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| Homes and the homeless. |
IT rained heavily on Wednesday, July 10, 2011. On that day, nine-year-old
Sarah Adubi was searching for an alternative shelter after an ill-wind had
blown away her carton and Cardboard made home. Unfortunately, she
didn’t succeed in getting one, even though she tried to.
About 12 metres away from her home, she needed
to get past one of the erosion-created gullies that transverse her
neighbourhood but she couldn’t get past the gully. Her small feet slipped and
she fell into a four feet deep gully while the treacherous flood swept her at
top speed, smashed her against several objects and finally deposited her at the
foot of a banana tree near a carpentry workshop. By the time she was found
later that evening, her clothes were in tatters and she was unconscious.
In his introduction to ‘Man’s Struggle for Shelter in an
Urbanizing World,’ Charles Abrams observed that: “despite man’s unprecedented
progress in education, industry, and sciences, the simple refuge which affords
privacy and protection against the elements is still beyond the reach of most
members of the human race.”