In and out of the townships

Posted by Janine
After a week here, we finally got to see the “real South-Africa”: we went to the townships where most of the people of Cape Town are living -about three million. On Tuesday I was training football in a township to a bunch of primary school boys (yes it’s true) and on Friday I was dragged onto a stage to dance to ‘African house’… in front of 800 high school kids!

The girls at this high school were definitely much better at shaking their asses than I am, so I wasn’t particularly glad for this honour, but hey what can you do. It was a ‘rape-awareness day’ (sexual violence is a big problem here) and I came along with two American girls from my work. It was great to see the energy coming from the event: songs, poems, DJ’s, theatre and even a good old fashioned magician with a hat and strings. The whole thing was in Xhosa though (the language spoken most by the black people around Cape Town) so I have no clue what messages about rape were coming across, but I’m sure it was better than nothing.

The football training is something I’ll be doing every week from now on. Through a student association at the Uni, students can sign up for all kinds of development projects in the poor townships. I was going to teach hockey (guessed I would be more capable of that) but there were only three boys when we arrived. We decided to only do football (soccer), not knowing that within 20 minutes, there were suddenly about fifty boys running around! Quite a challenge to keep them away from the ball ALL at the same time.

This weekend we also spent a large part of our time in townships. Friday night some people of my work took us to Mzoli’s, a famous ‘braai’ (=bbq) place where we got seriously tasty meat. On Saturday a friend of Mette wanted to show us the best place he knew: it was Mzoli’s again! You do feel quite overdosed though, when you hardly get other than meat. To flush it down, we tasted a home-brewed beer at someone’s house. This was a sour yeasty substance served in a small bucket…I think I’ll keep it by this one try! (voor de nederlanders: denk aan ‘t mengsel van “ Brood Herman”)

I started my work at TAC (Treatment Action Campaign, the biggest Aids fighting NGO of South Africa) on Monday and basically have just been reading a bit and chatted with the other volunteers, who are mostly American. I’m glad that I’m going to do something with Aids-prevention -in a country where 5 million people are HIV positive- but haven’t really got a clue yet what it is I’ll be doing.
On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I’m following a course at the Uni. The teacher was ill this week but I am allowed to follow the course, which gives me a chance to get into the Masters Int. Development in Amsterdam (in Feb.), juhu!

It’s getting too long, sorry. But my biggest impression here up to now is similar to what Mikkel wrote: the incredible friendliness of the people. Everyone we met so far, whether white, black or coloured (and yes, speaking in terms of these races is what everyone still does here) have been so welcoming, open, easy-going and nice, that it keeps surprising me. Especially when thinking about the hard life that some of these people are living and the huge contrast between the townships and the rich villa-neighbourhoods on the seaside. But then again, the townships may be poor and look like slums at times (not everywhere though), people there are very aware of style. Many guys may live in a shack in their mom’s back yard, they’ll still drive a cool car and wear the latest fashion. In fact the townships are so much more lively and happening than Cape Town city, that I sometimes think it’s a shame that we are stuck here and can’t be part of their ‘vibe’ a bit more often.

Well… really enough for now. Hope you’re doing good and having it warmer than me in my double fleece and woollen socks (no heating in these houses…). Take care!