Sue Johnson, a Habitat for Humanity staff member in South Africa, will spend the next year exploring sustainable farming and renewable energy sources. She will share her experiences--and her encounters with substandard housing--in the pages of Habitat World.

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Editor's note: Sue Johnson is a Habitat staff member working in resource development and communications in the KwaZulu Natal region of South Africa. Earlier this year, she and her husband Brian felt called, as an expression of their faith, to participate in a local, non-Habitat research project focused on sustainable farming and renewable energy sources.To help launch the project, they have chosen to live at Hlathini, the research site; however, they will have no electricity or municipal water until their permanent lodging is built. Until then, they are learning first-hand the challenges of inadequate housing experienced by millions of South Africans each day.

These essays are the first in a series in which Sue will share her struggles, triumphs and new insights into substandard housing.


The Call

For many months, I have written articles on poverty housing and have interviewed many homeowners about what it is like to live in substandard housing. I have written as an observer--taken photographs, written stories and sympathized with the shack dwellers. But did it touch me? Did it make me want to do something to help? I think it did. I believe God has given me the skills to help tell the story of those least able to speak out for themselves. But to do that, I must pick up my cross and follow Him.


Challenges from Day 1

Four days of constant freezing rain. Our small shelter is flooded with mud, which is thick and clogs the soles of our shoes, making walking very slippery. A pile of clothes covered in the thick brown sludge lies forlornly on the side of wood planks. "When am I going to get my washing done, and how am I going to get it dry?" I wonder.

For a couple of days, we had been picking up bits and pieces of timber to make the basic shelters and structures we needed to set up home.The land is steep and difficult to walk on, so collecting the small branches and logs we needed was not easy.The steep slopes on each side of the valley where we have set up home are typical of the land inhabited by the poorer families in KwaZulu Natal, and it makes homes susceptible to mud slides.

The strong winds last night dislodged the plastic sheeting erected over the kitchen area, and everything inside was soaked and covered in a layer of thin mud.The floor was awash as water poured from the toilet area, through the kitchen and out through the wooden slats holding up the rusting corrugated roof section of our makeshift kitchen. 

Soaking wet firewood made cooking a real challenge as the winds continued to blow through the flapping sheeting. Lighting a candle was nigh impossible and so paraffin lamps provided the little bit of lighting we had to cook an evening meal. Frozen hands and cold feet, I have never felt so miserable in my life. "When will this rain stop?" I thought.

No electricity or municipal water brings challenges. Carrying buckets of water from the nearby dam took what remaining energy I had, and left me feeling quite miserable.Would the water be drinkable? Would it need to be boiled first? How am I going to climb up the banks of the stream if this rain continues? A torch helps in the dark but it does not help with the aching shoulders, sore elbows and fingers.

I lay in bed but could not sleep. Listening to the rain's constant battering against the roof and the howling wind, my thoughts and prayers went out to the millions of families living in substandard housing in this country, the people who have experienced for years what I was now experiencing for the first time in my life.Would the structures we had erected to form our new home hold up to the weather conditions? Would I ever feel warm again? Did those sleeping soundly in their warm homes this night know what it is like to sleep in the open in these kinds of conditions?


I Rolled Up My Sleeves

Last Monday (Aug. 9) was Women's Day in South Africa, and I had left all my washing for the long weekend. I asked my husband Brian to put on the generator so I could run the washing machine, and lo and behold, what happens? The rope that you pull to bring life to this contraption snaps and for some reason, something else went wrong with the rope snapping.The result? No washing machine!

After muttering under my breath, I rolled up my sleeves and did what millions of South African women do every day of their lives. I collected water and hand washed the full week's washing, using a huge plastic basin on an open patch of ground. Only the week before, I had taken two visitors from the United Kingdom to Cato Manor [a squatter settlement] and we had stopped by the shacks to talk to the women doing their washing at the stand pipe by the side of the road. I had commented on how difficult it was for them to do their washing in such conditions, never expecting that in a week's time, I would be doing the same. So, what have I learned?

I learned that I have been very privileged to have always had a washing machine. I learned that I have taken for granted the fact that I simply had to push buttons and a machine would do everything for me, bar iron. I learned how difficult the work is washing everything by hand, that your back and arms ache and that despite my best efforts, I will never be as good with hand washing as those ladies in Cato Manor.


Very Dark Clouds

I had interviewed a homeowner some months back from Mnini on the South Coast. I asked him what were the things that made having a Habitat house so important. He replied: "I no longer watch the weather from my window at work. I no longer worry when I see the dark clouds because I know my family will be dry and that the roof will not leak."Well, folks, I found myself looking out of my window at work and watching very dark clouds gathering, and I began to worry. Would our temporary home hold up to the looming storm? I found it hard to concentrate on my work because my thoughts were elsewhere ... just as his had been. So life at Hlathini daily throws up its challenges, and daily we face them head on. I am enjoying our new life, and while there are difficult days, there are also those days where we know we are on the right path and that step by step, we are getting there.


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