Andrew Trench notes from the revolution

Rock 'n roll in Nompumelelo

It's Wednesday night and we're sitting packed like pilchards in a primary school classroom in Nompumelelo, an informal settlement in the heart of East London's suburban belt. On the walls are pencil crayon

drawings of the South African flag by the Sinempumelelo Primary kids. Behind me is the clean-up roster for the pupils, and, oddly, a clipping from our paper of Rhodes Vice-Chancellor Saleem Badat's tribute to Steve Biko is pasted to the wall.

It's the second of our Community Dialogue series in our experiment with civic journalism and the room is packed with folk from this poor neighbourhood, part shanty town, part state housing. They are wearing the colours of all the major political players: the bright yellow of Cope, the blue of the DA and, up front, there's a contingent wearing ANC's t-shirts with Jacob Zuma grinning back at my deputy editor Bongani Siqoko and I.

It will not be long before we learn some important lessons about trying to do civic journalism in SA.

We start with introductions and make it clear that this is not a platform for politicians, but a platform for residents to talk about the issues that concern them in their community. There's a loud cry of approval when we insist that the politicians will have to keep mum and listen instead of campaign tonight.

We get off to a roaring start compared to the more muted beginning in Beacon Bay the night before. As soon as we open the floor hands shoot up, waving to be noted.

It's like popping the cork on a shaken bottle.

Everyone has something to say: they're concerned about the clinic with only one nurse, there's no community hall and the elderly have to stand in the rain to get their pensions, the rubbish isn't being collected, people are being forced to buy water for R4 a bottle, there are big problems with a project intended to build a new high school and the existing one has a class with a 130 kids and no desks.

The complaints are endless: why can't we get sports fields, they ask, so our kids can play there instead of turning to drugs and crime? Why are businesses investing next door to the community and not hiring locals, they've lost all faith in the city to deliver services for them.

It's an incredible process to watch, almost a cathartic release by people who appear to have seldom been asked to talk about such things publicly. I wonder to myself what this says about local leadership. Why are people so eager to talk tonight? Have their leaders never asked them about this stuff before? With an election only weeks away, I find this hard to imagine.

The meeting becomes more heated as a cocky agitator at the back tries to rile the crowd up against the Dispatch. "We're not going to vote for the Dispatch. Bring the politicians," he yells. "They've only come here to get stories!" Duh?

He is shouted down and literally thrown out the room by locals and some cops. A local ANC politician tries to make a stand and is yelled into submission. Listen to us tonight, people are saying.

Now civic journalism is also supposed to be about exploring solutions to some of these problems.

In Beacon Bay the night before suburban residents had spoken about their desire to assist in Nompumelelo and we tell Nompumelelo folk this. How about giving us some names of people here who would be willing to talk to your neighbours across the N2 highway, we ask.

But that's when we start to hit a brick wall.

One man volunteers to take down names and numbers but is immediately shouted down by others who say this is now a political issue that needs to be dealt with by Sanco and the meeting descends into chaos. It's clear that one of the main problems in this place is that there is little consensus over leadership in the community. Everyone seems to be trying to play their own angle - not surprising, I suppose. When you live in such conditions, who wouldn't seize any glimmer of a chance to get ahead?

Our facilitator Zukile Ningi says he is losing control and we had better end things fast before it spirals completely.

Bongani takes the mike and wrestles the crowd back into submission and we close the meeting instantly.

Whoaah. Some lessons here: don't think you can easily take this town hall-style meeting into such a community. As events unfolded it became clear that internecine battles between neighbours were starting to play out in that classroom.

Don't even try and get into ideas for solutions at such a meeting. There is simply so much that people want to get off their chests that it's impossible.

As we leave the classroom a rowdy contingent of Cope supporters are singing and dancing their way out onto the street outside and, as my car bounces up the potholed dirt road out of Nompumelelo, the Cope chorus is on my left and has grown to about 50-strong and they are having a great time.

On my right is the ANC crowd from the meeting and they are singing too.

I look back and forth and I realise what I'm witnessing. Here are these two groups - supposedly bitter rivals in this big political story we are covering - singing at each other... with big grins on their faces as they wander off into the night.

This civic journalism thing... it opens your eyes.

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