Leila Samodien
It was September 15, 1984. It rained that day – hard enough to be memorable. With her were her husband and three children, the youngest a 2-week-old boy who would grow up to be a lawyer.
This is how Mabel Mbenyane, 61, remembers the day she moved from Hout Bay.
She was one of about 150 people who queued yesterday to lodge land claims at a designated office in Mowbray in terms of a new five-year window period.
Most of those who arrived after 10am were turned away – the office can accommodate only between 100 and 150 claimants a day. The Mowbray office began operating on July 1, along with several others across the country.
Many of the dozens of claims that had been lodged there so far were for areas such as Bellville, Hout Bay, District Six, Constantia and Claremont, the Cape Times was told when it visited the office yesterday.
When Mbenyane arrived at the office at about 9.30am, she first registered at the front desk and was screened to ensure she had all the necessary documents. She then waited for an available data capturer to formally lodge her claim and to issue her with a reference number.
While some of those in the queue believed that this process was too slow because there were not enough data capturers, others had expected it to take longer.
“I feel glad, because it took a long time for something to happen,” said Mbenyane after she had lodged her claim. “Now I’m satisfied.”
Hout Bay was home to Mbenyane and her family from 1979 to 1984. She lived in an informal structure in a bushy area near the main road.
“The day we moved it was raining. I had a small baby, 2 weeks old,” she said, telling of how her memories of living there were “terrible”.
“The police were always running after us... That time was very hard for me and my family. When you slept, you did not sleep well because someone else ruled us,” said Mbenyane.
Her husband’s boss helped them to find a new home in Khayelitsha, where she lives now. She had missed the cut-off date in 1998 for the old land claims process because she had not known about it. But she saw news of the new process on TV.
Mbenyane intended to opt for financial compensation, saying she would never return to Hout Bay to live there.
Another claimant from New Crossroads – who lodged a land claim for Old Crossroads after being removed in 1981 – also said she would prefer financial compensation.
But Nazeem Naidoo, 66, and his wife Rukaya, 70, have their hearts set on land restoration.
They remembered moving into District Six as a young couple who had been married for only a month. About seven years later, in 1975, they were evicted and went to live in Rylands Estate.
“It was traumatic for us. It was difficult for us to move because we got so used to living there,” said Naidoo.