Cape Town community rebuilds amid dust and ashes

What now, asks Tanya Farber in the wake of the fire that swept through an informal settlement in Cape Town, killing people and destroying houses

Skeleton frames of new shacks are springing up amid the rubble. Lines of long planks - each being carried by two people - snake up the narrow paths to the top of the ridge.

The sections that didn't burn are as they have always been: small shacks crammed together on the steep slope with barely a metre between them.

The rest is flattened and charred.

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It is more than a week since 15,000 people lost their 4,000 homes in the fire that engulfed Imizamo Yethu, in Hout Bay, Cape Town.

The main artery, Molokoane Road, which firefighters struggled to move along, is choked again — this time by trucks with metal fingers scrunching burnt-out cars, blackened stoves and the mangled springs of mattresses.

Everywhere are piles of ash into which dogs have curved their bodies.

And everywhere there is resilience.

Siyabonga Nceza, his wife Zukhanye and their three-month-old son Ayabulela were trapped in the fire. His relatives keep reliving those five minutes when they thought that maybe, just maybe, the family were still alive.

Perhaps they had run for their lives, away to safety?

"Our cousin asked the [fire] brigades if he could go in to see if they were inside their home," said a relative, "but they said it was too dangerous."

Later, doused in water to protect himself, he entered.

"The three of them were found lying together, huddled on the bed holding one another. We had to identify them on the spot."

At the fire station, just two minutes away, division commander Frank Forbay got the call. The Dontse-yakhe section at Imizamo Yethu was in flames.

What awaited him was "the worst fire" he has seen in 24 years of service.

"The fire was in the centre between the structures. How were we going to reach it?" asked Forbay.

block_quotes_start Every time there is a fire, scores of people give us handouts, but when there isn't a fire are we still human? block_quotes_end

Like most informal settlements in South Africa, infrastructure is non-existent.

"There is one road in and one road out," said Forbay. "People were trying to save their belongings by putting them in the road - even cupboards were being dragged out. The rescue vehicles got trapped. It is all these people have, so they tried to carry everything."

Some community members knocked down structures to create a break, but the fire advanced too rapidly.

Forbay said the two things he would always remember were "the difficulty of fighting such a ferocious fire in that terrain, and the hopelessness of the residents, not knowing where to go or what to do with their belongings".

Bongani Bobo, 32, gave himself three days to put a roof over his head.

He barely takes a break from building. "Life won't return to normal here," he said, "not for a very long time."

His employer down at the harbour gave him a few days off to build a home. His wife, 13-year-old daughter and six-year-old son are counting on him.

"The four of us had to jump and drag everything we own, like clothes and furniture, to the other side of the road."

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He points to what were once their belongings.

"It didn't help. Everything got burnt. Even what I am wearing now, someone gave me."

A few metres away, his neighbour Thokozani Bobe hammers away.

"We want to be on our old spot. Everybody does. So you find the exact place where your shack was before," he said.

He has been staying with a friend (but is "too stressed to fall asleep"), and hopes that he, his two brothers and their sister will soon be sleeping under the same roof again.

Children watch as men hammer, and finally, at the very top of the settlement, where the debris gives way to mountain slope and where many have set up home, mattresses and blankets are wedged between rocks.

The residents up there keep vigil all day.

They say they're scared someone will grab the handouts they have queued for hours to receive.

block_quotes_start I don't know what happens next. As we are not South African, we don't know what the housing plans will mean for us

While the scorched area is abuzz with activity, the green fields below in the valley are criss-crossed with lines of people waiting for food and clothing from the rescue mission.

As soon as news of the fire broke last week, on Saturday morning, the "haves" of Cape Town went into overdrive.

Mounds of clothing and blankets rose up as the wealthy arrived and decanted the boots of their cars at a school nearby.

It was a slick operation: medium-size female clothing here, men's shoes over there, please.

After a long wait in the queue that snaked several times around the soccer fields, Memory Makoni and Grace Tagwireyi start walking back to Imizamo Yethu - each with a baby strapped to their backs and a massive box of goodies atop their heads.

Makoni and her husband arrived from Zimbabwe less than a year ago in search of a better life. Their screams pierced the air late on the Friday night.

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"I don't know what happens next. As we are not South African, we don't know what the housing plans will mean for us," said Makoni.

She can't linger - she must get home to a friend's house in another part of the settlement to breastfeed Tatenda, who is six months old.

Tagwireyi, walking with her niggly one-year-old son Russell on her back, says he has had diarrhoea since the fire, but there isn't anyone to turn to for help because everyone is in need.

Community leader Samkelo Krweqe said: "We are grateful for the donations, but we are also disappointed at how things have unfolded over time.

"We need not ask whites or the rich to keep buying things for us and thinking of us because of the fire. We need people who look at the whole situation and change it.

"Every time there is a fire, scores of people give us handouts, but when there isn't a fire are we still human?"

He added: "We appreciate it, but we have very low self-esteem if we say this is the way it is meant to happen."