I am a little worried! For the past two nights, I get home from work and smell fire - wood burning! I couldn't for the life of me work out what it was or where is was coming from! I wondered around the garden to see if our neighbours had fires going - no joy! Then I noticed that the burning smell was not only a wood burn - it had a strange, almost "antibioiticy" smell (if that makes sense, remember the smell of Amoxyll?) - that's what it reminded me of! Cindy popped around to fetch a parcel from me and I asked her about it! She reckons it comes from the Zandspruit Informal Settlement - there are 25 000 people living in corrugated iron shacks, many without water and electricity. They are obvioulsy burning fires for warmth - the weather has turned really cold!
What is it doing to our environment? What do we do to stop it? And its not only the environment - those houses are shacks and FULL of people. One stray flame, or a knocked over parafin heater and the whole lot go up in flames. Maybe our government should be spending money on safe settlement areas for these people? I don't know what the answer is, but the smell (which I have never noticed before) is enough to make anyone sick.
6 comments:
Amazing how much smoke hangs over a township on a cold windless morning. And I do are, one stray spark and...Devistation.
We have the burning smells around us too, but that's the veld burning.
I wonder what they're using for fuel.
Mama Bear
They probably have to burn anything that will just to keep warm, and to feed their families. if you don't like that small take them a truck load of timber off cuts for firewood.
I worry about all those people, as well as little children, most are sick in winter all trying to keep warm...they only way possible.
I can't even imagine. Now these are the images that we know of Africa, here in Canada. How close are these huts to your home?
I know the smell exactly, and yes it would make me want to be sick.
It makes me wonder if that is the way that my sponsored child is living!
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