township tour

The word 'township' usually conjures up images of dilapidated, near-worthless shacks chock-full of people suffering from poverty, disease or hopelessness. That was at least the intention of the apartheid government when they relegated blacks to these townships. The townships-- there are more than 50 around Cape Town-- are located far from economic opportunities and are thus plagued by "unemployment, poor health care, limited public services, high levels of child mortality and HIV/Aids" (Contemporary South Africa-- Anthony Butler). Historically, because townships were located far from the economic hubs of the country, men became migrant workers and spent months at a time away from their families. This practice paved the way for the HIV epidemic in South Africa and the fracturing of the family unit.

Judging from this bleak history, it is easy enough to see townships as festering pools of disease and faded chances. Today blacks largely still live in the townships often in tin shacks that are prone to fires and break-ins. You might think this is because of poverty-- blacks simply don't have the economic means just yet to leave for safer, whiter suburbs. To a large extent this is true. It is not uncommon to see men and women walking the dirt roads to nowhere in particular. Jobs are scarce in South Africa. A good education that will seemingly secure a good job is even more elusive. One aspect of South African tourism is the ‘township tour’—where wealthy tourists are taken to the poorest areas to see their deprived circumstances. We were taken on one such tour in Soweto and visited the home of a mother with six children. We gave her money in exchange for a view of her exotic lifestyle. As my friend Jordan put it—this was poverty porn. More disturbing was the fact that these tours were the only source of income for many in this area. Their economy was predicated on their poverty, which led me to wonder—how can they ever escape?

All of this seems to still prop up the South African legacy of apartheid and racial separation, but it's much more complicated. Economic misfortune is one reason blacks stay in the townships but that doesn't explain why many black reporters and photographers in my newsroom still live there. It doesn't explain why there are BMWs, Audis and Benzes rolling through the streets. It doesn't explain why people use Motorola Rzrs and laugh at my puny Nokia. It doesn't explain the immense material wealth-- stereos, CDs, Pumas, Armani, Dsquared-- that seems the line the walls of these shacks. We saw mansions in Soweto, some people build cement and brick houses behind and in front of their shacks. Others invest R25 000 in improvements to their small, meager homes.

So you have to ask yourself-- is it poverty that keeps blacks there or is it community?

In the past week, I have had the good fortune of being able to visit three townships around Cape Town: Langa, Gugaletu and Crossroads. The trips have given me small insights into this extraordinarily complex sector of society. Townships were the historical hub of the anti-apartheid movement. In Joburg, Soweto (an abbreviation of South Western Township, an area SW of Joburg) was the capital of activism and agitation against the government. In that sense the townships were exciting. They were centers of change, where black pride was born and where giants like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu were weaned. On Saturday, I went to Langa where the remains of four freedom fighters were being handed off to their families. The four went missing in the 1980s, at the height of the anti-apartheid struggle, and were only found this year. I was sent to cover the handing-off ceremony and was shocked by how political the event was. It was no somber affair. Some women wore green ANC Women’s League dresses, while men wore black ‘Vote ANC’ shirts over their jeans. A small minority wore red shirts of the South African Communist Party. ANC freedom songs were sung and people toi-toied (danced) around the coffins. It was a celebration of their life and came as a result of their sacrifice.

Last Sunday, I visited a popular restaurant and bar in Gugs called Mzoli's. If you remember from my last email, Mzoli's is a wealthy and popular restaurateur whose place specializes in meat. (Capetonians are carnivores). Next door is a bar that sells R7 beers. Use the bathrooms at your own risk. I went to Mzoli's with a friend of mine on the same program, Matt Medved. Matt and I were escorted to Mzoli's by our work colleague Mzolisi, a Xhosa-speaking journalist from the Eastern Cape. We took a taxi-- also known as a kombi and not to be confused with a cab-- which is basically a public white van that takes people places for a paltry fare-- R7. The kombis are where one can divine the pulse of the country. The three of us squashed into a seat made for two. We were laughing, and enjoying the music and the Xhosa-sprinkled conversation of the other passengers. We arrived in Gugs about 30 minutes later and stepped into the loudest, most vibrant atmosphere I have seen yet in Cape Town.

