Word: mthathas
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...what they wanted in the homelands - but had proved unwilling or incapable of developing. It wasn't an argument that washed with their opponents. The Eastern Cape's poverty lit the flame of rebellion in Mandela and Mbeki, both born and raised near the dirt-poor Transkei city of Mthatha, and Steve Biko, who grew up in nearby King William's Town. Even today, both the ANC and COPE claim the Eastern Cape as their heartland...
...still typified by mud-walled, grass-roofed huts without running water, where boys ride horses, girls carry babies on their backs and families subsist on cattle, sheep, goats, chickens and maize. A new power grid has reached most homes - but supply is erratic. Most roads remain unpaved. In Mthatha, 74% of the population earns less than $150 a month and 43% are unemployed, according to a June 2008 report by the South African Medical Journal. In 2007, East London's Daily Dispatch newspaper revealed that poor maternity care at the city's Frere Hospital was resulting in around 200 stillborn...
Then there is the violence. Parents in Mthatha don't let their children walk to school for fear of robbery, or worse. The South African Medical Journal noted Mthatha's murder rate was 133 per 100,000 in 2005, twice as high as that in Colombia, and nearly three times the South African average. Walls and streetlights in the town's main drag, Nelson Mandela Drive, are plastered with posters offering "Safe Abortion, Same Day," "Quick and Safe Abortion, 3 Hours," even a free lottery ticket with every "100% guarantee, 2-hour" procedure. Nobu Sipoka, director of the Mthatha Child...
...need to perform: instead of focusing outwards on improving the living standards of the country, it focused inwards on improving its own. That hasn't gone unnoticed, and notwithstanding Zuma's populist appeal, may now be punished. "They're crooks," declares Lucky Maqutu, 33, an unemployed construction foreman in Mthatha and a volunteer at St. John's Apostolic Faith Mission Church. "Come election day, the ANC better watch out. They're in for a shock...