The Townships

Monday December 13^th. Today I went on a tour of two of the “Townships”, Langa and Guguleta. This is another word for resettlement camps where the blacks and coloureds were forced to live after they were forced out of Capetown. Even today many South African blacks and coloured people live in the Townships, some because they have no other choice economically and others by choice. Cape Town has population of 4.7 million and 60% of them live in the Townships! They continue to grow because of the rural people who are leaving the country to come to the city for a better life. In the Townships there are different types of housing. There is the squatter self-made shack level of the new people; then there is the hostel level, which was used originally to house just migrant male workers, but now accommodate whole families in a single room and several families in one building with one toilet and one kitchen; then there is the basic entry level of renting a place (the landlord is the government); then there is small rental housing, where apparently you rent for ten years and then it's yours; and surprising there is the “Beverly Hills” area where people can actually buy their own single family house if they have become successful enough working somewhere. There were five of us and two black guides, who still live in the Townships by choice. We did a driving tour and then a walking tour. During the walking tour we went to a local bar where they make their own type of beer. We were encouraged to sample it from a stainless steel pot. It tasted okay, but didn't look okay, and was kind of gritty with sediment. We went into a couple of different housing types, very basic and unclean. We saw lots of children as school is out for the summer holidays. The Townships are apparently safe except at night when the discontented teenagers often cause problems of robbery, car jacking and house breaking. The guides told us that there is a real sense of community in the Townships and people generally get along. Supposedly there is little jealousy between poor and well off, as the latter is a sign of hope for the former. Kind of an African or American dream. If they can do it, and rise above this, then why can't we? I am not an expert, but having seen the Favelas and the Townships, I think the Favelas are worse for a few reasons:

1. in the Townships, water and electricity are provided by the SA government, and the government is the landlord; in the Favelas the drug gangs provide most things or take them away,

2. the Townships are policed by police; the Favelas are policed by gangs and the real police cannot even get in,

3. the Townships seemed fairly spacious in comparison to the Favelas because they are on flat land and there seems to be a fair bit of it with room for roads (the government provides the land); whereas the Favelas are built going up mountainsides where there is little space and no room for roads, just foot paths (people just build on land that no one uses, they are illegal squatters).

Having said all of that, the people I saw in both places didn't look as unhappy or desperate or resentful as I would have imagined. They seemed content or resigned to their lives, or perhaps they lived in hope. But, in both places young children played, laughed and smiled as kids everywhere do, despite how dirty they might be or how sad their surroundings.

In the afternoon, I went to the Waterfront to have lunch and to take a ferry to Robben Island to see the prison and cell where Nelson Mandela spent so many years. It's like another Alcatraz, an island out in the harbour about 9km from shore where the Apartheid government imprisoned dissodants for life. Unfortunately, the ferry was cancelled because of rough seas and tomorrow is totally sold out, plus it is supposed to be really windy again tomorrow. As a result I cannot go at all. I'll have to content myself with reading about it on the internet.

The rest of the day I spent in my room organizing and beginning to pack up.