PUBLISHED IN CITY PRESS, 9 AUGUST 2009

Who are you? Where do you come from? What do you want? What are you doing here, in this place of squalor, such a horrible place?

There were as many answers as there were questions.

“I’m waiting for a job.” “I want to be close to my husband.” “I want to live near my wife’s workplace.” “I run my spaza business here.” “I drive a taxi around here.” “I’m waiting for a house.” “I want a better life.” “I’m waiting…” Endless waiting. Hopeful waiting.

Welcome to Diepsloot. To its beauty, and its harshness. Diepsloot – Afrikaans for a deep gutter -- a grotesque place of urbanization.

A gutter? Not really. To Mrs Joyce Mashamaite, this is home. My home, too, if only for one night.

Having been resident in Diepsloot since the early hours of the morning, to meet with the leadership of various structures and community organizations – political, business, sport, police, the jobless and the destitute, and even the crèches forum – we were overwhelmed.

Mrs Mashamaite was kind enough at 3am to open her house, shack number 12469, for us to lay our heads down for just about three hours, after a long working day. This is where had come to cross-night.

Yet to Mrs Mashamaite and her son Buthi, this is not just shack number 12469. This is home.

Home? Rusted and twisted corrugated iron? A skewed feature called her door, three chairs, a table and a bed? And not enough standing room to undress!

I did not have to undress that morning. I slept in my clothes, with my coat on. 12469’s corrugated iron walls provide no protection from possible hypothermia. I wonder how the children survive? Many are so small and so vulnerable.

I made the mistake of getting into bed without my boots, only to wake up two hours later to put them on again. My toes were almost completely frozen. It was too icy to go back to sleep again…

I had slept with my gloves on and realized that Mrs Mashamaite woke up to go to work wearing hers, too.

There had been about 35 journalists at first, but they had dwindled. I am sure they had gone to file their stories… Or did the frosty night prove unbearable?

Only two remained – the Daily Sun and Sowetan. They had their car engines running as they slept outside shack number 12469, perhaps hoping that I would chicken out?

I didn’t. I was born in a squatter camp. I spent over a decade in cold prison cells, spent time as a guerilla fighter, under open skies.

But that was another war, a different war. This time round, ours is a not a guerilla war. It is a conventional one, with a broad front against the scourge of abject poverty.

Diepsloot is but one battlefield -- a large, smoke-filled, sprawling microcosm of the more than 2 000 “squatter camps” scattered throughout the length and breadth of this land, populated by “internal refugees” from poverty in the hinterland.

These are informal settlements. The conditions are inhuman. Our challenge: to turn them into human settlements.

Jacob Zuma, the President we call Msholozi, who has stared in the face of real poverty from his Nkandla grassroots, succinctly summed up the human settlements concept in his state of the nation address: “Housing is not just about building houses. It is also about transforming our residential areas and building communities with closer access to work and social amenities, including sports and recreation facilities. “

To wage this war, we had to go to Diepsloot to conduct a sincere conversation, a candid appraisal, to collect and collate information for human settlements planning purposes. And to share this information with Cabinet colleagues in the War Room against Poverty, led by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe.

Our war plans have to be integrated and coordinated into our comprehensive strategy against poverty.

We visited Diepsloot to also close the gap – the disconnect between top-most leadership and ordinary citizens; to applaud the good work of many councillors, and to point a small finger at those who are failing the people.

Unlike Mrs Mashamaite’s squalid section, there is another Diepsloot – where the province and the city have done a sterling job. In the section called Havana City, we were greeted by happy faces, well-constructed houses, a fire station, a new police station, bulk services, lighting, clinics, crèches, youth centres, a must-see library – the other side of the squalor! All these provide a healthy atmosphere for people to conduct their business, their taverns, shops and flea markets. It’s a veritable bazaar of activity.

As the sun rose signaling our departure, we could sense this activity as Diepsloot woke to go to work, to school, to play, and for other daily chores.

Diepsloot is not about burning tyres. Next time you meet a waiter, bank teller, cashier, domestic worker, nurse, teacher, newspaper vendor, or somebody searching for a job in Fourways, Sandton or Pretoria, ask them about Diepsloot.

We said our goodbyes to Mrs Mashamaite after a discussion over the bill for one night’s stay. The negotiations had been a little tough, yet friendly. I had argued that hers was not truly a B&B, but only a B – the bed, without breakfast. But she insisted it was a home!

She had a spring in her step as she went to work. I detected a broad smile as well, as she turned away. I think she got the better of me: my wallet was thinner, yet my heart was warmer, my mind clearer -- my soul much richer.