Welcome to My Home

This is my house:

12 Lake Road

Grassy Park

Cape Town, South Africa

 
    It’s a cozy little home that houses twenty people. That’s right…there are twenty people living in my house right now including three little ones all under three. It is quite chaotic at times, but always very entertaining! I live in a bit of a sketchy neighborhood so my home has a gate in front (although most houses in South Africa have gates), a wall all around, barbed wire atop the wall, and bars on the windows.

I live in Grassy Park, but my house is literally four houses down from the border between Grassy Park and Parkwood. Both of these towns are in the Cape Flatts, which is home to the majority of the coloured population in Cape Town. Parkwood was first built to be a coloured township whereas Grassy Park is more of a middle class community. The “apartments” in Parkwood were built so that there were four apartment buildings in a square and then roads around this square so that if there was every an uprising the police would easily be able to surround the buildings and quell the violence. Parkwood is technically no longer a township, although many people I talk to still refer to it as one. As there is not enough space for everyone, many little shacks made up of tin sheets and pieces of limber sprang up in between the apartment buildings.

      Parkwood is to the left of my house. Grassy Park is to the right. One  of the first things my roommate told me when I arrived was that I was not allowed to go left. When I told Nazeema, my host mom, that I wanted to go take pictures in Parkwood her exact words were “You want to do what? Are you crazy? I would never walk in Parkwood.” But I drive through Parkwood everyday on the mini bus and there aspects of it that I want to remember. All of the pictures below are taken within a five minute walk of my house.

Without further ado: Welcome to My Home.

To the left:

     People used to dump old tires along the side of the road. One man, Zeb, decided he was going to do something positive with them. The result is this tire “garden.”

     As Christmas is just around the corner Christmas decorations are up all over town! A local tent church put up this Christmas tree to ring in the season.

       I love how the people of Parkwood have taken to "cleaning it up" by adding a tire garden, putting up a Christmas tree, and other little things which make it a brighter place. They make the most of what they have and I know this is a constant reminder to mind to seek out the bright spots in a seemingly dark place.

The most beautiful mountain range surrounds Cape Town. This is the view I wake up to every morning:

A glimpse of the shacks that have been built up against the “apartments”:

And then there are just these homes that miraculously stand up on their own:

To the Right:

     Grassy  Park is your average neighborhood. There’s the local butcher, the local bakery, the BP Garage (my source of milky bar smarties bars [basically the greatest invention ever – white chocolate chocolate bars with smarties {essentially M&Ms} in them]), a few small supermarkets and a handful of other shops. Most of the homes have high gates/walls around them but as you go farther to the right some of the shrink down to about waist height. The neighbors are all super sweet. When I was talking pictures one older man stopped me to warn me that I need to be cautious and aware. His friend then started talking to me about the days when he used to drive foreign exchange students around. Everyone is chatty and friendly and wants to know what we are doing here.

     This is my street. Lake Road. I can’t get enough of the mountains that surround us. Some days I’ll walk down the street and you always have a view of this magnificent range. This picture doesn’t do it justice but shows the normal parts of life. There are cars on the road, people walking down the streets, street lights, and telephone poles.

     A neighbor’s garden. There are a few houses down the street that have beautiful gardens and whenever I pass them I can’t help but smile.

The local elementary school:

And the playground at the school:

     It boggles my mind that these kids grow up with barbed wire constantly around them. Fences topped with barbed wire surround their school. Fences topped with barbed wire surround their homes. Fences topped with barbed wire surround the shops they go to. In a way it seems as if they are always caged in.

The local bakery that my roommate and fellow gap year-er, Kayla, and I visit on an almost daily basis! Everything there is delicious!

    Every morning the streets are plastered with signs from The Voice, the local newspaper. Occasionally the signs are in Afrikaans and they are always kind of ridiculous. They provide a constant source of entertainment as they rarely say anything of substance and often make absolutely outrageous claims.

The local church:

The local playground:

This isn’t the best picture of the playground, but all of the rides are painted bright red, blue, green, and yellow!

Even Grassy Park has a few shacks:

     Most notable about this picture is the dog hanging out in front of the house. There are animals that roam the streets everywhere from townships to your average neighborhood. We even have horses that come by pulling carts on occasion!

     My favorite picture from the entire trip is one that I took in Parkwood. It brings a smile to my face every day when I pass by this sight on the mini bus. To me, this picture sums up the attitude of Cape Town and my experience here in South Africa. The shacks and the barbed wire and the high walls and the constant reminders to be cautious and the funny looks from locals when two white girls get on the mini bus do not define South Africa for me. This photo is South Africa. 

