It has been a year since the tragic fire in Marshalltown, but for those who lost loved ones, time remains suspended in ashes of grief.
If one drives through Joburg CBD at night, they will be met by decaying buildings, litter-strewn streets and bodies that huddle against urine-soaked walls. As eerie silence hovers above dimly lit sidewalks and the peering eyes beyond it, it feels as if hope itself fears the inner city.
Look above and you will see buildings that tower over your miniscule body. Look closer and you will notice that many of these buildings hold no signs of life. No light peaking from the neatly stacked windows, no glass to fill their hollow frames. All that’s there is darkness, peeling coats of paint and graffiti tattooed across exposed brickwork.
At night, when life runs for safety, these buildings stand like decrepit giants whose corpses stalk the night. But there are lives in these buildings, and swallowed by their darkness, they fade into the brutal oblivion that can be Joburg.
Last year, the Usindiso building burnt down in August, claiming 77 lives and displacing hundreds. This year at the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry, it was found that the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) was liable for this lethal fire. Why? Because they were aware of the dangerous living conditions in Usindiso and (as the owners of the building) failed to address them. In other words, neglect.
But this is not about the ineptitude of local government – that tale has been told a thousand times before. Rather, this is about the consequences of that ineptitude and the scars that cannot be patched by a tin roof shack or plastic tarp.
Survivors were relocated to a settlement named Denver, where neat rows of shiny shacks were erected to accommodate the newly displaced. Besides the myriads of struggles those accommodated there reported – including the absence of a drainage system which led to the settlement flooding in January this year- some survivors received no accommodation at all, left to their own devices after losing all that they own. “We are not the only survivors here in Denver. There are over 400 survivors and only 30 of us in Denver!” claims Sethokwakhe Zungu, a community leader in Denver.
While the exact numbers cannot be confirmed, there is an element of truth in Zungu’s claim. Thirty-two displaced foreign nationals were detained at Lindela Repatriation Centre for not holding valid documentation- despite the possibility that it could have been lost in the fire. But it was not only foreigners that received the short end of the stick.
Recently, a group of survivors held a meeting at a park in Jeppestown to discuss their demands for the second part of the Khampepe Commission. However, the meeting did not materialize as only ten people showed up. Instead, what followed was an intimate discussion about their shared grievances and trauma.
Amongst the gathered crowd was a short man who stood silently with his head lowered as the others vented. His exposed skin caught the eye for the raw blotches of flesh snaking up from his arms towards his neck.
At some point his silence became evident after a woman proclaimed, “if we don’t fight for ourselves, who else will?!” bemoaning the poor attendance of the meeting. Encouraged to speak, he turned to me with a look of dignified sorrow that only the grieving possess. A spark lit in his eye as he realized I am a journalist; a designated ear for the story entangled in his wounds.
He introduced himself as Michael. “You’re a journalist?” he asked, pointing at the camera around my neck. Within an instant of my confirmation, he began detailing his trauma to me.
He told me that he lost his daughter in the fire. More than that, he was unable to see her body once he was discharged from hospital. According to him, this is because her body was misidentified and given to another family. There was no rage in his voice as he said this nor any tears – just a voice filled with calm and eyes wild with bewilderment.
But as he said this, a woman just outside the circle shed a singular tear. She simply stared at the ground and let it roll down her cheek. She too had said nothing the whole time. She too lost her child to the fire. Just like Michael, it seemed as if she had held her pain as a part of her, holding it in her eyes when unable to express it.
But while some turn to silence when carrying the burden of grief, others turn to chaos. At a protest organised by the survivors in April, a middle-aged woman caught my attention for her loud and abrasive manner. She was the loudest of those chanting and hogged the centre of the circle people danced in. She was the life of the protest… and seemingly, very drunk. From flinging her top off in the middle of the street to urinating on busy sidewalks, she slowly grew more unhinged as the protest wore on.
At first, she seemed a mere drunkard. So, when she approached me to talk, I was hesitant. But everyone deserves the right to be heard, and so we walked slightly behind the protestors barreling down Marshalltown. Most of what she told me was incoherent. But amidst her hysteria a moment of reflection arose when I asked her: “How is life in Denver?”.
Tears began cascading down her cheeks as she murmured, “life is too hard; I miss my baby” again and again. After that, she seamlessly returned to her drunken rambling. However, while she stumbled through the streets and shouted belligerently, she also offered me food. “You must eat, others are hungry!” she scolded when I politely declined. Even in the throes of an overwhelming grief, she was still a mother in action and deed.
Just like Michael and the lady of silent tears, her scars have been left to fester from within. The Khampepe Comission recommended counselling for the survivors, but those that I have met are still waiting. “The commission recommended counselling for the victims but did not say whose responsibility that is. Maybe that’s why no one’s received any help yet,” claims General Zungu, a coordinator for the Marshalltown Fire Justice Campaign (MFJC). So, compounded by the everyday fight for survival, their trauma now stalks them from a place beyond politics.
With barely a finger lifted by the city, they bathe in grief in one room shacks; or float through Joburg in search of life – the ones they lost in Usindiso. They scream at protests, but I am not sure whether they are truly heard. As some settle in the darkness of another abandoned building at night, haunted by grief and silenced by trauma, they become one of thousands of lost souls that lurk in the shadows of Joburg, the city of ghosts.
FEATURED IMAGE: Survivors marching to the mayor’s office in April under the moniker of the MFJC. Photo: Kabir Jugram
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