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WE’D APPRECIATE CHICKEN FEET FOR CHRISTMAS - VICTIMS

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SIPHOFANENI – While some families are shopping for Christmas holidays, a family of 15 will have chicken feet for lunch, while another only has E56 which they do not know how they will spend.

This is the reality on the ground for storm victims who do not only have to endure the harsh weather conditions, as they have no shelter, but use tents to house them, following the storm that damaged their houses a couple of weeks back. Most affected were residents of Siphofaneni whose houses were destroyed by the recently experienced storm. Siphofaneni is among the areas that have very dangerous snakes by virtue of being in the Lowveld (lihlandze). The families, whose homes were ravaged by the storm, shared their plight of having to escape from dangerous snakes which invade their sleeping tents, to having nothing to eat.

They said there was nothing merry about this Christmas to them. Thobile Dlamini, a single mother who lives with her six children and seven grandchildren, said they recently escaped from being bitten by a snake last week which, due to the scorching heat, hid inside their tent. She said they had no choice but to run out and vacate the tent in fear of being bitten by the reptile. Dlamini said her wish was to have a proper house where she and her children could live but did not have the manpower and financial capacity to achieve all that. When questioned on what her preferred meal for Christmas lunch would be, she said she would appreciate even chicken feet and porridge as the situation was dire.

“This is because I do not have anything else and maybe what I could afford is the chicken feet,” Dlamini said. She said they were ravaged by poverty as survival means were very slim in their area, which was dry and dominated by sugar cane growing following the taking over of SWADE. Dlamini said they usually sought employment in the fields and were paid for the number of days they had worked. Dlamini said they were currently weeding the fields and she had only worked three days and would earn around E150 as in two weeks, they were paid E300. According to Dlamini, what made life very hard was the fact that they could not even plant any crops due to the dryness of the area. “We have to buy everything, including mealie-meal,” she lamented. She said her children normally ate singwangwa, which is porridge mixed with water and a pinch of salt.

 

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