will also fall in love with Cusk, who, like with all other matters she chooses to write about, takes the time, and gets to the bottom of things.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Really beautiful, moving and deeply humane novel. This is a story about childhood, loss of innocence, memories, and the bittersweetness of clinging to hope. The protagonist and those she loves are doomed from the start, yet they never let the injustice of their circumstances diminish their humanity, striving forever onwards, day after day after day (such a 2020 mood). Ishiguro weaves all of these emotions and more into impeccable prose, turning the horror of his central concept into an inexplicably beautiful exploration of personhood. Oh, and just by the way (spoiler for this 15-year-old book), THE STORY IS LITERALLY ABOUT CLONES!

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Mother City News

25 NOVEMBER TO 15 DECEMBER, 2020

About the Koeberg Public Safety Information Forum

Section 26(4) of the NNR Act states that “The holder of a nuclear installation license must establish a public safety information forum as prescribed in order to inform the persons living in the municipal area in respect of which an emergency plan has been established on nuclear safety and radiation safety matters.”

What is the Public Safety Information Forum (PSIF)?

The PSIF is a meeting which takes place four times a year. It is used as a platform for residents within the municipal boundary of Koeberg Nuclear Power Station to enquire about and receive nuclear safety related information from the facility.

Which topics are discussed?

The forum will address any topic that the members feel could impact their health, environment, and safety from a nuclear emergency preparedness point of view.

Who should attend?

All persons living within the municipal area around Koeberg, all affected and interested organisations or parties, and any other persons concerned about their health and safety from a nuclear and radiation safety point of view are welcome to attend the forum. Persons wishing to attend are requested to register as a member.

How do I register?

Kindly e-mail your details, i.e. full name, contact number, organisation (if applicable) or indicate whether you are a resident, to JoshuaD@eskom.co.za or contact tel. +27 21 550 4238.

When are the PSIF meetings held?

Dates for the meetings are published in the annual Koeberg Emergency Plan Calendar, which residents around the station would have received in January 2020. The remaining PSIF meeting date for this year is: • Thursday, 26 November 2020.

Who to talk to For more information, contact Lewis Phidza, Koeberg Stakeholder Management Manager, at tel. +27 21 550 5758 or send an email to PhidzaNL@eskom.co.za. Alternatively contact Debbie Joshua at tel. +27 21 550 4238 or send an email to JoshuaD@eskom.co.za Should you not have received a Koeberg Emergency Plan Calendar and are a resident in the 16km radius of the station (Urgent Protective Action Zone), please contact the Koeberg Stakeholder Management Department at tel. +27 21 550 4238.

Koeberg PSIF

Public Safety Information Forum

This is a platform for residents within the municipal boundary of Koeberg Nuclear Power Station to receive and ask for nuclear safety related information from the facility.

All residents, interested parties and organisations are cordially invited to attend the Koeberg Public Safety Information Forum (PSIF).

The details for the Forum are as follows: Agenda items • Koeberg Nuclear Power Station quarterly feedback • Amendment to the Coastal Waters Discharge Permit (CWDP) • National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) feedback of Deputy Chair appointment Date : Thursday, 26 November 2020 Venue : Koeberg Conservation Centre Time : 19:00 Should you be attending the PSIF, please note that positive proof of identification will be required in order to access the venue. Please show your valid passport, South African driver’s licence, or South African identity (ID) document/card when requested to do so. Please note that visitors may be subject to compulsory alcohol testing. For more information, kindly contact Debbie Joshua at tel. +27 21 550 4238 or via email at JoshuaD@eskom.co.za or Lewis Phidza, Koeberg Stakeholder Management Manager, at tel. +27 21 550 5758 or via email at PhidzaNL@eskom.co.za.

Due to Covid-19 safety measures, note that the Public Safety Information Forum (PSIF) meeting is only open for the members of the public who sent an RSVP by 13 November 2020.

Koeberg Nuclear Power Station R27 Off West Coast Road Melkbosstrand www.eskom.co.za

Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd Reg No 2002/015527/30

25 NOVEMBER TO 15 DECEMBER, 2020

Mother City News

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City’s Wolwerivier site bursting at the seams

A room of one’s own… Thoko Nkanunu was relocated with her parents from the Frankdale informal settlement to Wolwerivier. However, she now has her own children and has invaded adjacent municipal land in order to have her own home and reclaim her privacy and dignity.

Photo. Peter Luhanga

Growing families occupy vacant land in a bid for privacy and dignity five years after City moved them to a temporary relocation area.

End of the road… These 26.5 square metre units set up in Wolwerivier is where the City wants to relocate families facing eviction from their generational homes in places like Woodstock and Salt River due to gentrification.

Photo: Ashraf Hendricks

Peter Luhanga The lack of adequate housing at the City’s Wolwerivier Temporary Relocation Area (TRA), where there are families living in overcrowded one-room structures, is resulting in residents occupying adjacent municipal land.

