CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 3
3.4 The Vulindlela region
3.4.3 Social infrastructure
Social infrastructure is crucial to the political economy of any community. It is the lack of infrastructure within the Vulindlela district that very quickly becomes apparent when one begins to work there. The Vulindlela Structure Plan (Rosenberg 1989) was one attempt by a group of consultants to make recommendations concerning development planning in the area.
The Greater Pietermaritzburg Reconstruction Project (GPRP 1995) was a more recent attempt at the same task. A major constraint for development planners when formalising development plans such as those of the Vulindlela Structure Plan and the GPRP has been the recognition that the ultimate authority on “development needs” and the criteria used to ascertain these needs lies with the Tribal Authorities.
As the control and allocation of land in the area is under the Chiefs and Tribal Authority, any formal means of residential upgrading and provision of
services is subject to their approval. This involves their perceptions of priorities for development of their respective wards as a whole, and of their subjects as a unified group (Rosenberg 1989:30).
Women are not part of official decision making bodies, and therefore make no contribution to development needs and priorities. They are rendered silent. But perhaps more significant is the frustration at the lack of or the incompetent delivery of services. The first signs that I observed of money being spent on infrastructure since 1994 was in Sweetwaters where a small community hall has been built, but that remains locked except for meetings called by the local traditional council, and incomplete pavements that were put on either side of a very small section of the tarred road. When I ask community members why this project was never completed, the reply is almost unanimous, “we don’t know, perhaps they ran out of money”.
When probing further, it becomes clear that neither of these projects were seen as a priority of by the women in the community. Since then, money has been spent on upgrading soccer fields
and building sport stadiums. While this is an important priority given the complete absence of recreational facilities for young people, it has to be noted that it is needs of male youth that have been considered. This is not surprising given the gendered nature of the decision
making bodies.
Through my work in Vulindlela, I have come to appreciate afresh the enormous significance of a road system for the development of a community. Roads are the major source of access to resources of the urban complex, and I have often wondered why the meagre financial resources are not being channelled in this direction. In the first years of my work in Nxamalala as I struggled to climb up the hill using an almost insurmountable road with my ordinary vehicle (which at times was literally pushed up or down or out of thick mud during the rainy season) to St Gabriel’s Church, I realised that the Nxamalala community was literally cut off from essential services. Taxis and buses, mobile clinics, welfare services, shop owners never attempt to reach people because it was just too difficult. The western parts Vulindlela, such as Nxamalala, are particularly isolated and “forgotten” partly because of their inaccessibility. This is a direct result of a very poor road system within the hilly
terrain. With one tar road connecting the area to the city, it is at times almost impossible to transverse the small sandy roads up the hills to the homesteads. Most rely on their feet! The Vulindlela Structure Plan report noted in 1989 “that it was imperative that everything
possible should be done to improve and maintain the main roads to reduce travel costs and travel time and to increase travelling safety” (Rosenberg 1989:141). This report
recommended that
“the transportation network within the area be prioritized and be subjected to a process of road rehabilitation and maintenance. It is recommended that priority be given to the adequate maintenance of the two main east/west
transportation axes and the main access roads and bus routes from the two axes to the residential communities. It is strongly recommended that all these main access roads and bus routes should be upgraded to black tarred
surfaces as soon as possible”
(Rosenberg 1989:175).
Ten years later, these bus routes remain untarred. During 1998, some attempts were made by the local traditional authorities to widen and grade these routes. One year later, because the roads was not properly surfaced after being graded, they had deteriorated to the point where the whole process had to be redone. Needless to say, they remain untarred! The lack of adequate roads remains a barrier to economic survival, forcing women to use the local tuckshops which charge exorbitant rates. Access to the city where goods are not only
cheaper, but health services more efficient, and employment opportunities in both the formal and informal sectors more readily available, is severely hindered. Poverty becomes
expensive, particularly for women.
Poverty is expensive even without incompetent officials. No only do poor women of this area have to pay large amounts of money for transport to and from Pietermaritzburg, they also bear the cost of time and effort in obtaining water and firewood for daily use in the household. It is in tasks such as these that the gendered face of poverty begins to rear its head. Women and young girls bear this cost.
One of the clearest images of the nature of poverty [in South Africa] is the sight of a group of elderly women, each carrying home on her head a load of firewood weighing up to 50 kg, passing underneath the high tension-cables that carry the energy between the towns (and farmsteads) of the Republic. South Africa produces 60 per cent of the electricity in the entire continent yet almost two-thirds of the total population (and approximately 80 per cent of all
Africans) within the country do not have access to that energy for their household requirements (Wilson and Ramphele 1989:44).
