Cry, the betrayed Kasi: The Story of Finetown and the City’s betrayal of a helpless people

 

Between Lenasia South and Orange Farm lies a modest settlement of about 30 000 residents that was once part of a cluster of farms like Weilers’ Farm and the infamous Orange Farm. This settlement was municipally approved as a township for Black people in the early 1990s and it would be designated for the generations of “legal squatters” who lived there and moreover, low income black earners. Thus began the process of allocating stands to the many blue collar workers  who would eventually live and retire there for about R27 a stand, that’s R241 in today’s money. The settlement was originally known as Grasmere but would now become Finetown Grasmere.

The Beatrice street entrance to Finetown.

Finetown is my hometown in which I was born and bred for 16 years before I moved to neighbouring Lenasia South (or Lenz South if you’re a local) where I lived for 2 more years before I left for university. 

It was not until I lived in suburban Extension 3 of Lenz South did I see just how rife the inequality in Jo'burg South was. From the tarred roads to the abundant ATM’s and school parks, Lenz South made Finetown look like it was truly stuck in the 90s. I remember lamenting with my good friend Tiisetso about how I would have to wipe or lightly wash my sneakers after almost every wear because of our gravel roads whereas in suburban Lenz South I could do months without a wash. He joined me in my lamentation as he was living in Midrand at the time and said his shoes almost always looked recently washed.

Let me give you a brief picture of what Finetown looks like: one main road that starts at the Golden Highway section before Orange Farm and ends where the R558 goes to Ennerdale. This main road is a measly 2 (dilapidated) lanes and is the most tarred strip of road in town before Beatrice street that starts from the Mid-Ennerdale Train Station and ends in Migson Manor, where the recently upgraded roads in Block 2 come in third place. There are no shopping or community centres, no police station or libraries ( although it is said that one was rejected in favour of the other in the early 2010s but it never came into fruition). We also have no formal street names, leading to there being no title deeds, among many other amenities. I can’t begin to stress how something as simple as street names and title deeds can hold thousands of people back. 

Requesting an Uber to or from Finetown? Don’t know where that is buddy. Ordering a product online to Finetown? Don’t know where that is champ. Sending directions for a friend from Soweto who wants to navigate to Finetown? Gonna have to meet me at Southgate Mall ‘cause your house doesn’t exist on Google Maps chommie.

You can imagine the quality of living then, in a place with only one main road. 

On the Municipal Online Maps, Finetown is defined as “peri-urban” and according to Dupont, 2005 it is the geographical edge of a city, the urban fringe outside the formal city limits. Yes, we’re barely in the city according to the municipality but if you know Jozi you’d know there are no rural areas; so where do we belong? On the same database, many of the vacant lands in Finetown are still classified as “farm use” further sealing us into the shadow realm where service delivery remains a dream. With all this said, I’d be unfair and pompous towards my hometown if I didn’t explain to you why a person would settle there in the first place.

As the story goes from my grandmother; in the year 1990 or so a few of her colleagues working at the Transvaal Clothing Company had heard of a farm in the Deep South that the government had acquired and would allow people to purchase land on. As a single mother of 3 living in the informal settlement of Dhlamini Camp 1 (that no longer exists as residents were relocated to Lehae where they would receive early examples of the controversial RDPs), my grandmother took a chance on finally acquiring land and building a stable home for her family.

“There was a train station, the yards were big, the neighborhood was quiet, and the government quickly installed water and flushing outdoor toilets and I wasn’t as far away as Orange Farm or Evaton; what more could I ask for?” my gran would say when she differentiated Finetowns's establishment from neighbouring Phumulamqashi . The people who were coming to Finetown were middle aged and would subsequently work until their retirement to build on the land they had acquired. “The people were friendly, peaceful and we all obeyed the law” my grandmother always laments. So what went wrong?

The Metrorail reached Grasmere station, and it would hoodwink my grandmother into believing Finetown was bound to receive even more infrastructure. 

It would take perhaps 10 or 12 years for Finetown to find its context among its peers such as Lenasia South Ext.4  and Orange Farm and it would painfully learn it was not good enough to the government. Ext.4 quickly saw itself provided with numerous well-resourced primary schools such as Sierra Nevada and Kiasha Park Primary School each with their own accompanying public playground/park where Orange Farm would later get shopping complexes and other amenities yet Finetown remained with an under-resourced Finetown Primary and Thuthukani Primary that parents would often reject in favour of the objectively better learning experiences offered in Lenasia. Finetown would remain with a matchbox mobile clinic that would eventually be burned in protest to get a better clinic (do the means justify the end? You tell me) and the people of Finetown would always have to catch a taxi to Lenasia South to do something as basic as making an affidavit, which reminds me; the presence of Grasmere train station that enticed my gran in the 90s would fall victim to Metrorail’s corrosion and with the devastating theft and vandalism of rail infrastructure during COVID, the train service fell to its knees, taking thousands of Finetonians down with it who only had the train as a reasonable means of getting to work and their subsequent job losses led to the exacerbation of the already serious issue of unemployment.

