I was in Cape Town for a couple of days this week. Seeing a few of you. If you drive anywhere in and around the Western Cape Peninsula, one cannot help seeing, at close quarters, what we call ‘squatter’ housing. Khayelitsha, Mitchell’s plain. Others. I drove for a number of kilometres right alongside these folk’s homes. In some places there is no space left for a single shack to fit in between the others….. for hundreds of meters in any direction. That’s how densely they are laid out. That’s the desperation of people to live somehow, somewhere. There is hardly space to walk between the shacks. Where is their water. Where are their toilets.
I think we need to redefine wealth. It’s a relative thing. I am going to say that you are extremely wealthy, if, you have a flushing toilet, indoors. If you have a separate room for this toilet, which includes a bath or shower and a basin. If you have hot and cold running water, indoors. If you have a place to prepare and eat food, with a fridge to preserve this food, and safe electricity to cook it. If you have a small garden for your dog and / or child to play in. If you are able to lock a door at night to keep your child safe.
There is a powerful Oscar acceptance speech given by Angelina Jolie a while back:
“I have never understood, why some people are lucky enough, to be born with the chance that I had, to have this path in life, and why across the world, there’s a woman just like me, with the same abilities and the same desires, same work ethic and love for her family, who would most likely make better films and better speeches….. only she sits in a refugee camp, and she has no voice. She worries about what her children will eat, how to keep them safe, and if they’ll ever be allowed to return home. I don’t know why this is my life and that’s hers…..”