Amazing Weekend

Zinele, Paint, Braai, and Chilling in Khayelitsha
Steve and I decided we wanted to help Zinele, the woman who works at both of our places, fix up her place a little bit. She lives in Khayelitsha and just put two new rooms onto her house, so we agreed to come out and paint the rooms for her. We enlisted Jobie and Ina to help out, and headed to Khayelitsha on Saturday morning. It took a while to find the place, but we did and we managed to get some paint and primer at a wild hardware store that seemed to sell just about everything in a pretty random order. Our initial concern over whether to get flat paint or glossy, and what exact shade, was thrown out the window - we said cream, they handed us a giant bucket and some tint. Quite different than the Home Depot experience... When we got back Ina was working on Pumi's hair, waiting for us.
The two rooms were bare cement walls so we started the first day with masonry primer. This is Steve, Jobie and Thandile, Zinele's son, setting up the paint.
The walls were wet and the primer was thin, so as soon as it was on, we had to wait a long time for it to dry. Thandile loved working with us,
and we even got Ina to actually paint a little bit.
And Jobie was representing the UK quite well with some meticulous work and colorful expressions:
The rooms were stuffy so the fumes made constant breaks a really good idea. Steve started dropping a little science as the fumes collected. It was a worthwhile treatise on paint...
We finished pretty quickly and headed outside, hoping brain damage hadn't set in yet. That was when the fun started. Zinele was happy with the first coat...
Everybody around came by and said hello as we waited on the front steps and Pumi, Zinele's friend, cooked a braai to thank us for helping out.
Pumi immediately enlisted the kids to help out - the boys chopped wood and gathered meat and got everything ready. We weren't allowed to help. According to Zinele, this was a boy's job.
Toddlers were everywhere, coming in and out. This little girl had some particularly advanced dance moves, to be honest, and an incredibly infectious laugh when held upside down by Ina:
Some of the boys were fascinated by us, but had slightly shorter attention spans and they were pretty shy. But they were being taken care of - not by one person, but by the whole street. It was nice to have them around, scooching in and out of the house, offering chips, playing tag, wanting to play with us.
I think this kid had the best hair - although I wouldn't tell Paula Abdul up there.
Ina made friends with Sibakhle, Zinele's daughter (the one getting the hug here) and got taken around the neighborhood to meet everyone.
This guy walked away a bit dazed...but giggling.
Zinele was so happy, she kept screaming how happy she was with us being there. It was new, having people come to the township and really do something different within the community rather than just drive through. Zinele and Steve here - she loves to talk about him, explaining that he "may be white on the outside, but inside he's Xhosa!" (I generally like to shy away from exclamation points, but with Zinele, there's no other way to speak)
Zinele was so proud of her family, and especially her daughter Sibakhle and her son. Her are mother and daughter - they look a lot alike:
Jobie deep in conversation out on the street with Zinele's cousin.
A couple of township dogs managed to get close enough to guilt some of the kids out of their chips.
As we were all waiting and hanging out, everything was incredibly relaxed - the best feeling I've had since the plane landed two and a half weeks ago. There was an enormous sense of community and we started to feel like a part of it - everyone was so welcoming. Zinele and Steve and Ina are here hanging out on the front stoop.
Zinele's brother, Kaya, who came by to make sure we were safe, ate with us, and left when he realized everything was more than okay, and Zinele's cousin (laying down) during lunch.
Pumi was a good cook, and oversaw everything. In the end, as we were eating, Zinele couldn't stop shouting: "Pumi - my fat friend - she's a good cook eh!?" After which she would cackle in laughter and even Pumi couldn't help but laugh along. Here's Pumi, enjoying some herself, while I say goodbye to Zinele for the day.
It was so relaxing, and even though everyone looked at us like we were aliens at first, they were incredibly welcoming and warm when they got used to us being there. The kids were the greatest - lots of fun, funny as hell, and curious and shy at the same time.

Matty Arrives

That night we picked up Matty at the airport and enlisted him to do the next day's work. Zinele gave him her usual greeting.
We finished the rooms in no time. Steve took some photos - check the color, nice?
We then walked around the neighborhood - saw Pumi's house and heard Zinele's plans for developing the area.
Zinele said goodbye and we headed to an nyama, which is like an outdoor bbq stand with excellent meat. Here's the happy homeowner:
We met some more kids at the nyama, of course, and loved this guy's hat.
In a strange next step - we headed to wine country and culture shock. Extreme poverty to a nice glass of wine in a french restaurant, had me reeling a bit. Amazing mountain behind us though - really beautiful as the sun went down over the foothills of WhiteMatt.
Tonight we pick up Andy and tomorrow it's of to the Cape of Good Hope.