So the kids don’t have good schools or places to play, the parents have no affordable means of getting to work or receiving civil services like affidavits and healthcare is always an hour plus R50 away (if the nurses at whatever clinic you go to don’t tell you that you don’t fall under their jurisdiction). Is this living?

One of the many protests we've had over the years for service delivery.

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All things considered, Finetown has always had an Israelite kind of history in how its black residents have always had gripes with government; its original inhabitants were harassed or neglected by the government as far back as the early 1980s by the Oranje-Vaal Administration Board as there had been a case of “illegal squatters” who were rightfully living on the farms of their white employers but the OVAB struggled to categorise them as legal residents and would thus frequently and forcefully remove them. One might say; “well Finetown was established during the Apartheid administration and so the new administration didn’t feel as much obligation towards Finetown as the outgoing government did” and you wouldn’t be wrong to think so, but that’s largely the source of my anger; the ANC.

When the ANC came into power, their stance was to immediately catch Black people up with the rest of the world in terms of opportunities and quality of living. It was Nelson Mandela who said “ It can be said that there are four basic and primary things that the mass people in society wish for, to live in a safe environment, to be able to work and provide for themselves, to have access to good public health and to have sound educational opportunities for their children” and it is this this way of thinking that informed a lot of the ANC’s almost immediate initiatives such as the previously mentioned RDPs and the provision of social grants (yes, these have existed from the dawn of South Africa’s democracy) and one could say that these ideals to pay homage to the ANC’s communist roots. 

It is with all of this in mind that I am enraged by how the ANC but specifically the municipality of the City of Johannesburg did not fulfill these “basic and primary” things to the people of Finetown, not a single one! Yes, I saw the first round of the insulting matchbox-like houses they call RDPs in the mid 2000s, and the second rounds in the mid 2010s, yes I know that Thuthukani and Finetown Secondary are non-fee paying and I also know that many of the Thabos and Khulanis I grew up raiding peach trees with are lifelong beneficiaries of the Child Care grant that has supplemented their single parent’s income faithfully, but I can’t help but feel the City has forsaken Finetown; especially when you compare it to ANY neighbouring township.

Perhaps you feel that everything I’m complaining about applies to many townships nationwide; what’s so special about us? But you see there are things that I just find downright disrespectful against my hometown, things such as being repeatedly identified as “Ennerdale South” on multiple government records. We are not Ennerdale! Anyone from Ennerdale will be quick to let you know that the “bundus” of Finetown (as the kids from Ennerdale would refer to our homes) are not a part of their developed and suburban slice of heaven in the South. It may sound like a small thing but this criss-crossing of administration is what could be greatly contributing to the crippling lack of service delivery, provision of infrastructure and overall good quality of life Finetown has been deprived of. When a provincial fat cat feels it right to (for a change) use allocated funds to build a library or taxi rank in “Ennerdale South”, will he not make a quick Google search and see the high walls along James Street, arched windows of Olympusweg and the library in the civic hall and conclude that there’s no need for another library in Ennerdale? It makes me even angrier when I remember that I can’t just waltz into Ennerdale police station as a resident of “Ennerdale South” as I’ll be told that I don’t fall under their jurisdiction. 

Of course public works operates at a much more complex level but we need to be seen independently from neighbouring towns for they do not share in our plight.

While providing a permanent structure for many families, the size and execution was reminiscent of the homes built by the Apartheid government.

The latest versions of RDPs; much more contemporary in their designs, standard with electricity and solar geysers but not with title deeds.

I am heartsore for my peers who were not fortunate enough to obtain a bursary and study further after high school as I did. To add salt to injury, the job market cannot absorb them either and they subsequently find themselves trying to fend off the corrosive nothingness of unemployed Kasi life. As a Soweto resident I have observed many amenities provided by the municipality that Sowetans (and youths in particular) take for granted. For example, an unemployed youth has a nearby library with Wi-Fi they can use for learning or job searching, should they need to do an affidavit for a job application there are police stations a 20 to 40 minute walk away, should they get a job there is the Rea Vaya BRT or abundant taxis at Bara Taxi Rank for them to get to work, should they need to do shopping once they get paid there’s a mall like Ndofaya or the newly opened Dhlamini Junction a stone’s throw away and if they acquire the means to study further, there is UJ’s Soweto campus or SWGC’s Dobsonville or Molapo campuses a short taxi commute away.

What about Khulani in the “urban fringe outside the formal city”?

City libraries offer free and reliable Wi-Fi, computer lending, occasional workshops and an overall safe space for bored youths to enrich themselves.

At the edge of Molapo, this campus is accessible by Rea Vaya, train or taxi.

The average round Rea vaya trip is R30 to R40.

To wrap up my little rant, may Finetown rise above the unfortunate set of cards it was dealt, hold leadership accountable while not waiting too long for salvation from the government but rather may they prepare to save themselves and their beautiful town.