This image certainly holds true for Vulindlela. The community has access to the KwaZulu- Natal State forest which borders both Sweetwaters and Nxamalala where free or low-cost firewood is available. Women and young girls carrying loads of firewood on their head is a common sight. Electrification is slowly taking place through various schemes initiated by the parastatal Eskom since the early 1990s, with the pre-payment meter system being the most prevalent. Consistent with my analysis that linkage with the urban complex facilitates
development, many more homes in Sweetwaters are electrified than homes in wards further to the west. Signs of electrification only began to be visible in Nxamalala in 1998. However, it appears that the percentage of households that are able to afford electricity (including the installation costs ) remains very small. Most women continue to invest enormous amounts of time and energy in providing fuel for the household, thus also continuing the cycle of poverty because tasks such as these leave no time for economic activities.7
7 Environmentalist Raymond Auerbach (1993), in his research on maize farming systems in KwaZulu- Natal, makes a similar claim asserting that the major practical problem in producing more maize through small-scale farming is the time it takes for women to go about their basic tasks of survival.
Natural springs provide water which is plentiful in the area. However, in rural and peri-urban areas, as with collecting firewood, keeping the household supplied with water fetched from the streams is a labourious and time consuming task for women. Availability and
accessibility are not the only concerns. More importantly from a health perspective is the need for clean water, a concern which was ranked as the top development priority goal by rural women in KwaZulu-Natal (Møller 1996:28). A spring protection programme has been operating in the area for a number of years (Rosenberg 1989:175). In recent years, the parastatal Umgeni Water Board has slowly started introducing water reticulation systems, Sweetwaters being one of the first areas to benefit. Personally, I have witnessed the
Vulindlela Pipeline scheme slowly being introduced over the past two years which is funded by the Reconstruction and Development Programme8 (GPRP 1995:110). Nxamalala residents have been supplied with water points during August 1999. It is their responsibility to bear the cost of piping to get the water from the boundary of their properties and into their homes.
“The Vulindlela scheme is intended to supply approximately 300 000 people with water by the year 2010. This area will be supplied by a new reservoir that will be situated near Mount Michael...” (GPRP 1995:105). But until women find the economic resources to buy sufficient piping to supply waters to their homes, they continue to collect water from the local streams.
The following comments made in September 1998 by Nxamalala women during a Bible study group, prompted by an Eskom van passing the church where the meeting was being held, illustrates how they feel about the above infrastructural issues in their community:
8 The Reconstruction and Development Programme was introduced by the African National Congress in 1994 as a “coherent socio-economic policy framework” with the final goal of the eradication of apartheid and the building up of a democratic society (ANC 1994). An evaluation of its success in the reconstruction and development of disadvantaged communities is beyond the scope of this study.
...ngoba uEskom usuke enze ukuthanda kwakhe nje ngoba uma ufelwe wugesi uthi uyamfonele akezi ukuzokulungisela manje. Nanokuba nginenkinga kagesi mina yayincane kabi nje inkinga yami kodwa waphuza. Manje eyi naye ngokwakhe nje usigcinezele noma kunjalo ngoba...Hayi yonke indawo nakoEdendale babekhompleina. Thina bantu nje akasisebenzeli kahle hayi...
Ngicabanga kanjalo uthi uMlungu angahlala izinyanga ezimbili noma
ezintathu engenawo ugesi uma kuthiwa ugesi awukho angahlala nje engenawo, ngeke?... Nomgwaqo nanku bawenza abafuni ukuwuqedela uma lina izulu asive sihlupheka wudaka... kwafakwa amaphayiphi nje amanzi awafiki amanzi.
Uma sekuna izulu nje wonke lodoti walaphaya uyongena esiphethwini...
Kuthutheleka wonke lowayadoti uzongena laphaya emanzini kuyanuka nje kuyanuka. ... kuthiwa amatoilet awakhiwe aqondane nomfula omkhulu, itoilet lingathi libheke esiphethwini ngoba uma uthi ugcwala lapha kulona
kuyaphuma kushona le esiphethwini... Siwakhokhele futhi amanzi manje kade abhamba o R100, oR200,00 kade babathatha awekho amanzi...
Eskom does what they want because when your electricity is faulty and when you phone them they don't come to fix it. I had a small problem with my electricity but it took them time to come. Now they are also oppressing us...No, everywhere they are complaining even in Edendale. We as blacks they don''t work well with us...I think a mlungu [white person] can’t stay for two months without electricity. If the electricity is not available, do you think she can just stay without it?... They have constructed the road but they didn't finish it, and when it is raining we suffer... They have put the pipes under it but the water doesn't come. When the rain is coming all the dirt comes down to the spring...All the dirt goes down to the water, it is smelling.... They say that the toilets are to be built near the big river, they shouldn’t be near the spring because when it is full, this thing will go to the spring...We have paid for water, we paid about R100, R200. They took that money but there is no water....
