A typical Kalahari landscape on the outskirts of Pomfret. This harsh but beautiful environment plays an important role in the narrative of Thirstland as a character in itself.

Pomfret owes its origins to the large asbestos mine on the outskirts of the town.

Before the veterans and their families were settled there, the mine was the lifeblood of the local economy. It was shut down in 1982. 

Thirstland uses the mine as a visual device to exemplify the nature of the degradation of the town itself. 

A physical marker of the isolation and neglect which illustrates the isolation and neglect of the town of Pomfret is the many abandoned and vandalised buildings.

When the army base at Pomfret closed in 1993, responsibility for the town was bounced between the Department of Public Works and the local Molopo-Kagisano Municipality. Neither seem concerned for the state of the town or the well-being of its inhabitants.

The  African National Congress government appears to harbour serious resentment toward the community because the former Angolan soldiers fought alongside the apartheid state. Most of the veterans are now elderly, many are disabled, and while their children and grandchildren know nothing of the war, they are punished for it. 

The local municipal government has, since around 2003, aggressively attempted to force the town and all its inhabitants to leave and relocate elsewhere, both actively and in more passive, insidious ways,using any number of excuses to justify forcing them away from each other and out of the town that they love and call their home.

The local government initially adopted a scorched earth policy, which saw police and private demolition teams entering the town to destroy buildings and infrastructure in an attempt to make the town unlivable and force residents out.

The vandalism and steady decay of infrastructure continued with of the closure of the municipal offices and the police station in Pomfret in 2008.

The following is taken from an article in the Mail and Guardian in 2008:

“One of the inhabitants, primary school principal Domingos Sebastiao, said in court papers that the dispersal of the community would leave its members alone and vulnerable to persecution and xenophobia—which they had already experienced in their dealings with local authorities, including the police and local municipality.

He said the most vulnerable members of the community, including the elderly and disabled, would lose their support network if the close-knit and culturally unique community was destroyed”.

A Place of Their Own seeks to uncover the roots of this grave social injustice. 

Jose Lorenzo is a 32 Battalion veteran and a central leader of the community in Pomfret. He saw many of the horrors of war on the Border but now wants only to live in peace in his beloved town. 

He does not understand why his people are not free to live where they choose.

“They said this is your place. You can stay in this place until you die. Because we don’t have anywhere to stay so we give you this place because you helped us a lot. Now, they leave us here, behind. 

Nothing.

This, Pomfret, is my home. I like it. I’m going to die in this place. Really, I won’t leave this place”. 

Jose Kufa was born in Angola but came to Pomfret as a small child. His late father served in 32 Battalion.

Kufa is the town “fixer”, he helps many of the residents of Pomfret with all manner of problems and issues. In addition to being one of the community leaders, he also runs a small printing/scanning business (the only one in Pomfret) and fixes broken and discarded electrical appliances despite the fact that the town has no electricity supply. Kufa uses a small petrol generator to power his computer and printer.

He argues that the Angolan residents of Pomfret have made every effort to integrate into their community as South Africans but that the state still treats them with contempt and tries to tear them apart by forcing them out of the place that their parents were promised would always be their own almost thirty years ago. 

“All our families, parents, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and even grandmothers have been laid to rest here so… if one day the Almighty decides to call me, I would also like to be given the privilege of being laid to rest that side beside them, so that I can receive their comfort and blessings as well. 

There is no need for us to be buried somewhere else. This is our home. There is no need for us to go and build graveyards wherever we go. This is the second one. We left one in Buffalo and this is the second one. We definitely don’t want to go onto a third one so the second one is enough for us”.

Marta Mosebotse has lived in Pomfret for most of her life, her parents having both worked at the asbestos mine. Her mother passed away of cancer several years ago and her father suffers from asbestosis.

She is the caring mother of ECO children’s home which provides a healthy family life for orphans, neglected and abused children in Pomfret.

“I want to see the progress in children, I want to see the prosperity. You know, to stay in Pomfret doesn’t mean you are not the same as a child from Pretoria or Cape Town.
We are all the same, we all deserve the same treatment, we are staying in one country”.

On the 8th of December 2014, the local Kagisano-Molopo municipality cut the electricity supply to all residents of the town of Pomfret, saying that there was a high incidence of “illegal connections”.

Local government representatives consistently refuse attempts by residents seeking to engage with them about the delivery of basic municipal services such as safety and security (closure of police service), healthcare (closure of the local clinic) electricity and water and sanitation.

In the arid semi-desert environment of the Kalahari, water is the most precious of resources.

In recent years the local municipality has actively cut off the water supply to the residents of Pomfret in a malicious attempt to break the community apart and force them to relocate to elsewhere.  

The bare shelves of the last remaining trading store in Pomfret are indicative of the slow death of a local economy.

Despite the existence of a fully functioning power station less than a kilometer from Pomfret, the local government has denied access to electricity to the entire town since December 2014.