Plight Of A Homeless Woman Who Has Given Up Hope
Pini Bothoko | Monday February 11, 2019 14:34
During the visit to the squatting mother of six, four females and two males, The Monitor team found Ngorima who has effectively given up finding stable accommodation because acquiring a residential plot is as inaccessible as doing laundry.
Ngorima and her children who have survived a number of evictions live in a yard made up of a number of shacks without a gate.
We did not have to struggle to enter to greet the family as she was under a tree doing laundry while her children were busy with other chores.
In an interview with The Monitor, Ngorima who has been squatting here since 1992 with her late husband, said she has been living a miserable life on an un-serviced land and has given up hope of ever finding stable accommodation. She said for years, even before the passing of her husband, she has been following Kweneng Land Board in a hope to be allocated a residential plot to no avail.
The unemployed mother who is also a street vendor said what frustrates her most is that some of the people who came to reside in the same location with them years after have been allocated plots and live a better life.
She said even though they have lived in the area for years, they are puzzled that even after a Presidential amnesty the Land Board officials keep on disappointing them. “It’s been decades since we have been waiting to get assistance from Kweneng Land Board to no avail. We have long applied for residential plots after the former president, Ian Khama pardoned us but to date we are hopeful that one day we will be allocated residential plots. We are now used to being called squatters especially that even a visitor in Tsolamosese is easy to spot us because unlike other people we live in shacks,” she said.The Zezuru tribe woman from Shashe location in Tonota said what hurts the most is that new applicants have been given plots while they suffer in silence.
“I have been residing here since 1992, all of my children were born here and this is their only home. We have nowhere to go, hence putting all of my hope on government to assist and allocate me a plot,” she said.
Ngorima said they have been warned not to build permanent structures hence struggling in shacks. “There is no water supply here. I cannot wait to be allocated a plot because my children are struggling walking long distance to fetch water. You can imagine pushing a wheelbarrow in this era especially in Mogoditshane, which is almost part of the city of Gaborone. It’s a disgrace to my children,” Ngorima said. She said living in a shack is traumatic because in summer it gets very hot and very cold in winter, because they are made up of iron sheets. She said when it rains it becomes worse because water runs through the door to the back of the shack. “In heavy rains we literally sleep in water. During the time of tropical cyclone Dineo, our shacks was wiped away by floods. I am living a miserable life,” said Ngorima with agony written all over her face.
She said she is wondering if by the time the Land Board decides to allocate her, she will have the energy to work and raise money for a house of her dreams.
However once addressing a kgotla meeting at Mogoditshane kgotla, Mogoditshane Sub-Land Board Secretary, Anthony Bashingi said they were aware of squatters who were pardoned by the former president in 2008 at Tsolamosese who are yet to be legally allocated their plots.
He admitted that the process of plot allocation was being delayed by, amongst others, issues of squatting hence it will take longer before plots could be allocated.