Day Two in Cape Town!

We got up and headed out on an SAS trip with the organization Operation Hunger to the townships. During the Apartheid regime colored and blacks were forcibly moved from the city of Cape Town and were relocated to unincorporated towns on the outskirts. People also move to these communities from the rural areas in search of work in Cape Town. Families built tin shacks and eventually, years later, the government comes in and builds small concrete houses for these people. These towns do not have electricity, indoor plumbing, any type of social services, or grocery stores or any other place to get essentials. As we drove out of Cape Town we passed miles and miles of these communities lining the highway. Millions of people’s homes.

The first place we went was to a clinic in Site C. This clinic provides care mostly for people with TB or HIV/AIDs. We got there just as they began to hand out lunch, but only a fraction of the people there could eat because there weren’t enough plates. And I was thinking of the piles of plates we all have in our cupboards. We helped hand out the plates that there were, and I just felt so useless and trite. We were the white people giving food to a sick, hungry African so we could go home and feel better about ourselves. The clinic is the only one for about 4,000,000 people, yet only about 300 at the most come for food 5 days a week. I had never met someone with HIV/AIDs before; at least not anyone that I knew had it. And here were close to 100 people with the poison in the blood.

We only stayed there for about 20 minutes and then went to a newer township, Los Angeles. The big joke by the program director was that he was taking us to LA, but in South Africa, not California. We pulled in in our huge bus and walked off to take packaged food to the kitchen for the community. It was a small tin shack slightly raised off the ground, maybe 6x12. There we learned more about the community and the people in it, then it was time to work. Some of us weighed the kids to see if they were malnourished and so Operation Hunger could track them individually, others of us tried to help in the kitchen but found that we were just in the way, and so we just started playing with the kids and talking to people. I ended up talking to these guys for quite a while. They both were 20 and it was just amazing to meet someone my age and see the stark differences in our lives. One of them built his room off of his mother’s shack because he wanted his own space. He had posters on his walls not for aesthetic purposes but to help keep the rain out. My room at home is plastered with pictures and quotes; even my cabin on the ship has decorations.

We also visited the school house where we met the principle who was also the doctor, secretary, and teacher. Three other teachers worked there, and there also was a small garden out the back to grow vegetables to sell for income for the school/preschool/church, which were all housed in the same room.

After playing some soccer and goofing off with the kids a bit more, we headed out to get lunch, which seemed so wrong. We went to a gas station and most of us bought things to take back with us and didn’t eat all of our lunches so we could give the kids some. In the culture it is the girls who eat first and the boys and men eat second. It is also interesting to see how when there is work malnutrition increases because the parents are not home to feed the children.

When we went back we walked off the bus to the swarm of children and one little girl, no more than 3 or 4, came up to me and I hoisted her up on my shoulders. As we walked I stepped over open wires on the ground and those hanging over head. These kids play with all of them around them. After a little walk we came to an open shack with a bunch of kids inside, sitting in rows. Three men were there and said they are professional dancers who came back to the township to work with the kids to give them something else to do besides get caught up in violence, drugs, sex, or gangs, or anything else like that. So the kids did their stretches, then the three guys danced, and then the kids did a dance. All of this was without music and only to the beat of a drum and the voices of the three men. Even when they were dancing they made the beats with their vocal cords. It was amazing and moving and I want to do more. Somehow I will.

After this we went back to the kitchen where all the kids were given a piece of bread, a small cup of soup packed with protein, and a treat from our lunch boxes. This was the only meal they got that day.

When we left after this I was surprised by how I felt. As this semester has progressed I went through so many emotions: First I was so embarrassed by how sheltered and ignorant of the world I was, then angry at our history teachers and our media. Second I became aware of my opportunity and privilege and I felt guilty. But driving out South Africa’s LA that day I felt inspired and hopeful. I am going back to UW and hoping to learn Xhosa, the local language, and start learning about what is needed most in the townships from an academic point of view. Couple that with the people from Operation Hunger and I plan on being back there as soon as possible. I know that I go through whims of passion about doing things, but this is different. This is there and I saw it and met the people who live it every day. Without knowing it I had been searching for South Africa all along. On the bus ride home I talked with my friend Rory about what we were going to do after this semester. We both worry that we will miss something or not take advantage of where we’ve been or what we’ve done or who we’ve meet, but we both realized that we are both here because this will not be wasted on us. This has not been a semester long Spring Break where we have been drunk and stupid. No. We are learning about places we have never been so we can go back and do whatever we can to improve the living standards of people who were not born with an American citizenship to families who support and love them, as we both were. We are so lucky. Thank you so much Mom and Dad and Miah, you are my rock, my family, my blood.

When we got back to the boat my friend David and I met up with a group of guys, three of whom go to UW, and headed to a semi-professional rugby game. The Springboks were playing away while we were there, but one f the UW guys talked to this guy who used to play professional rugby and semi-professional, so he drove us to the game to root on his old team. He name is Gavin and he is part owner of this Extreme Sports company that takes people bungee jumping, sand boarding, shark cage diving, sky diving, and a bunch more. So, if you are ever in the Cape Town area, look him up! On the way we stopped at a pretty popular bar to get a drink. This girl came up and started talking to me and when I told her my name was Helen she thought I was from Holland and got all excited because she was from Norway. She started speaking Dutch to me so my friend Jordan stared speaking Hebrew to her to throw her off….she was a pretty drunk little skunk so she didn’t really notice. Jordan told her he was from Afghanistan and she got even more excited because she had been there before. Oh, fun drunks. J

After this we went to the game and wow, those men! They are huge and play rugby quite differently than I used to. They kick so much and with every hit you can hear bodies colliding. The scrums were amazing to watch: strong flankers, no turning, perfect passes to the back line. It was so amazing! None of the people I was with knew much about the game, and I remembered way more than I thought I would. It was so much fun to be able to say why a whistle was blown or why this team got the ball or what was happening, or why the heck they inbound the ball so funkily. It was a great time.

After this we headed back to the ship and hit the hay. Oh my gosh, I cannot explain the passion I have for South Africa, and I was only there for 5 days. I can’t believe it. I am so ready to get back there and start working. Ah, what life!