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Welverdien

October 28, 2008

Last week a few of us went to the community at Welverdien to lend a hand with the start-up project there. Welverdien is on the border between Mpumalanga and Limpopo province. It’s an incredibly poor area, very remote, where there are a lot of refugees from Mozambique when there was a civil war there. Because of the civil war and the refugee situation, many of the children and even adults don’t have birth certificates and so it is difficult for them to get ID documents, and therefore access to many simple government services. Can you imagine not having ID?

Welverdien streets:

The project at Welverdien consists of one building on a decent sized plot of land.

The Kombi we drove:

Me lending a hand digging a trench for the massive vegetable garden they are planning.

My blistered (weak!) urban professional hands. I now understand the importance of gloves and tools that aren’t broken or breaking (The pick head flew down – that’s right – down not off and wedged my finger between it and the handle). But T.I.A and people make do with what they have. They are incredibly resourceful.

You can also see how dry it is there – and I can tell you it is absurdly dry. There are only a few water sources (boreholes) in the entire Welverdien community which is approximately the size of Eastwood.

It was incredibly hot – so i took a break in the car and some kids jumped up and sat with me. The one with white shirt’s name is Comfort. I was wondering why the kids around kept shouting “Comfort! Comfort” when I was told that it was his name!