20 Jan 2009 – Settling In

Saturday was the last of our days as South African “tourists” as we spent the morning doing a wine tour near Stellanbosch. We visited a long-established, family-owned winery, where we climbed into the open bed of a WWII era army truck that had been converted into a farm vehicle, and clung to the rails for our lives as we hurtled over the green hills on a rutted dirt path. It was exhilarating, if not a little dangerous, by US safety standards.

We spent that afternoon at a much more commercial winery that boasted many other attractions, including cheetah-petting, eagle-watching, picnicking by an algae-choked pond, and craft browsing. We ate a buffet lunch in a resort-like outdoor restaurant, complete with brightly colored sun tents, live African music, and a family of friendly ducklings that padded past now and then, quacking politely for scraps. We lingered on overstuffed, outdoor couches beneath a broad canopy of tree leaves until the breeze grew too chilly, and we sprawled on sunny grass.
Have I inspired any jealousy, yet?

On Sunday we had our first introduction to the townships of the Cape Flats, and the atmosphere shifted dramatically. The largely-impoverished townships are the product of apartheid-era resettlement programs, and can be most easily compared to the ghettos established in Europe during the Holocaust. Cape Town and its suburbs were relatively integrated before the resettlement ordinances drove “nonwhites” into meager housing communities, about fifty years ago, and since then, poverty, crime, and drug use have been continually pervasive. The disenfranchisement of millions living in the Cape Flats has outlasted the laws and politics of apartheid, especially as HIV/AIDS and Tb have ravaged a significant portion of the population.We spent the morning in the township of Guguletu, attending a service at the Sivuyele Baptist Church, which aptly translates to Joy. When we arrived, the church had been distinguishable from the surrounding peach-colored buildings only by a simple brown cross above the door, but as we stepped out of the van, we were greeted by the harmonies of a welcoming hymn.
Men and women sat in separate sections of the crowded church, dressed in clothes far nicer than the ones they could afford to wear most other days of the week. We sat and stood (and danced) our way through the emotionally powerful service, which lasted about two and a half hours. There were no organs or instruments to carry the songs that made up a majority of the service, but the hymns were full and rich with the sound of voices and dancing feet and hand “pillows” (which when clapped in rhythm, act like a bass drum). Even though most of the prayers and declarations were delivered in Xhosa – the most popular language in the townships – certain parts were translated into English so that we could follow along, and upon leaving, we exchanged mutual thanks with the preacher and members of the church community.

For the rest of the afternoon, we traveled in our group van through some of the major townships like Langa, Nyanga, Khayelitsha, and Mitchells Plain. Most of us had never seen such acute poverty on such a grand scale, and when we finished the trip with a walk to the top of a hill in Khayelitsha, the sheer size of the expansive Cape Flats – fringed by the hazy mountain range in the distance – was overwhelming.
The most depressed areas in the townships consist of both solid structures and “squatters’ shacks”, with metal shipping containers and scrap metal huts stacked on top of one another along the sides of crowded streets. People mill about everywhere in the hot afternoon sun, securing roofs with old tires, hanging clothes on the line, walking to catch a minibus taxi at the next stop. Heat rises in waves off of the sea of rusted metal, as goats and dogs and even horses roam the littered streets and vacant lots, scavenging. Some people wear clothing that appears very western, while others wear more traditional African and Indian dress. Most children do not wear shoes, even as they kick a make-shift ball along a glass-covered street. Dirt whips up in the narrow passages between the shacks when the wind blows. People meet at the street corner to buy bread or fruit from a vendor working out of a beat-up car. I took these pictures from the window of the van, as walking through the townships brandishing a digital camera would only invite trouble.
We held our first house meeting with our RA, Ben, on Sunday evening, to sort out the “communal fund”, to which we’ll all contribute money for household items like toilet paper, laundry detergent, and dish soap. With 15 people living in the house, the task of determining which items are “communally necessary” is more complicated than one might think.
On Monday and Tuesday we spent the mornings and afternoons visiting all of our internship placements in Cape Town and the townships. We all will be working Monday through Wednesday at a school or NGO, attending classes on Thursday, and working on an “activist project” of our choice on Fridays and/or the weekends. Among the placements we visited were: Sonke Gender Justice Network, Saartjie Baartman Center for Women and Children, Cape Nature, Thandahulu and Christel House Schools, Treatment Action Campaign, and Black Sash. Two of the placements are in Khayelitsha, the largest of the townships, and the rest are in the city or its suburbs.
At each organization, we met with the directors to learn about the history, purpose, and accomplishments of the programs, and we made mental notes about which places might make good activist projects. Our activist projects will function like a second, less-structured internship at a social-oriented organization, so many of us will probably end up spending Fridays at the same places our peers will be interning earlier in the week.