Day 271 - Cape Town - 4th May

Yesterday we booked to go on a tour of the shanti towns (now known as "informal settlements") so we had to get up on time today and prepare to leave with our guide at 8:30am. My goodness, it's going to be fun getting us all back into the groove of work and school again.

Our guide arrived on time we left with 2 other people in a new Volkswagen mini-bus. Our first stop was the District Six museum which is in downtown Cape Town. The museum was established to remind us what happened during the worst days of apartheid. The Group Areas Act of 1950, which was one of the cornerstones of apartheid policy, designated the area known as district six as a whites only area. 60,000 coloureds and blacks had to leave. Not immediately but it was all completed by 1980 and the area was bulldozed. This policy was enacted all over the country and the blacks and coloureds were all herded into new "informal settlements".

They were not simply dumped, as has been suggested. Dormitory style accommodation was provided for the working men and small one room huts for families. Over the years and with the huge influx of people coming into the cities from the rural areas, the informal settlements expanded and became more ramshackle. However, in the main, they have electricity, sanitation and clean water.

The museum had all the stories of families being split up (the informal settlements were divided by race even though all the races were living together before) and the devastation caused by the loss of property (they were compensated for some property but at way below market rates). Everyone was issued a passbook which only allowed people to go into areas if they had a job there. This effectively kept all the blacks out of the white areas.

After the museum (we had to drag Julie out) we went to the townships themselves. The first stop was the local "pub". I think they are called shebeen. These really are wooden shacks. Inside a fire was burning (it is actually quite cool here at the moment) so the place was filled with smoke. The ladies who ran the place got a bucket of beer and passed it around. We all had a gulp (or sip). It is a very weak beer, brewed with no sugar and tasted very much like my amateur efforts at home brew many years ago.

After this we went into some of the dormitory style accommodations that many people live in. They were originally built for working men with 3 or 4 beds to a room but now there are often 3 or 4 families per room. They have one room which is a kitchen with a couple of paraffin cookers. The room was blackened by the soot created by this type of fuel. Julie and I were surprised to see the tidiness and cleanliness in the place.

We moved on to one of the nursery schools which was sponsored by amongst others, the Backpackers Hostel where we are staying. There were about 75 kids aged between 2 and 5 in a room which was no bigger than 24 foot by 20 foot. They receive 2 or 3 tours like us every day. They sing a little song then they jump all over you. The boys were quite overwhelmed but not upset, to have 6 or 7 kids jumping up at them all at once.

We saw other projects and much physical development happening here. The people can see that things are happening. They are even building quite substantial houses here which the better off are buying. They are able to finally own their own piece of land.

The strange thing is that even though apartheid was outlawed 11 years ago, when Nelson Mandela and the ANC swept into power, there in no evidence of integration. The blacks and white and coloureds still live in very separate communities and have completely different lives. The division is enormous. There is still alot of work to do.