So, lets go back to June 15. I arrived in Cape Town after 21 hours of travelling.
Here are my first steps onto the African continent.
I was pretty beat at the time, so pushy carts were a site for sore eyes.
As we made our way from the airport to our home in Cape Town for the next ten days, the dark, mystic city passed by in a blur of lights. Looking back, I don't think I expected to find such a developed city in Africa (as I've found since, that is one of the most overplayed stereotypes of Africa).
I spent the next ten days in Noordhoek, a small town located on the outskirts of Cape Town overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. The Team House (the house we stayed at) was the perfect place to start my adventure in SA.
While at the Team House, I met some great friends and worked in a small settlement called Red Hill. It was my first experience with South African squatter camps. You don't really get the full picture of how poverty affects people in our world until your standing next in the middle of a dirt field on the side of a hill, looking at a cluster of 50 shacks built of scraps of metal and tarp. In Red Hill, one tap and one outhouse was shared between every five families. There was one small building where the children went to school daily, and the adults set out each morning on the 5 mile trek to town to find work for the day. I learned quickly, however, that the people of Red Hill, as well as the poor of Africa are not in need of pity, charity, hand outs, or any of the most common forms of aid thrusted at them by the western world (no matter how well intentioned). In fact, I found out quickly that many of the people living in the poorest conditions imaginable were some of the richest people in the world. Spiritually rich, that is. Spiritual richness is a term that gets tossed around a lot here in South Africa. I've heard it sputtered from the mouths of professors, community workers, exchange students, and the list goes on. I think that its probably the one thing that people who visit Africa are left with a resounding picture of in their minds. You needn't go far into South Africa to find a smiling child, who, all things considered, seems to have every reason in the world to fall to the ground in self-pity, and yet still finds it somewhere within to smile, laugh, and grab your hand to drag you off to play.
Anyway, we spent a week in Red Hill building a playground and assisting teachers in the classroom.
Here's some pics of our time in Red Hill. On the right is the plot of ground we started with. At first, it was covered in rocks and trash. A week later, we had the left picture. A beautiful playset and soccer field on leveled, safe ground where the kids could run and play without worry. The day we finished the playground has far and beyond been the best day in South Africa so far. After working in Red Hill, site seeing all over Cape Town, and doing a little partying, we sadly made our departure from the beloved city and made our way to a small town called St. Lucia, located on the eastern coast of South Africa in KwaZulu-Natal.
St Lucia is half way between Durban and Richard's Bay on this map.
In St Lucia, we stayed at a hostel called Shanalanga, which in isiZulu, means sunset. For the next ten days, we went on safaris, organized a day camp for the kids of Khula Village, who were on holiday, built a creche (day care / school), and learned a good bit of isiZulu. Here's some pics:
KwaZulu-Natal is one of the more rural areas in South Africa. The interesting thing is that there is a clear distinction between urban poverty in Africa and rural poverty in Africa. While the crammed settlements of metal shacks and dirty streets is quite the un-nerving site, the poverty experienced in rural South Africa is frankly bone chilling. Isolated groups of people are found in clusters, living day to day, fighting off the deadly symptoms of aids, feeling the pressure of life constantly bearing down on their shoulders. Single mothers, pregnant daughters, leaking roofs, sick children, miles to the nearest doctor, all, ultimately experienced only by those who live there, and, occasionally, seen through the windows of mega-tour buses by tourists unable, incapable, or uninterested in making a lasting difference. And yet, hopes seems to remain, children can still be seen running, playing, and laughing. Mothers can be seen waking morning after to morning to silently take on the chores of the day. Sons and daughters can be seen making there way to small school buildings to sit on dirty floors with reused paper to gain any knowledge that may help them find an opportunity to make it out. Hope is a peculiar thing, fade as it may with the darkness creeping in; never does it disappear. Never is it lost. Happiness lies within. Its rare to see and experience such facts of life first hand. I'm a truly blessed individual.
Anyway, with the end of my time in St. Lucia came the end of my time working within African communities. For a while at least. We spend the next two weeks in our large tour bus travelling throughout northeast South Africa to visit battle sites commemorating the bloody battles fought by the Zulu warriors and the Dutch settlers. We visited museums displaying the hardships experienced by the oppressed during apartheid. We visited Soweto, the place of massive youth uprisings and a pivotal point in the fall of the apartheid regime, Pretoria, where consequences of gold and diamond mining has left a resonating imprint on its people, and Johanessburg, the bustling city in flux, trapped between third and first world status, stuck between the age old traditions of African culture and the hustle and bustle of western economy. A city plagued by paradox, yet filled with culture and zest, Joburg stands as a sign of what was and what could be. It bears the scars of inequality under the segregationist policies of the apartheid government. It is both everything unique and special about South Africa, as well as everything corrupt and lost. We learned of poverty, both material and spiritual, of AIDS and disease, of culture and diversity, of song and dance, of corrupt government and shining leaders with a vision of a brighter tomorrow, we learned all the intricacies of another people and we learned of ourselves and the tickings of our own hearts. We learned that in Africa, time is not constrained to the tickings of a watch or a clock; it is seen as a resource to be cherished and made the most of. And yet, to hurry to meetings or to eat merely because your clock says its lunchtime, is to forget what makes life so beautiful. 'Sowbona' is the Zulu word for hello. "Molo" in isiXhosa. Yet it means so much more than hello. It means hello, it means how are you, it means life is good, it means time doesn't matter in this moment because the only thing that matters is you and me, it means the same thing in the morning as it will in the evening. It is a celebration of life. 'Ubuntu', another word I've picked up along the way, expresses a sense of community, of brotherhood. It is, as I've learned, the heartbeat of African culture. It binds people of different skin colors together. It, for me, is the representation of all that is good in this world because, ultimately, we do not exist without each other. Ubuntu binds us all together, as human.
While its often true that a picture says a thousand words, I've learned in Africa that in the time spent behind the lens of a camera in hopes of displaying thousands of words for friends and family back home, one single word can pass by that says it all; and if we don't stop to appreciate life every now and again, those words tend to be left in the wake of flashing cameras handled by tourists staring curiously through the windows of tour buses at people whose name will never be known, yet whose picture will sit forever on a computer screen. And yet with one word, all that is needed is one moment, one connection between two people so as to lock them together eternally as more than a curiosity or a picture, but as a brother, a sister, a friend.
Ubuntu has taught me this, and so, so much more.
Till next time, my friends, ad astras...
