Rats, floods scare S.Africa township awaiting relocation

General view of Alexandra township, commonly known as Alex, a slum overlooking the Sandton sky scrappers in Johannesburg August 23, 2002.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Alfred Laungunul has no idea if the government will keep its promise of better housing. He can be certain only that the rats which crawled into his tin shack and bit his baby will be back when it rains.

Raindrops strike fear into the electrician and others living along the banks of the stinking Jukskei river in South Africa's Alexandra township, a short distance from Johannesburg's most exclusive shopping center.

Anything is possible when the river, littered with milk bottles, cardboard boxes and garbage, overflows.

"We try to plug these holes so the rats don't come in. They bit my daughter three times," said Laungunul, pointing to scars on one-year-old Pauline's head. Two bloated rats lie dead a meter (yard) away.

Even more than rats and snakes, residents fear rushing waters which could drown their children.

"Sometimes when it rains the water is knee-deep. So we just watch the river as soon as it starts raining and when it gets bad we run away because she could drown. There is nothing else we can do," Laungunul said.

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has promised to improve housing. The problem is a legacy of apartheid rule and becoming increasingly difficult to manage because of a steady flow of people moving to already congested areas.

Local authorities have relocated some families from the garbage-infested area along the Jukskei.

"We have moved some people. But this is just the beginning of what we intend to do," Sam Ramashala, a local government housing project manager, told Reuters.

RESIGNED TO MISERY

People like Felix Hlongwane have resigned themselves to Alexandra where rap music blares from shacks and taverns offer whisky, beer and billiards.

He said he was visited twice by the local housing authorities in October 2006. They made promises to move him and his family to a safer area. Since then, nothing.

"I don't think about the government because they really have done nothing for me," Hlongwane said.

The township seems little changed from apartheid days which ended with multi-racial elections in 1994. Hopes were high then that the suffering in places like Alexandra would end.

However, women still carry buckets of water from the pump beside run-down portable toilets that service all residents on the banks of the Jukskei.

The Alexandra Renewal Project, a joint urban regeneration effort between the government, the private sector and NGO's, says it has made progress, including the relocation of 7,000 families.

Jacob Ndlolu, 57, is still waiting, however. His HIV-positive status gets him 820 rand ($117) from the government each month and he ekes out a living peddling soft drinks and cow feet, if his own sore-ridden feet allow.

He is desperate for protection against the river, and neither the white apartheid government nor its ANC successor has come up with a solution.

"I have been asking for a new roof since March of 1986. They have made many promises and I fear that if they move me it will be to a smaller house. I want to keep my things," he said, motioning to a small television and a small bed.

Listening to a song about how the old white government oppressed his Tsonga tribe, Petros Duncan braids his young daughter's hair and reflects on the past and the present.

"This music keeps us going. We cried for freedom from apartheid and we got freedom that is a nightmare here," he said.

((Editing by Robert Woodward; Johannesburg newsroom, +27 11 775 3159)