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GOGO IS BLIND AND TROUBLED

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Blind gogo Selina Mdaku uses this rope to walk to the toilet. Photo By Phineas Khoza.
Blind gogo Selina Mdaku uses this rope to walk to the toilet. Photo By Phineas Khoza.

GOGO Selina Mdaku is blind, but she doesn’t walk with the aid of a walking stick.

She gets to the pit toilet by holding on to a rope tied to poles between her shack and the toilet.

The 84-year-old from Emaphupheni in Etwatwa, Ekurhuleni, lives alone.

She is helped by neighbours, who told the SunTeam her children neglected her but took her grant money.

Community worker Thandi Mavuso said: “They buy her some food and take the rest of her money. We fear for the gogo’s safety.

“She told us they sometimes only give her food once a day and a bottle of water. She doesn’t bath often.

“We’re worried because the pit toilet she uses is not stable and she could fall in.”

Thandi said the gogo’s kids had told her that her grant had been stopped, but they were taking the money.

When the SunTeam visited the gogo’s shack, there were holes all over it. She said she
often wraps herself in blankets when it gets extremely cold.

“I go to the toilet to relieve myself and then come and sleep here in my bed,” she said.

“I live in bad conditions, yet I have children. I just want to go to a home.”

Her son David Madonsela denied that he was eating the gogo’s money and claimed to be looking after her.

Social development spokesman Mbangwa Xaba said they would send social workers to investigate.

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