Africa-Press – South-Africa. This is Avuyile Masekwane’s last month as a refuse collector in Mfuleni, Cape Town. Though the work is difficult and demanding, she will be sorry when her 12-month contract ends at the end of February.
Masekwane, 27, works for the Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), collecting rubbish, five days a week, from 08:30 to 15:30. She earns R27 an hour.
She gets up at 06:00. At 07:30 she wakes up her 4-year-old son, Sinokuhle, and washes him with water in a bucket she filled the night before from the communal tap. “By 08:00 I take him to school so he can still get the porridge served warm.”
By 08:15 Masekwane is at work, collecting and sorting rubbish and throwing it in one of the green containers the City of Cape Town provides.
“People scatter the rubbish all over the place, that’s when we come in, and organise it in order,” she says.
Masekwane is used to seeing dirty nappies, human excrement, and condoms. And lots of beer bottles. She and her colleagues separate what can be recycled, mainly glass.
It’s hot and tiring work, especially in the summer. “We are on our feet all day.”
There are communal taps to drink from and wash her hands, and at midday she takes a break.
“If I have a lunch box I eat at work, other days I go home and prepare something to eat,” she says.
At 16:00 she fetches Sinokuhle from school. At home she rests for half an hour then it’s the evening routine of fetching water, washing, cooking and settling her son in bed.
“What makes me happy about my job is that we all know each other because we’re from the same community,” she says. “And the best part is we don’t have to pay for traveling to get to the workplace. And the community is showing love and support for the work we do cleaning up our environment.”
The job needs patience, she says, and understanding of other people.
Masekwane will be sorry to stop work, but she says it’s right that other people on the EPWP database should have a chance. “They also need to earn an income,” she says.
As for her, she’ll be out looking for another job.
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