The Mahlangu's family

Description

Today we visited a place called Sikhululiwe, between Belfast and
Arnot in Mpumalanga Province. The people here were moved by a
coal mining company called Mafube Colliery. While they were giv-
en a house and were given money as compensation, their lives are
worse off then when they were living on the farm.
We spoke to Mrs Thembani Maria Mahlangu, a 70 year old wom-
en. This is her story:
“At first we used to stay at the farm called Springbok Laagte. I use
to work for a white farmer. I spent many decades here since I was
very young. I got married here and I also gave birth to my children.”
“The farmer sold the farm and just left without even notifying us.
Then the mine came to us and said they wanted to move us and we
were given an opportunity to choose an area were we were going to
be moved. We chose our place. But at the end of the day we were
given another place were they build us a house. They took us with
a bus.”
We were relocated by the year 2009 with our graves and we were
paid a compensation. We didn’t have a problem then but these days
we are suffering. Here we don’t have water, we have to go for 3km to
collect water, we do have a tap but it’s useless, no water comes out
of it. We have to pay for electricity but at the farm there was no such.
We have lost our livestock. We have no place to keep our livestock.
We can’t plant because we don’t have a garden.
When they removed our graves the mine bought a coffin, a goat,
flowers, 2 blankets and a small grocery package to do a ceremony.
All went well.
We tried to extend our house but it was difficult cause the munic-
ipality made us pay a fine, they say we are not allowed to extend. So
it is difficult for us because the space is not enough.
We are not working, we depend on pension grants which we have
to use to buy wood thrice a month, but by the time we were staying
at the farm we were happy, but everything is a mess today.
The Mahlangu family has to collect water in buckets 3km away from their