Johannesburg - City of the Highest Violent Crime Rate in the World

People are Afraid

I arrived in Jo'burg, as it is commonly called (I think because no one is completely sure about the full name - how to pronounce, how they like it, etc.), on a Tuesday afternoon and Kelly picked me up at the airport. We hadn't seen each other in 12 years, so we caught up a bit and went back to her parents' place where she's staying now. They live in Atholhurst, a pretty nice suburb full of big walls, security gates, guards, and anything else to keep them safe.

Immediately, Jo'burg was quite different. I had heard about this, but never seen it. It's interesting, there is much more mixing between races and socioeconomic groups here, but it also seemed to me that there was just as much, if not more, racism. People are afraid. There is so much violent crime and even though there are security codes, alarms and armed guards, they are still attacked and robbed by desperate people, tsotsis, gangsters from all areas but especially the townships. There is a real fear of the "other" there, engendered by this huge crime rate and the apartheid legacy. Kelly told me about her friend's father who was recently robbed and beaten nearly to death while tied to a chair in his own home. Apparently, the criminals then had a party with his liquor before taking off. He died the next week.

Stories like that make people own guns and shoot at anything that moves, and with millions of people living unequal lives it's like a powder keg.

Kelly's family was very warm and inviting, and her dad was happy to talk to me about his experiences in the SADF during the 70s and 80s. It was interesting to hear how he looked back on his mindset at that time, how he saw it as "brainwashing," the way the government taught the soldiers that they were guarding their very way of life against an eminent "black revolution." He explained that this was the main reason a lot of the soldiers willingly took part in enforcing the laws of apartheid - they believed that they were regularly threatened.

Soweto

Soweto is probably the most famous township in South Africa. On June 16, 1976 it was the site of the largest student uprising of the apartheid era and the real beginning of the mass movement for change among the youth and, eventually, everyone. Students began protesting because the government instituted a policy of Afrikaans instruction in every "Bantu" school. Recognizing this for what it was, a systematic method for subjugating people to the ruling class, students began protesting and demanding English education, which was infinitely more valuable. The protests turned violent when police showed up and responded with deadly force. The situation was brutal - the police just drove around the township shooting people nearly at random trying to quell the uprising. One of the most famous images of this was the photo of Hector Peterson running with a young girl next to him and a small child dead in his arms. He was shot just after the photo was taken. Today, at Orlando West high school where the protest started, there is a monument and museum dedicated to his memory. On the tour we took we went to both. This is the monument in the exact location that he was killed:

The small coca-cola sign is the Orlando West High School and the small strip of grass leading to the wall there comes from the larger monument next to the museum commemorating the uprising:
The tour we took of Soweto was strange - it was all in a bus and I got the feeling that we were, as Thope explains, treating people as if they were in a zoo. I wouldn't recommend taking a bus tour of these places, but we did get to see a lot. Here are some of the more indelible images. First, Soweto is much more developed than other townships, and you find areas like this:
And as I've mentioned before, HIV/AIDS is a huge problem in the community, and raising awareness is a big part of that - some people still think unprotected sex is okay, and some people even think that traditional healers can cure it. Murals like this one try to educate:
Some areas are still extremely poor, and people live in informal settlements and dorms much like the townships I have seen before. This is one of those areas:
Huge industry in the townships? Shack building. This is an ad for a shack "pre-fab" builder - you pay by room and wall number.
Soweto is not short on history. This is the square where the Freedom Charter was debated and put together and signed. Today it's an open air market:

Avenue of the Laureates

On one street in Soweto live two Nobel Peace Prize laureates; Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. This is Mandela's front yard, the house was closed for renovations but that's okay - I like imagining him sitting here meeting with liberation leaders, student activists and MK soldiers:
Desmond Tutu still lives here, so his house is a bit bigger and more fortified. Some people, although very few, don't dig the whole reconciliation strategy:

The People

One thriving business in the townships everywhere is the collection of scrap metal, usually done in these horse-drawn carriages that actually move deceptively fast on main roads:

The Apartheid Museum

Definitely the best historical museum I have ever set foot in, the Apartheid Museum famously declares that it has put Apartheid where it belongs: in a museum. The whole story is here, and I highly recommend seeing it before you die. Unbelievable. Here are some images, write me a comment if you want to know about them!!!!!
Finally - Jo'burg was the home of the recent xenophobic attacks. Can you figure out this sign? I have no clue (what's up with the swastika?):

