Tears of joy streaked the wrinkled face of 105-year-old granny Jabulile Zondi after she was singled out by KwaZulu-Natal MEC for human settlements as the beneficiary of a home yesterday.
Zondi, of Hammarsdale, has lived through two world wars but she is without proper shelter. However, that will change within the next two months.
During his budget speech in the KwaZulu-Natal legislature yesterday, MEC Ravi Pillay announced that his department would build "the struggle veteran" a house, which is expected to be completed by June 30.
Zondi is one of the two struggle veterans Pillay said would receive homes. The other is unionist Kay Moonsamy of Chatsworth, who will be handed the keys to his home on his 90th birthday on July 5.
"I'm so happy with the MEC's gesture. He's a godsend and I see God's power in him," said the partially deaf centenarian.
Zondi was born in 1911 in Ladysmith, five years after the Bhambatha Rebellion. She got married in the 1930s and lived in Embo, near Hillcrest. She eventually settled in Hammarsdale, where she rented a back room and did some ANC underground work, but the area later became an IFP stronghold.
Her United Democratic Front allegiance clashed with the IFP's ideologies. As a result, she lost her home during the political violence that plagued KwaZulu-Natal in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
One of her sons, who was an ANC activist, disappeared during that period and is still missing.
Zondi's house in Unit 4 in Mpumalanga township was blown away by a storm in July 2010 and she has been living in a transit camp ever since. The mother of three girls and two boys has outlived all her children. She now lives with three grandchildren.
Human settlement regional manager Elijah Cele said the usual 40 square metre unit would in Gogo Zondi's case be enlarged to accommodate her grandchildren.
