Letter 1

Fire in the hood

There are many threats to our lives in the slums which can be traumatizing however one of the most feared, especially in the Summer months is that of fire. This is feared as it can take out whole communities within a hour or two and this is because of a lack of space and tiny houses made of corrugated iron, mud and timber all crammed together with only narrow alleyways separating them. Shacks are constantly liable to fire due to faulty electrical connections often illegal and also due to the problem of open charcoal stoves in the corner of the shack.

Each shack can be the living space for 5, 6 or more people and when fire strikes many people can lose their homes. Recently there was a fire just near my shack. Due to the lack of space the fire fighters when they eventually arrived couldn’t do much to help or rescue many of the inhabitants so some people died in the fire and many lost their properties and had to spend the night in the streets. Some of the churches and mosques put up some of them. The fire started at around 8:30pm at night which made it hard for the neighbour’s to come to help because of security reasons. The fire was eventually subdued at around midnight but the damage to property was enormous. Incidents like this can have huge consequences on people.

No-one is insured due to unaffordability and subsequently many students have dropped out of school because everything they had was burnt down and their parents have to start from scratch again so they have to work to take care of food and shelter before considering the luxury of school.