![]() Without a regular income, they could no longer afford the rent and slipped into poverty. The family was hit by the global economic crisis. Sometimes Ester thinks wistfully back to her old life when they lived in a house built of brick and could afford to buy clothes and diapers.But suddenly everything changed. With only a T-shirt and wearing no pants or diapers, Conrad plays with half a brick in front of the tin shack. Mirinda has a hut for herself while her sister Ester shares a 13 square meter shack with her husband and their three sons. Global economic crisis hits some white South Africans hard If they don't want to associate with me anymore because of where I live, I don't care.” “I tell my friends straight out that I live in Blikkiesdorp Block R number 30. The township was originally built to provide temporary housing Image: Kerstin PoppendieckĪlthough Mirinda now lives in the slums and has a different skin color to most of her neigbors, she seems unperturbed. The authorities had been planning to construct brick houses. This particular township was created seven years ago and consists of thousands of shacks that were meant to serve temporary shelters. Walking through their new surroundings, the two sisters never stop thinking of the life they have left behind. īlikkiesdorp a township in the vicinity of the Cape Town airport has been home to Mirinda and her sister Ester De Vries for nearly a year. They were the underdeveloped urban living areas, reserved for black Africans and people of mixed racial ancestry. During the apartheid era, the townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities.
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