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Angel of mercy helps indigent farm dwellers

RELIEF: The Nkosi family will be able to get through witner thanks to gifts of clothing and food parcels. Pic. Kopano Tlape. © Sowetan.
RELIEF: The Nkosi family will be able to get through witner thanks to gifts of clothing and food parcels. Pic. Kopano Tlape. © Sowetan.

McKeed Kotlolo

McKeed Kotlolo

Mama Angel is at it again. This time she braved the chilly weather to go and feed and clothe members of a destitute family on a farm at Amersfoort, Mpumalanga.

The big-hearted Mama Angel was responding to the plight of the family of 10, including parents, two daughters and six grandchildren, four of whom are orphans.

The family, Bednock Nkosi, 68, his wife Christina, 66, daughters Sarah, 28, and Rebecca, 20; grandchildren Susan, 12, Mpumelelo, 6, Khosi, 5, Ntokozo, 3, Bongani, 2, and Portia, 1, is staying in a shaky mud house on Koppieskraal Farm owned by Freddie Els in the Amersfoort area.

They do not have clean water and draw stagnant water from under a bridge more than a kilometre away from home. Plain pap is all they have to eat day in and out. The only sign of food in the house was a bag of mealie meal in the corner of the room.

When Mama Angel arrived on the property from which the family could be evicted at any time, Christina and the six children were sitting around an almost dead fire, made of twigs, inside the single room mudhouse that serves as a kitchen, bedroom and lounge, because it was very cold and windy that morning.

The children were scantily dressed and very dirty because of the lack of water and soap to wash.

Everyone came to life when Mama Angel delivered the groceries comprising necessities such as food parcels, soap and bags of new and second- hand clothing, blankets and shoes. Smiles beamed from the faces of both adults and children alike.

In addition to the groceries, clothing and blankets bought by Sowetan Mama Angel, a number of residents approached by Sowetan in Mamelodi and Bronkhorstspruit opened their hearts and donated four refuse bags full of second hand and new clothes, shoes and blankets.

In her own words, the grandmother said: "Phambili ngo Sowetan, Phambili. Qhubekani ngalomsebenzi wenu eniwenzayo emphakathini."

The children even managed to make a "sharp . sharp" sign with their thumbs and smiles all over their tiny faces.

After Sowetan and the local police were refused entry through the constantly locked gates of the farm, the only way to reach the family was by using a shaky and rusty steel stepladder erected by the farmer for the family to enter or exit the property. The police did not put up the ladder as stated in Sowetan'sreport on Tuesday.

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