The City of Cape Town, as custodian of the land, has responded by deploying the notorious Red Ants tactical stabilisation unit as security guards. Armed with shotguns and handguns, the Red Ants are guarding the municipal land around the clock.

Nonetheless four families have so far managed to erect four shacks on the vacant land.

The City initially established the Wolwerivier TRA to accommodate residents who had been living in the Frankdale informal settlement next to the Vissershok landfill site, and 250 families were relocated to Wolwerivier in 2015.

Since then, Wolwerivier has been a relocation site for residents from the Richwood informal settlement near the Astron Energy Refinery in Milnerton, as well as vulnerable residents from the Morningstar smallholdings, and other sites.

Despite the overcrowding in Wolwerivier, the City has also tried to move six families facing eviction from Bromwell Street in Woodstock to Wolwerivier, after the Woodstock Hub development company bought the row of cottages they’ve been living in for generations. The Bromwell Street residents are currently awaiting the outcome of a court case challenging the lack of suitable alternative accommodation available to them.

Meanwhile in Wolwerivier, the one-room corrugated iron house cannotaccommodate growing families. The beneficiaries of these units have children and even grandchildren, resulting in situations where three

generations are living in one room, with residents claiming the City them extending the units.

Thoko Nkanunu, 22, was born in the Frankdale informal settlement where her parents, like most residents, eked out a living scavenging on the Vissershok landfill site.

Nkanunu, now a mother of three young children, is one of the four residents who managed to erect a shack on the adjacent municipal land.

“So I needed my own home. I can’t stay with my mother and dad and I have three children and it’s overcrowded and I saw it fit to occupy the land. I need my own home. I live here with my three children,” she says.

The four erected shacks, she says, are a beacon of hope for others desperate for housing.

Vuyolwethu Gada says she was a child when her parents were moved from the Frankdale informal settlement to Wolwerivier.

Gada said when they were moved to Wolwerivier, the City said they would receive permanent homes after five years. This, she says, has not happened.

She said service delivery is also insufficient.

“A mobile clinic comes on Wednesday for children only. When we want to seek medical attention we go to the Dunoon Community Health Centre (CHC). A return taxi fare is R52. We have no schools, no shops, everything is far away,” she says.

City mayco member for human settlements, Malusi Booi, said Wolwerivier is “a City development and the City registers and allocates beneficiaries in accordance with its policies and legislation”.

Booi confirmed the land invasion and that a security company was appointed to prevent the unlawful occupation of land.

He said the registration of Wolwerivier beneficiaries was tightly controlled and larger families applied for, and received, two units instead of one.

“The original development with the original beneficiaries was designed with sufficient space to accommodate the families, including the larger families. Many have unlawfully rented out their units and have unlawfully done extensions to the units,” said Booi.

He says the beneficiaries are not allowed to extend their houses without permission from the City, which is the owner, and all extension applications were considered on a case-by-case basis.

“Some people have asked to extend, but then it is for renting out the space and in many instances, it is not even for relatives,” he said.

Meanwhile many former Frankdale informal settlement residents say they would rather go back to the landfill site as even though the living conditions were tough, at least they were able to eke out a living from the landfill.

“There are no job opportunities around this area. We are struggling here.” said Gada.

Breaking the echo chamber in the city bowl and beyond

Ai, Corona! Just when we though we’d ducked through all the whitewater and paddled our bursting lungs to the backline, a set wave darkens the horizon and we have to get our aching arms moving again to avoid being pummeled. Yes, the second wave, just as we were skeeming we could relax and enjoy the krismis.

Still, no need to despair. Although our musicians seem to be catching their breath after a heavy dunking, there’s lots of good theatre on offer. Just mask up, take your vits and sanitise. It’s a new world – for now. Be brave.

Theatre The term ‘veteran’ can be loaded with the suggestion of ‘old’, a term to which actor Megan Furniss may or may not take exception, but certainly, Furniss has racked up a couple of decades of acting experience and won some accolades along the way, so her name as co-creator and performer of Murmurations piques interest. Together with Louise Westerhout, Furniss has created a play that ‘explores unanswerable questions’ at Theatre Arts from 2 – 5 December.

It’s on at 8pm each day at cnr Milton and Wesley Roads, Observatory. Tickets cost R100, book through theatrearts.co.za If you have a beef with The Kiffness, you’ll probably love The Flower Hunters, a series of comedic sketches written and performed by Maggie Gericke and Sophie Joans, who has parodied The Kiffness’s parodies. One of Sophie’s bills is as comedian, and she is also one of the brains behind @Scenes_on_Screens, which was a performing arts response to The Corona.

Maggie has also put in her time under lights, arguably most notably as lead in the hectic Pieter Torien production of Equus, and also, Dirty Words. The Flower Hunters was staged last year, in the pre-Covid epoch, so it’s bound to be polished. See it at Theatre Arts between 10 and 12 December. Tickets cost R100 on theatrearts.co.za

FREE COPY

Of course, if you don’t like Neil Young (I’ve met one or two people who don’t, however difficult it is to comprehend), don’t bother.