In recent months as the pipes have been laid for the water points there has been a growing excitement that at last there are visible signs of infrastructure being put into place. However, the suspicious cynicism detected in the comments above, is always present in conversations with women about these signs of development in their community. Experience has taught them that social services come at a price which in monetary terms they can seldom afford.
Next to clean water, the second development priority goal identified by rural women in KwaZulu-Natal was the need for education and training with better and more available
education for their children high on their agenda (Murphy1995; Møller 1996). This resonates with discussions we had with women in Nxamalala where the high cost of school fees and attempts to educate their children “in town” were often voiced. Schools are few and far between with little resources, are overcrowded, and staffed by ill-equipped teachers. Truancy is a major problem and schoolchildren wander the streets throughout the day. On Fridays, schools effectively shut down with a minimal amount of teaching taking place. While
shocking, it is not surprising that “[i]n the Vulindlela area only 8% of the population over the age of 19 have attended high school” (GPRP 1995:133). Needless to say, illiteracy levels are staggeringly high. Based on a consensus of opinion that a level of education lower than Std 4 constitutes functional illiteracy, it is estimated that some 50% of the population of this area would fall into this category (GPRP 1995:134). Low levels of literacy and poor schooling have direct bearing on future employment opportunities. Women struggling to survive see a good education for their children as a way out of the cycle of poverty. Unemployment, however, continues to be a major source of concern. In 1984, the unemployment level was recorded at 24,5% and had risen to 26,4% by 1986 (Rosenberg 1989:76). In 1995 the GPRP report indicated that only 35% of the total 18-64 age group was employed. The social and economic implications of these statistics are enormous for the women that I work with.
Income generated by men living in Vulindlela is usually from within the manufacturing sector (Rosenberg 1989). Women who are employed mostly work in domestic service, one of the most exploited sectors of society (see Barrett et al 1985; Cock 1980; Preston-Whyte 1991).
Studies (Baden et al 1999; Wilson and Ramphele 1989) have shown that for the poor, because of high unemployment, pensions and disability grants are a major source of income for
families. Old age pensions provide a regular income which is often used to feed the entire extended family with some studies (Baden et al 1999:24) suggesting that these pensions contribute 23% of the total income of poor households. Women that I worked with, many of whom were pensioners, were providing for large extended families from their meagre
pensions as they engaged the struggle for the survival of their grandchildren.
There is no doubt that in rural and semi-rural areas, it is women who are left to cope with the
brunt of poverty. In a Particpatory Rural Appraisal (PRA)9 study (Murphy 1995), women were asked, “If you were talking to the people in government, what is the one most important thing you would say to get them to help you?” Five of the six responses were related to creating places of employment for themselves or their children. When asked, “What are the most important things that keep you struggling [to survive]?” The common responses were a difficulty in getting food, a lack of waged work and therefore money, a dissatisfaction with their housing and a lack of means to do anything about it, no help from husbands or others, and lack of funds to provide education for their children (Murphy 1995:12). While these responses do not state anything but the obvious, what is important to note is the fact that it is women who seem to be carrying the responsibility of tasks traditionally seen as those of the male breadwinner. Explicit in their response is the “absence” of a husband or other male relative to assist with the support of the family. Of course there are now many well documented studies that dispel the myth that the role of the head of household remains the preserve of the men in rural communities, where it is estimated that 44% are headed by women (Neft and Levin 1997; see also Peters 1995).
Health, while not identified by women in the above study, is of course also an issue related to poverty. As Wilson and Ramphele (1989:100-120) show, hunger and sickness are directly related. Malnutrition and infant mortality is widespread in South Africa and yet we are one of the few countries in the world that exports food in large quantities (Wilson and Ramphele 1989:100). During a discussion with women from Nxamalala, it became clear that next to unemployment, “sickness” was seen as a major burden they have had to bear (BSG, 25 September 1997, Nxamalala). The health of their children and the high cost of transport to get to hospitals or doctors is a recurring theme in informal discussion. The few clinics in the area do not operate every day and only treat minor ailments. In fact there are only four clinics and one mobile clinic for the entire Vulindlela area indicating a desperate shortage of health care services (GPRP 1995:166).
9 PRA is a participatory research methodology popularised by Robert Chambers (1992) and used mainly in developing rural contexts where the emphasis is on the participants assessing their own development needs. It is popular as an approach among gender and development practitioners (Mayoux 1995; Murphy 1995; Nelson and Wright 1995; Slocum et al 1995; von Kotze 1996)