This is my home. Where you always know that You Are Special and that God Loves You.

Shark Cage Diving

Nuff Said.

(Photo Credit: Alixe Varnel)

Back Up to Building

While not as extreme as bungee jumping or Bonnytoun, the building project deserves a shout out as well. To be honest, I’m not quite sure whether I spent more time building or playing with the two adorable boys, Alex and Aiden, who were always hanging out around our project! What’s even worse is that I’m not sure whether I was sorer from building or from Aiden literally jumping on me every two minutes! Those two boys sure kept us on our toes!

But to building – our two weeks there flew by! We were working in a township, Vrygrond, to help build a community center. Bernie, an incredible woman trying to transform her community, is the life force behind this community center. Thanks to her efforts, there in now a children’s library in Vrygrond and soon there will be a community center equip with a kitchen, IT training equipment, and a functioning toilet. Our efforts were centered around the toilet, lovingly called “the shithole”, by our project supervisor, Deen.

This community center is being built in a new method using sand bags as the main stronghold for the structure. Volunteers before us dug a huge hole in the sand, make over 3,000 sand bags, put them in the hole and cemented the edges in the first step of building the toilet. The physical toilet will drain to this underground structure and filter through. Our job was to cover this hole. Let me say that I can now mix cement like a pro. It is a very exact science, mixing cement. To get the best result, you want to mix one bucket full of sand with two half spades of cement and about a jug full of water (like I said, an exact science.) Anyway, we mixed cement, and then mixed more cement, and then waited for that to dry, and them mixed more cement. And the process continued until we had three slabs big enough to cover the “shit hole” with. Finally, the day came when we were going to move these slabs. The only problem…they were WAY to heavy. Solution: hire a few (roughly ten or eleven) guys from the community to move them for us. Moving these slabs was a struggle even for these men! Once the slabs were in place we mixed more cement (shocker, right?) and put a final layer over the slabs and then put our hand prints in it so it will eternally be known that “the global gap group finally closed the shit hole” – Deen’s words (not mine).

However, this thing continued to plague us. We spent the next two days shoveling sand over the concrete to make it look level with the rest of ground and appear as if there is nothing underneath. Other volunteers before us have laid down concrete slabs, but vandals had smashed them to get the steel beams out of them so this time we knew we had to cover them up. I know for a fact that on the days we shoveled sand I was sore from shoveling– not from Aiden (although I’m sure he didn’t help!)

We spent our last few days there learning how to build a wall using the sand bag method. First you have to fill the sandbags. Then you lay a few in a row, take a piece of wood and a mallet and hammer them down until they are flat (it’s a great way to release pent up aggression!). Mix some cement (yes-more cement), lay a little on top, put another layer of sand bags down and repeat the process until the wall is the height you want it. After you get it as tall as you want it to be, you get to (get to sounds much more pleasant than have to) mix more cement! Then you plaster the sand bags so as to make a smooth wall. This is where the fun begins. The cement does not want to stay in between the cracks in the sand bags, so it falls out. As a result, I thought it might be a good idea to use my hands to try and cram it in. Not my smartest decision. Turns out cement really dries out anything and everything it comes in contact with. While it put up a good fight, we finally beat the cement into the sand bags (literally) and shaped a solid, flat wall.

                One of the things I think will stick with me the most from building was one seemingly random incident. One afternoon, this group of five or six twenty-something year old guys walked by the building project carrying this great big stainless steel sink. They looked at us and nodded and we nodded back and that was that. After they passed, Uncle Deen (that’s what we call him) goes “you know they just stole that sink and are gonna go sell it somewhere else now.”

It was such a nonchalant statement. They stole the sink. They are going to go sell it now. That is just how it is.

 It was odd to me that this is such a normal and acceptable occurrence. But really, what is anyone supposed to do? There is no police force in the township, no security, no nothing. People steal things to make a living and that’s just how it is.  

                I was reminded of Ghana and how quickly it became normal to see women walking with goods on their heads, to drink out of plastic bags and to have people trying to sell you things in the middle of road while you’re driving by.  Just like those things are customary in Ghana, theft is a common occurrence in townships in South Africa. Theft is a way of life for many in townships just as selling water off the top of your head is a way of life in Ghana.

                I think I remember these little things the most because it’s crazy to me what is “normal” for others around the world.

                Anyway, our time at building was a blast and I am proud to say that I did do manual labor! I’ve added a few pictures of Vrygrond below so you can get a sense of what where we worked was like and I will add more pictures of us doing work when I get them! Cheers!

