June 28, 2002

MANDLA VEZI, from Msinga in KwaZulu-Natal, sits down to a lunch prepared by his wife in their new, pink, two-roomed quarters on the grounds of Meadowlands hostel. Until recently, Vezi stayed alone in a dreary single room some 200-metres away. Early this year, he moved into his new, cushy home. "This place is much bigger and more beautiful than the single room I used to stay in," Vezi says with pride. Staying in his single room, ablution facilities consisted of communal showers. "Here," he says, "I even have my own toilet and bathroom."

The winds of change are sweeping through Jo'burg hostels as the City of Johannesburg tries to integrate these relics of apartheid planning into the surrounding townships.

"Hostel" - in South Africa, the word conjures up images of an ugly, menacing building, masculine aggression and tribal hostility. Train-like rows of grey, drab structures, hostels were built to accommodate male migrant workers who came to the city to provide manual labour for the burgeoning mining and manufacturing industries in the last century.

The newly erected hostels are more spacious and homely

Authorities considered the workers' stay in the urban areas to be transitory - they came to raise just enough money to purchase cattle and a piece of land and go back home to engage in subsistence agriculture. They had one foot in the urban areas and the other in the countryside.

The City of Johannesburg has now embarked on a massive project to change the character of hostels as we know them. Called the Public Sector Hostels Redevelopment Programme, the initiative aims to convert hostels into family units and to integrate their occupants into local communities. The council has committed more than R100-million to the project, which includes provision of accommodation for people temporarily displaced by the development. Hostels currently being upgraded include Alexandra, Nancefield, Lifateng, Diepkloof, Dube, Orlando West, Meadowlands, Helen Joseph, M1 Madala and M2 Nobuhle.

Historically, hostels were located on the outskirts of townships across the country to accommodate mainly male migrant workers who, because of their tenacious tribal loyalties, are often cut off from local urban communities. Physically close to, but socially removed from local communities, hostel inmates have always had an uneasy relationship with residents of neighbouring townships.

As many of them were new arrivals in the cities, they were disparaged by city dwellers as country bumpkins. Feeling ostracised, they evolved into self-contained communities with their own macho culture. To urbanised township residents, hostels inspired fear and were viewed as dens of vice.

In the 1970s, attempts by township residents to involve hostel inmates in anti-apartheid campaigns met with fierce resistance. During the 1976 uprising, for example, some hostel dwellers engaged in bloody battles with militant school kids because they didn't want their routine existence to be disrupted. Mostly traditionalists, hostel inmates would not join in any campaign led by children.

Around Johannesburg, this tension boiled over into an all-out war in the 1980s, when hostels were used as launching pads of violence against local township residents. Many inmates were considered to be members of the Inkatha Freedom Party, at the time at war in many areas with the African National Congress.

Today, the hostels have a different ambience. As you approach Meadowlands hostel, one of the 27 public hostels owned by the City of Johannesburg, you can hear voices of children at play and see women going about their domestic chores.

Members of a Zionist Christian church - an independent sect incorporating elements of traditional religion and culture - make their way to their place of worship. Dressed in flowing robes with crosses emblazoned on the back, fathers, sons and wives clutching sticks and chanting hymns make their way to a church service in nearby Meadowlands. Outside some dormitories, there are small vegetable gardens.

These ordinary domestic images symbolise mammoth changes in these previously exclusively male domains. In a word, the hostel has become a lot more homely.

As you walk deeper into the hostel, shades of blue, orange and pink come into view. These are the new colourful quarters being built, not only to relieve overcrowding in the hostel, but also to eradicate the single-sex character of the institution. Built as family units, each of these new two-roomed structures has a shower and a toilet.

Indoor bathrooms are a novelty here, where communal showers have been the norm. For this luxury, Vezi's monthly rent has gone up from R18 to R32 - or is it R40? "I'm not sure, I haven't paid rent for some time," the unemployed Vezi admits. He is not the only hostel inmate whose rent is in arrears; unemployment is a problem here, as elsewhere.

Councillor Sizakele Nkosi, who is responsible for housing in the city, says the physical renovation of the buildings will be accompanied by a concerted effort to integrate hostel inmates into surrounding communities. "By providing family units, we hope to engender a sense of belonging to the urban centre among inmates." Hostel dwellers are encouraged to bring their families to stay with them to foster rootedness in the urban milieu.

Sithembile Langa is one of about 20 indunas (headmen) of Meadowlands hostel. Indunas exercise control over many aspects of hostel life. Nothing happens in the hostel without their express approval. They make decisions on who stays at the hostel and under what conditions. They also function as a link between the hostel and the countryside, ensuring the continuation of tribal identities by forming tribal networks.

To gather information on the hostel, I'm referred to induna Langa. His wife drives the point home when she says: "Go talk to my husband. Whatever he says, he will be expressing my viewpoint as well."

Langa welcomes the renovations under way, saying "The conditions here are improving. We even have electricity now. We are definitely better off than before and a lot better than people who stay in shacks."

Despite his sentiments, Langa, who works as a driver, still considers himself a man from Msinga. "I go home often to see my kids. My kids also visit me when they are on holiday," he says. "But I don't want them to stay here permanently. The place is too small. Besides, they may be corrupted by the city."

The programme to renovate and convert hostels into family units seems to have popular appeal. "We are getting a lot of support from most hostels. The only resistance has come from hostels where development committees have internal squabbles," Nkosi says. "Even there, people are not opposed to development as such, but cannot agree on the finer details of the project. Otherwise the programme enjoys popular support."