DESPITE his ailing health Xolisa Maresi wakes up every day in bushes and goes to seek employment in the city as a general worker.
The 53-year-old homeless man suffers from tuberculosis (TB) and does not have a job, food or shelter.
He sleeps in a bush in Arcadia, East London, increasing the risk of getting more infectious diseases.
Every morning he walks a kilometre to Buffalo Street where he begs Somali shop owners for odd jobs in return for food.
When there are no odd jobs he scrambles for food in the city’s municipal waste bins.
Maresi hails from the impoverished Upper Ngqwarha village near Mthatha and has been living on East London streets for a year.
He has never had a permanent job and has no one to look to for support. His elder sister Nomonde Nzimeni lives in the village and depends for support on her other brother who works on the mines in the Free State.
Things most of us take for granted – food, a home and a job – are luxuries he dreams of attaining one day. The clothes he wears – a grey hooded sweater coat, T-shirt, trousers and pair of shoes – have been donated to by caring members of the public and are the only clothing he owns.
At night Maresi sleeps on the grass and covers himself with a thin blanket coupled with a canvas plastic to keep warm. When it rains he can not sleep.
Recent freezing temperatures have exacerbated his lethal, infectious condition, and he complains of severe chest pains.
When he coughs he spits blood. Like other homeless people in search of employment, Maresi yearns for a habitable shelter.
The availability and quality of data on homelessness in the province is patchy but charity organisation Salvation Army estimates there are more than 200 homeless people in the Buffalo City Metro region who go to sleep cold and hungry every night.
There are no temporary or night shelters in East London for the homeless such as Maresi.
The Eastern Cape provincial government has not yet researched the problem around its cities and the homeless are “invisible” communities around the metro.
They are fathers and sons who have travelled from Transkei, Bloemfontein, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal in pursuit of a better life.
Some have fled dysfunctional families, others to get away from a criminal past while many simply want to be able to provide for their families still living in impoverished rural areas.
Maresi is dying and knows it. He can no longer lift heavy stuff.
Maresi does not take his TB medication and said he would rather try and find employment to afford to go home and die. He refuses to take his medication on an empty stomach.
“I have tried it before and I almost died,” he said.
Just wanting to go home to die
The 53-year-old homeless man suffers from tuberculosis (TB) and does not have a job, food or shelter.
He sleeps in a bush in Arcadia, East London, increasing the risk of getting more infectious diseases.
Every morning he walks a kilometre to Buffalo Street where he begs Somali shop owners for odd jobs in return for food.
When there are no odd jobs he scrambles for food in the city’s municipal waste bins.
Maresi hails from the impoverished Upper Ngqwarha village near Mthatha and has been living on East London streets for a year.
He has never had a permanent job and has no one to look to for support. His elder sister Nomonde Nzimeni lives in the village and depends for support on her other brother who works on the mines in the Free State.
Things most of us take for granted – food, a home and a job – are luxuries he dreams of attaining one day. The clothes he wears – a grey hooded sweater coat, T-shirt, trousers and pair of shoes – have been donated to by caring members of the public and are the only clothing he owns.
At night Maresi sleeps on the grass and covers himself with a thin blanket coupled with a canvas plastic to keep warm. When it rains he can not sleep.
Recent freezing temperatures have exacerbated his lethal, infectious condition, and he complains of severe chest pains.
When he coughs he spits blood. Like other homeless people in search of employment, Maresi yearns for a habitable shelter.
The availability and quality of data on homelessness in the province is patchy but charity organisation Salvation Army estimates there are more than 200 homeless people in the Buffalo City Metro region who go to sleep cold and hungry every night.
There are no temporary or night shelters in East London for the homeless such as Maresi.
The Eastern Cape provincial government has not yet researched the problem around its cities and the homeless are “invisible” communities around the metro.
They are fathers and sons who have travelled from Transkei, Bloemfontein, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal in pursuit of a better life.
Some have fled dysfunctional families, others to get away from a criminal past while many simply want to be able to provide for their families still living in impoverished rural areas.
Maresi is dying and knows it. He can no longer lift heavy stuff.
Maresi does not take his TB medication and said he would rather try and find employment to afford to go home and die. He refuses to take his medication on an empty stomach.
“I have tried it before and I almost died,” he said.
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