Many tourists visit Cape Town in winter because it is often warmer than summer in other parts of the world. But beware! There are very nasty spells: the infamous “cold fronts” that can follow one after another, spoiling a holiday and sending shivering Capetonians to huddle around inadequate heating, because we never expect it to be so bad.
But the thousands who really suffer, are those living in shacks in low lying parts of the city. Every year shacks are flooded and people take refuge in halls. When they return they usually find their pitiful goods have been looted. And then there are the devastating fires which sweep through these rows of shacks because a candle has fallen over or there is an accident with the paraffin heating the evening meal.
The impoverished people of Cape Town need our prayers this winter – as do the NGOs, the Salvation Army, the city officials and others who are called out to help.
Here is a poem from my collection THE HARP’S TOP STRING (free download, see Menu) that I wrote some years ago. And how many more years will there be?
HEADLINES SEPTEMBER 2002
floods in Cape Town
worst in forty years
World Conference
Against Racism
in Durban
imprisoned by water
she said
I am an old
black woman
eighty-three
bedridden
in a shack
it was
awash with water
my bed was soaked
my coat too
I was hungry
very very cold
and all alone
how much longer
must I endure
this life?
I asked myself
Mama
can I come in?
she sat and
held my hand
we talked under
the dripping roof
then she brought
blankets, hot food
swept the water
from the shack
she isn’t black
how could
a white woman
dare to come
where murder happens
night and day?
my name is Linda
this is how
I serve the Lord
was all she said
getting back to the headlines
the problem of race
is a problem
in the conference hall
but not in the hearts
and deeds
of simple Samaritans
Merle
But the thousands who really suffer, are those living in shacks in low lying parts of the city. Every year shacks are flooded and people take refuge in halls. When they return they usually find their pitiful goods have been looted. And then there are the devastating fires which sweep through these rows of shacks because a candle has fallen over or there is an accident with the paraffin heating the evening meal.
The impoverished people of Cape Town need our prayers this winter – as do the NGOs, the Salvation Army, the city officials and others who are called out to help.
Here is a poem from my collection THE HARP’S TOP STRING (free download, see Menu) that I wrote some years ago. And how many more years will there be?
HEADLINES SEPTEMBER 2002
floods in Cape Town
worst in forty years
World Conference
Against Racism
in Durban
imprisoned by water
she said
I am an old
black woman
eighty-three
bedridden
in a shack
it was
awash with water
my bed was soaked
my coat too
I was hungry
very very cold
and all alone
how much longer
must I endure
this life?
I asked myself
Mama
can I come in?
she sat and
held my hand
we talked under
the dripping roof
then she brought
blankets, hot food
swept the water
from the shack
she isn’t black
how could
a white woman
dare to come
where murder happens
night and day?
my name is Linda
this is how
I serve the Lord
was all she said
getting back to the headlines
the problem of race
is a problem
in the conference hall
but not in the hearts
and deeds
of simple Samaritans
Merle
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