Khayelitsha Part One

Kopanong Bed and Breakfast

The day after I went to the funeral I drove out to Khayelitsha to spend two nights in the township at a bed and breakfast run by a woman named Thope Lekau, who is an amazing woman. During apartheid, she worked as a paralegal in the townships training other paralegals to work in their communities to teach people about the (limited) civil rights they had. During most of apartheid the police were the main enforcers in the townships and they ruled with an iron fist. They regularly harassed people, arrested them, and in some cases murdered people to enforce the government's policies. For a long time the police were an extremely unwelcome sight, and people did not know about the small protections they did have. The paralegals in those communities also served as touchpoints for evidence collection. If people had been detained or harassed and they wanted to fight back, the paralegals would help them collect evidence so that the few progressive lawyers who would take their cases could come into the community and quickly take whatever action they could. Needless to say, Thope and all of these paralegals were dangerous to the state and often had to run from police raids and essentially work undercover to do their work.

Thope now runs the Kopanong bed and breakfast with her daughter, Mpho, who handles the tours, getting people situated and all sorts of everything else. Thope doesn't just run the b&b though, she is very involved with the whole community and has made it her personal life's work to help the community out. She works a lot in developing the "entrepreneurial spirit" among women in the townships and runs various workshops on how to make your home into a prosperous b&b. Here are the digs - amazingly nice for the townships:

I loved talking to her and Mpho. She talks a lot about her responsibilities, and loved to explain that "now I must deliver!" on the promises and commitments she has made. Here's the incredibly welcoming entryway:

I spent two great nights there and got to feel at home, and the day in the middle I got to see around Khayelitsha with Mpho. Khayelitsha is much, much larger than Langa, the other township I had been in, and has about 1.5 million people. From lookout hill, it stretches as far as the eye can see:


It's the fastest growing, and next to Soweto, the largest. People flood in from the Eastern Cape and live in informal settlements and build shacks like these:


Business in the Townships and Xenophobia

There isn't much industry, but there are tuck shops (convenience stores), fruit and veg stands, and shebeens (informal bars set up in people's houses) on most streets and corners. Oh, and there are TONS of hair places and barber shops which, like in the states, serve as informal places for folks to gossip and socialize.

This is a small tuck shop down the street from Thope's. It is owned by a Somali man who, during the recent xenophobia attacks, was targeted and run out of the township. The nice thing though was that the neighborhood rallied around him to make sure he wasn't hurt in any way. He left the township, but now is back and doing fine.

These guys could cut some mean hair. I need a haircut - but I'm a bit shy and I'm not sure they would know what to do with the mess I call a scalp. These next two are from a shebeen, and there were two right next to each other - one for the young guys, which was pretty rowdy, and one for the older guys, where they drink Umgomboti, a traditional beer made from sorghum. It tastes a bit off to my palate - but I've had a few different batches and some are better than others. Check the face.

These guys thought I was a complete wuss, I'm sure...

There are lots of these farms stands, and they sell these great oranges called nartjies - delicious. Here's one:

Speaking of farms, and in the grand Gass family tradition of photographing anything that says moo, there are cows here (I know, you thought city? welcome to the twilight zone of farms and cities, the broad, crazy mush of Khayelitsha). These guys stopped traffic, and this one had an itch:

Here's a typical street:


Kids, Big Kids, and More Kids

In the townships it is very much a village raising a child, and children moves freely around and in and out of homes and people's arms. They also love soccer. These guys were good - wish I could have caught some of the acrobatics on film, but I had to snap fast:

Mpho was a great guide around, and the kids flocked to her and me - often with shouts of "Molo umlungu!" (Hello, white man!)

When the kids aren't hanging out, they're at the community daycare center, which is free, and pretty well run but somewhat overcrowded. I wanted to catch them at recess, but they were taking naps. One of them caught me though:)

When they're just a bit older, they can set out a bit more, and play in playgrounds which badly need cleaning and some grass.

There are plenty of older people around too. This guy lived in the neighborhood and promised me that if I stayed a bit longer I could see god in the face of a child. Perhaps a little crazy, or perhaps just very honest?

I visited a 12th grade class which was great, but heartbreaking - many of these kids don't have the means to get to college and their next step is very uncertain. Education is so valued here, and yet so underfunded and teachers are in dire need of training. These kids all asked me how to get loans and somehow get to keep going to school.

In the next few days I came to know Khayelitsha even better, and in an amazing way, but first I went to Jo'burg and got my mind blown some more. Thanks Mpho!