Matt and I are no strangers to CT nightlife. We live on Long St, the most exciting street in CT. But this was absolutely insane. Mzoli's the most popular township bar and people from all over Cape Town, even those blacks living in predominantly-white suburbs, come on Sundays to enjoy the atmosphere. There were hundreds of people of every breed and creed. We saw families, couples (both straight and homosexual), singles (again, both straight and homosexual), groups of friends, loners-- even babies. People drank beer, laughed, had great conversation, ate meat, danced exuberantly, played loud hip-hop and house music. Well-heeled folk leapt from flashy BMWs to greet old friends and make new ones. The crowd was mostly black, but there were a few white tourists and a few coloureds. Nobody seemed out of place. There was a sense of freedom and acceptance more than any other place I've ever been. But there was also a collective respect. People drank and danced and kissed, but there was bond that patrons had with the place that kept them from being destructive, aggressive or crude. On Long St., I’m grown accustomed to cat calls and crude remarks, but here people called me ‘sister’, looked me in the eye and spoke to me like I was a person.

It’s this kind of feeling that keeps blacks in townships, I think. A photographer at our paper, Lulama, who speaks Xhosa, was born and raised in a mint green house in Nyanga. He still lives there, but in a different house. There are shacks, muddy roads and few supermarkets, but Lulama wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s a nice environment, he says, he knows everybody and everybody knows him. He also feels safer here. Too few resources are allocated to police stations in the townships, but residents are kept in check by the community. Morality is strictly regulated. A person who thieves another will be found out and ruthlessly punished. As Lulama says “you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

Still, you’re never far from poverty, which is linked to desperation. In Gugs Mzo, Matt and I took a walk around the block, a residential area with cement and brick houses. It’s a relatively okay area with dogs, children, but none of the leafy green vegetation and clean paved roads that characterizes ‘good’ suburbs. No sooner had we taken our walk were we approached by a woman asking for money. She spoke to Mzo in Xhosa, and left disappointed, but used to it. Experts say there is a link between poverty and crime i.e. you’re more likely to commit a crime if you are poor. By the numbers and by circumstances, most of the poor in this country are black. Most criminals in this country are also black. But some say the numbers are deceiving. Another Xhosa-speaking photographer here, Micheal, argues that the criminal masterminds are often wealthier citizens, living in cushy suburbs in respectable neighborhoods. They often prey on township residents, some of whom are desperate to support their families, he says.

Take the Dina Rodrigues case. As I explained earlier, Dina was a white woman who hired four hit men from a Cape Town township to murder the six-month-old illegitimate child of her then-boyfriend. All four men were from the township Crossroads, a tiny community on the outskirts of Nyanga. Last week, I went to Crossroads to interview friends, family and colleagues of the four men to find out how the community was reacting and what these men were like. As I wrote in my story, no one was surprised by last Monday’s guilty verdict, but the deed still shook them to core. There was a sense of failure. Despite their best efforts, their streets had still bred baby killers. How could they recover? How could they explain these actions?

The mother of one killer, a 33-year-old taxi driver who organized the affair, was still aghast at her son’s actions. She is a tired, 68-year-old woman, with 7 other children. Her husband lives in the Eastern Cape and she takes care of her granddaughters and niece. Standing in her small cement house with faded yellow walls, cracked mirrors and mismatched furniture, she explained her son’s background, slowly, carefully and with feeling. She was close to her son, Sipho Mfazwe, she helped raise her son’s children. She didn’t know why he had done what he had done.

We walked through the home, the home that her son, now in prison, had visited every day. In her kitchen with moss-green walls, she closed her eyes and pressed her palms to her chest. She spoke in Xhosa but her anguish did not need translation. How could she have raised such a boy? What had she done wrong? Friends, taxi drivers, former teachers—nobody could explain why he had killed the child. And for so little. The mother of one of the killers, the 18-year-old, suffers in abject poverty. Two days after her son was found guilty, she was back selling fish. What else was she to do? There was no time to mourn. She had to feed her family, herself. It couldn’t be explained, so what was the point?

The story left me sad. Townships are notorious for breeding South Africa’s criminals. They get a bad rap, in my opinion, considering how disappointed the community was by these four men. Considering how shocked and sad everyone appeared. Considering how many questions there still were. After I finished the story, I felt more confused by the diversity of human beings. How can townships be a place of hope, vibrancy and respect, but also deep depravity? I think the answer lies in the fact that the township community is a protean one, one that is ever-changing and constantly redefining itself. In this extreme society, both ends of the spectrum are represented in full force. Desperation and achievement lay side by side. Hope collides with both the kindest and meanest realities of the future.