Alex (:

Aiden (not-so-secretly my favorite kid at the building project)

A few of the sand bags we had to fill and Whiskey - resident guardian of the building project.

The Building Gang
Top Row: Laurence, Mary, Alixe, Billy, Macrina, Me, Ester, Eddy
Bottom Row: Jack, Kayla, Bowl-of-tricks (or at least that's what we think this dog's name is!)

"When I go home, I will die."

I went to jail today. More accurately it was a facility for young boys (roughly 14-20) who are awaiting trial, although many do serve out their sentences there. What struck me first was that this place harboring young men who have committed unspeakable crimes is actually in a beautiful place. Bonnytoun, the facility, is outside of Cape Town on the way to the wine lands. We turned in to the driveway and all around were lavender fields. These bright, little, purple flowers surrounded the high walls and barbed wire fencing that is Bonnytoun.

                I couldn’t help but thinking this contrast was very fitting as Cape Town is a city full of contrast. Extreme wealth and extreme poverty are in extremely close proximity in Cape Town. Bonnytoun, in a way, also reflects this disparity. The beauty of the lavender fields and the brokenness of this young boys’ detention facility are adjacent to one another. I have yet to wrap my head around how these contrasts can coexist, but the fact of the matter is that they do.

Just food for thought. Anyway, Bonnytoun is one of Projects Abroad’s Human Rights Office (PAHRO) social justice project. We go there to hold workshops with the boys. Due to violence in Bonnytoun, the boys are usually only let out of their cells to eat and then are sent back to their colorless, concrete room. Today, we brought an article along about gang violence in Lavender Hill, a sketchy area/township in Cape Town. (Here’s the link to the article: http://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/in-a-month-i-ll-be-dead-1.1168293)

We split up into groups to talk to the boys about their thoughts on the article. Kayla and I grouped together with about six or seven of the boys. As it turns out, two of them are from Lavender Hill and are members of the Funky Junky Kids (one of the major gangs in Lavender Hill). They got wide-eyed when we read the article aloud. I think it’s because it struck a chord with them. We talked briefly with them about gang life and how it’s essentially impossible for them to get out of the gang. We talked about tik (meth) and how they and the Corner Boys (their rival gang) are slaughtering each other over it. We talked about why they were there. My conversation with one of the boys from Lavender Hill:

Me: How long have you been here for?

Boy: One week and two days.

Me: How long will you be here for?

Boy: I am here for murder.

I didn’t know how to respond. This boy (eighteen, just like me) was sitting opposite me just one week after he had killed somebody. His reasoning: he didn’t even remember doing it. He was high on tik…

                Another boy in our group was also awaiting his trial on a murder charge. What happened, you may ask. He went to rob a woman and she tried to defend herself. So he stabbed her.

                Me: Do you feel bad about it?

                Him: If I didn’t kill her she was gonna try and kill me. I wasn’t going to kill her, I just wanted her

money.

Needless to say it was a very intense experience. We tried talking to the boys about their dreams, how they were going to change things for themselves when they got out, what positive things they would do for the community if they had money (the one who murdered the woman for money said he would use the money to get high every day, positive right?), etc. On the one hand, it was a bit disheartening. You want to go in there and talk to them and be like, yeah things are gonna change for the better when you get home and you’re going to be an entirely new person! That’s not the reality of the situation. Life in a township does not provide much (or any) opportunity to move up in the world. These boys feel the need to join a gang for the protection the gang offers even though joining can also be a death sentence.

                We asked the boys what things will be like when they go home. The one who stabbed the woman: When I go home, I will die.

                When I go home, I my mom will greet me at the airport, most likely with tears streaming down her face, and wrap me in a huge hug. When I go home, I will climb into my big warm bed in my big warm house and sleep like a baby. When I go home, I will consume Mexican food and Velvet yogurt in ridiculous quantities. When he goes home, he believes he will die.

                More contrast.

                On the bright side, one of the boys was incredibly responsive. When we asked him what he wanted to be in life he said “a father”. His father wasn’t around when he was growing up, but he wants to be there for his kids. He had been at Bonnytoun for seven months and is finally having his trial at the end of this month. He wants to raise a family, have a house, and maybe even be a doctor one day. He wants a future. He is planning on death when he gets home, he is planning his life.

                Walking out of Bonnytoun the lavender fields were still there. Despite the tik and gangs and violence that infiltrate these boys’ lives, there is some color right outside. And I know that at least one of them wants to experience it. For now, that a success.