When he was Minister for Housing, the late Joe Slovo estimated that half the black population lacked a secure roof over their heads and that a million and a half houses would have to be built immediately. Nothing like this has happened. The poorest get a grant that barely pays for a jerry-built matchbox without mortar between the bricks. In the countryside, little has changed since democracy, and appears unlikely to change. Wealthy white farmers continue to control more than 80 per cent of the land, and their existing property rights are guaranteed in the new Constitution.
Most rural people have no choice but to walk up to half a mile to get water.
Most have so sanitation, no electricity, no telephone, and no work. The shadows you pass on the road are those of stunted children and their mothers, walking, carrying, enduring. Stanley Mbalala, one of the survivors, remembers a forest, which became firewood during the first winter. They lived in tents and wooden huts with zinc roofs and earthen floors. These people cannot render productive service in an urban area.