Poverty and Me

When I was in primary school, I considered my grandparents poor. They didn’t have cars. They didn’t have indoor plumbing, a video machine, a big yard. Rich people, to the child me, were people who drove big cars and lived in huge houses and their children had a mountain of toys. When I was twelve one of my mother’s relatives who lived in Orange Farm passed away. I had never been to Orange Farm before this, and if I thought I knew poor, poor got a new face on that day.

Orange Farm is a shanty town of corrugated iron and haphazardly created streets. It’s an informal settlement that the government was forced to make formal because of the large number of people who started calling it home in the early 1990s.  It’s a town that when it rains, the red sand turns to clay that even 4X4s struggle to navigate through.

I had never been inside a shack. It was hot, stuffy, dark. There was no fridge nor was there a stove, except a gas plate. Both my grandmothers had always had fridges and electric stoves in their homes. I had never been in a home without fridge. There were only three plastic chairs and the only table in the “house” was an old door on a steel frame. For the first time in my life I was faced with desperate poverty and it was in my family. This little shack could fit into my bedroom. I suppose I remember so much about that shack because it was a moment where I understood for the first time what real poverty looked like.

You see, a lot of people in South Africa are poor. But they are not equally poor. Poverty in South Africa is often separated by geographical areas. If you live in Soweto, you might face this level of desperate poverty, but chances are that you won’t unlike if you live half an hour away, in Orange Farm.

Yes, my grandparents were poor. But they had decent furniture, electricity, running water, basic appliances, a roof over their heads. Sure, they would have to use taxis and government hospitals, and they had little in savings but they could afford to have a meal at least once a day.

And then there is the other poverty. The poverty where scrapping a meal together a week is a mission. Where one member of the family who has a minimum wage job is supporting eight other people and not all children. Families where eating thrice in a week is sheer luxury and a fridge is a far off dream. Families where vegetarianism and organic eating don’t register as choices because just getting any food in any form is a blessing.

And I think, do I have an obligation to these poor people? Yes I do because it is expected of me. It is expected of all of us who live in excess. We have more shoes than we need. More clothes than we need. We go out every other day of the week and waste more money than we save.

Helping out that one child with school uniform is going a long way to easing financial pressure on these families. Donating a 25kg bag of maize meal a month to ensure a family is fed is going a long way. Giving away that you no longer need so that someone can have a decent outfit to wear when they go job hunting is doing your bit to easing the desperation in one family.