Once you’ve listened to that, you can segue into Heather Trost’s new album, Petrichor. In the midst of our increasingly spun-out world which is not even divided by money and politics anymore so much as mask-wearers and bare-facers, Petrichor offers the kind of mood the name of the album promises; the smell of earth being rained on after a desperately long dry spell. Trost isn’t from around these parts, unfortunately. She’s from New Mexico, there by Texas, but who said globalisation was all bad? Look her up on the interwebs. It’s not your standard easy listening, and it’s more about scene than beat. You’ll find her at https://heathertrost.bandcamp.com/ and if it grows on you, you can order her album on vinyl for only R300 excluding shipping, if you’re that way inclined.

Festivals Now that My Octopus Teacher has got everyone so ocean befok, the annual Wavescape Surf and Ocean Festival should see a boost in attendance. Yes, surfing is at the core of this fest and yes, the whole surfing thing is so tired and mainstreamed and yuppified and full of its own narcissistic navel gazing but, BUT, Wavescape is run by Steve Pike who is none of those things.

Spike is just a cool geezer who surfs some chunky waves and goois this fest that screens really great, occasionally testicle-shrinking films about waves and the ocean. The fest also has this surfboard auction where they get artists to use them as canvasses and then sell them off to raise money for environmental organisations such as the Save Our Seas Foundation which, kudos to them, sets out to protect sharks.

So what with Covid, some the of the events, such as the Slide Night, have gone virtual, and now the movies are being screened at the new The Galileo drive-in in Constantia, as well as an outdoor screening in Kirstenbosch. There’s also a night of short films screened at the Jack Black taproom, masterclasses in swell forecasting, a beach clean up, and some skateboard stuff. Too much to mention here, go to wavescapefestival.com and check out the line up of what’s happening between 4 and 13 December.

This time of the year would not be complete without spoof/satire/rip-off/comedic take on the

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Nativity Play, and this time around, Jason Potgieter obliges. His take is called Jason Potgieter is OUT OF HIS TREE: Scenes for the Silly Season at Theatre Arts from 16 to 19 December,

25 NOVEMBER TO 15 DECEMBER, 2020

8pm. Tickets cost R100 via theatrearts.co.za

Make sure to mark this one in your December diary with indelible ink: the powerhouse team of Jennifer Steyn and Andrew Buckland have created the woman who did...n’t about a woman who retreats to a cave beneath her house and...well, just go see it. At the Baxter Theatre Golden Arrow Studio, three nights only, being 17 to 19 December. Tickets from R60 to R100, book via baxter.co.za We’ve all been through lockdown and living in a pandemic, but if you want to laugh at it, see Marc Lottering, who is doing his festive season thing at the Baxter with Lottering on Lockdown. It’s on until 9 Jan, every night at 8pm, except Saturdays when it shows at 5pm.

Tickets cost between R100 and R150, book via baxter.co.za

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Living Coloured (Because Black & White Were Already Taken) was a book of short stories by Yusuf Daniels about growing up on the Cape Flats, which has been adapted to a stage play by Daniel Mpilo Richard, who has the rare ability to make even a Mike van Graan script come to life. Worth checking out at the Baxter Theatre from 8 December at 7.30pm every day. Tickets cost between R125 and R225. Book through baxter.co.za and get there an hour early because Covid protocols and whatnot.

WE’RE EXTENDING OUR HOURS! Chef Barış Öztorun and team creating gourmet conscious food options with amazing flavours and love.

Come and join us every Thursday, Friday and Saturdays until 9.00pm. Good vibes only.

Music Our ex-president, Jacob Zuma, has been providing quite a show lately, what with his shenanigans at the Zondo commission. It was also Neil Young birthday lately – 12 November, to be exact. The link between Neil Young and Jacob Zuma? Well, it could be a question for John Maytham’s Rapid Fire feature, the answer being that Neil Young and Crazy Horse recorded an album titled Zuma some 45 years ago. Anyway, none of our favourite musicians, or even our unfavourites, seem to be doing anything over the coming three weeks. Or we’ve just fallen out of the gigging loop, which is quite possible, but we hear the likes of Dave Ferguson are busking at the Milnerton Flea Market. But what with the apparent dearth of live music – onstage or online – we recommend paying a visit to that ‘ol rekkid. You can find it on Youtube of course.

One of the seminal tracks is Danger Bird, and if you’re in the mood for the kind of crashing rythmic feedback Neil Young is famous for, there’s a 40-minute live megamix available on aquariumdrunkard.com. Weirdly, it’s the perfect fit for what’s happening at the Zondo.

Aquariumdrunkard describes the track as “the sound of massive wings flapping, tectonic plates shifting, mountains forming”.

GROUNDZERO_OBZ @BARISOZTORUNCOOKS Bookings welcome | 420 friendly New menu and lots of specials.

122b Lower Main Rd, Observatory, Cape Town, 7925