ISMAIL LAGARDIEN: Marco Polo on a rubbish dump in a world turned upside down
Europe or the ‘West’ cannot, and should not, be the reference point when we discuss ‘elsewhere’
When I was about 12 years old, walking back from Malay school through a cluster of trees about 2km from home, I used to scrape and scavenge among the heaps of rubbish that were dumped in the fields of Nancefield, the larger area in which our new township, Eldorado Park, had been established.
We moved to Eldorado Park from Vrededorp — Fietas, as we called it — where, on 25th Street, we also bordered on dumping grounds and rudimentary encampments of homeless people on the edges of Johannesburg. The smell of beer brewing in containers buried in the vacant plots, mixed with the stench of pit toilets and fragrances of spices, enveloped our days and nights. ..
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