Page 29 - Heritage Streets of KwaMashu 2025

HERITAGE STREETS OF KWA-MASHU 25
“You may have agreement with landlords as no housing was available and [secondly] it was a breach of the law for you to enter into such agreements with Indians without the Minister’s approval. Even I could not give you permission. So anyone now living on Indian property without permission is breaking the law. We did not prosecute because there was no alternative. But no there is alternative accommodation” (The Department of Bantu Administration (Kwa Muhle), 1960).
The first early houses to be built were two-roomed mainly at Section B (emaPlangweni) near the Kwa Mashu Hostel (Section A), then Section C, and Section J. As the township further developed, four-roomed houses were introduced for the entire township. Along the Malandela Road, part of Section E, the double-four-roomed houses were built, “eLindela” (waiting place for visitors) mainly for women who were wives and female relatives of the men residing at Section A (as women were not allowed at the men’s hostel). Section L houses were constructed in a fascinating fashion of doubles, houses joined together but with separate families (meaning the two families were only separated by the walls, such that an argument on the other side could be heard clearly – a sign of no privacy disrespect for the African families by the apartheid system).
As residents of Kwa-Mashu then became more permanent, they started improving those government-built houses, making them more beautiful, plastering and painting them and later, those who could afford, even extended them as decent living homes.