Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2005. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) - November 22, 2005
Nomavenda Mathiane
"It's difficult to explain it, but poverty has a smell," Sithole said. "The mother of the deceased sat huddled in a corner next to a rickety chair with washing rags hanging around her. A few weeks ago, she buried her four-month-old granddaughter. Now the mother was dead.
"The landlady was not there to offer condolences because she was angry that the family owed her rent. As if that was not enough, they didn't have a coffin or money for a burial plot."
Burying the poor is one of the main problems pastors like Sithole face in Soweto. It is not possible for the church to bury the many people who are dying, she said. "I have to go cap in hand to undertakers and ask for help."
The crisis has pushed the Soweto Red Cross into work it is not really designed to do. Director Mantshadi Moralo said that, while her organisation's core business was to cope with natural disasters, in Soweto it had had to focus on alleviating the suffering of those afflicted by chronic diseases such as Aids and diabetes.
The bulk of its clients were people living with Aids. "We give them food parcels of mealie meal, oil, sugar, tea, beans, pilchards and soap," Moralo explained.
"Some people come to us because a close family member is HIV-positive and they want to know what to do. We have trained volunteers from over 12 organisations operating in Soweto," said Moralo.
"Then there is the other lot who come to us because there are no jobs. They volunteer their time; we train them as care-givers."
Each care-giver gets a kit comprising gloves, antiseptic solution, bandages and condoms. They are taught to wash patients, escort them to clinics for check-ups, monitor them to ensure they take their medicine, and to make sure all the required papers, such as children's birth certificates and identity documents are at hand in case of death. "We train them to teach family members how to look after patients."
Most Sowetans know about the disease but many are afraid to be tested, said a social worker from a hospice, who asked to remain anonymous.
Poverty and the inability to support sick relatives means hospices are forced to carry a heavy burden. "When patients are discharged from hospital and referred to a hospice, in most cases the relatives just dump them and disappear off the face of the earth," she complained.
"In some cases, the relatives ask the hospice to keep the body until they have raised the burial money."
Abuse of sick people is also widespread, with some relatives escorting patients to pay-points to collect their disability grants, and then dropping them at the hospice without a cent.
An entire industry has sprung up around the business of death and dying from Aids.
Kupane Undertakers in Orlando East is often approached by social workers and church ministers to bury Aids victims. It offers a cheap funeral package for poor people costing about R3 000, which includes a coffin, rented hearse and family car, preparation of the corpse and a bus to ferry the mourners to the cemetery.
Other undertakers in the townships run burial schemes, largely supported by pensioners who pay R15 a month from their old age grants, to deal with the ordeal of burying unemployed children.
Church ministers say the number of funeral services held in churches has risen, but that the cause of death is seldom disclosed.
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