Women's hostels — If not here, where must mothers be?

Sandile Mbatha has come a long way since the days his mother used to sneak him in and out of the Thokoza women's hostel.

Now 33 and doing his PhD in urban planning and housing through the University of Stuttgart, he remembers visiting the hostel during holidays when he was in school, staying with his mom, Mama Doris, a street vendor who sold mealies.

"There were six of us kids. My father was a labourer. My mom worked either as a domestic worker or a street vendor," he says. When Mama Doris moved to the hostel, her sister and mother were already living there.

"I loved it when I went there to help my mom. Town was something special . . . a world of lights, of tall buildings, cars and the beach.

story_article_left1

"My mom and I would get up early in the morning to buy mealies from a truck. Sometimes we would sell them at the nearby markets, sometimes we would travel to Verulam and other townships.

"I was a child who wanted to be involved in what she did. I wanted to be part of the informal trading experience."

Sneaking past the guard at the hostel - late at night or early in the morning - was a bit of a game for him.

"I don't recall being stressed by it. We would just wait for him to be distracted or fall asleep. I also don't recall any other children at the hostel. If there were, I might not have known about them. There were no play areas. And I had to sit quietly in the room when I was there."

He recalls sleeping on the floor and sometimes just staying in the room if he couldn't get out.

"It was better than home. There were electricity and water. Staying there also gave me an understanding of why my mom was going away and doing what she was doing. I saw the struggles she had to overcome. The distances she had to walk. I remember shouting out 'Mealies!' as we walked around Verulam. Some people were nice, others weren't. They all tried to bargain her down.

"Without wanting to romanticise poverty, being the son of a domestic worker and a labourer had its benefits. There was no pressure on me to follow in someone's footsteps. I ran my own races, believing that anything was possible."

His family's housing struggles are close to his heart, hence his passion for housing and urban planning. He says the city's "no kids" policy at the hostel is "distasteful" and "bullying" and shows a lack of imagination.

"Although there is no racial legislation controlling access to the city for black people, their right to the city is still indirectly regulated. I am not sure where the city expects mothers to live."