PCV: Paid Caribbean Vacation

I had originally planned on going to the townships with Victor the next day because I felt that if I came to South Africa and didn’t go to see a township that I would be doing a disservice to the country. Semester at Sea (yes, I said it… Google Alert) told us not to go into the townships independently but I was running out of opportunities to go and hearing that some of the trips simply drove through the townships wasn’t going to cut it for me. Semester at Sea is so concerned with the safety of the students that we never get to experience all there is to see and learn from these people. For this reason, I was going to go alone.
Fortunately, I got a call around 11am from Jenny and she wanted to know if I wanted to do Africa Jam. I wanted to do it all along but it was booked and this was the big fundraiser day as well so I jumped all over it. It might have been expensive but the money went to an after school program for kids that lived off less than $1 a day. I figure they need it more than I do. We all packed into a 2 vans and there were about 20 of us total on the way to Kayelitscha Township. This had about 2 million people living in it and this was comprised of nothing but black people. Coloureds have their own township across the street and it is strictly segregated by culture not by law, at least not anymore.
The tour guides were both from the townships. My driver, Winston, was from a coloured township and had been working with Africa Jam since it started 6 years ago. He was extremely knowledgeable and only about 25 so he could interact and fit in with us well. He was full of stories and things about the program but someone that was constantly smiling and telling us what life was like in the townships.
We pulled up to the lookout that is built so that everyone can see the townships and how large they are. We had to walk up all these steps to get a look and to take pictures. The government is busy trying to build nicer houses so that people can move into them and give them better living conditions than living in rickety shacks. The interesting thing was where they were building these newer, nicer houses. They seemed to only build alongside the road and around the lookout. While the answer to the location of these houses is not known, it seemed like the government was trying to cover up how bad it was. Since most of the trips simply drove through and went to the lookout point, these nicer houses would be most of what people saw. The government seemed to be trying to hide what was really going on here. So instead of helping out all over the townships, they were helping out in areas that tourists came and trying to keep them away from the actual bad parts. If you only drive on the road and look from the lookout point, then it looks as if the townships aren’t that bad. Yes, it is poor. Yes, the houses are small. But they are much nicer than what it really is. They try their best to cover it up. I guess if no one sees the inequality then people might think it doesn’t exist.
Luckily, we went into the township. We went into the heart of it. We pulled up to this shack that was held up by one 4x4 piece of wood in the middle and the walls were pieces of metal all around. There were small children all around kicking balls and playing games. When all these white people jumped out, it was like they didn’t know what to do. Most of them flocked to us and just started talking our ears off. I met many of them but couldn’t remember most of their names due to the pronunciation and the number of people I met.
This was Africa Jam. It was an after school program that was designed to give kids another chance and to show them they can do things for themselves. In the townships, many of the children are not allowed to speak to elders unless asked. They are just obedient until they get older. This program tells these children that they can be someone and they have a voice. The idea for us being there was to raise money for them. We got split up in groups of 4 (Me, Dan, Anna, and Tiffany) and each group got 2 kids. Bonga and Vooya were our chosen tour leaders. From there we got a personal tour of their lives. They showed us where their school was, where they lived, let us meet their mother and all the places they shop and play. I have never met happier people in all my life.
Bonga was 16 even though he looked like he was about 13 (my guess is due to malnutrition) he was a happy guy but fairly quiet. I feel that he is one of the smarter guys because when he did speak, it was evident that he knew what he was talking about. He showed us his house which was very small and said that 8 people live in there. I asked him to take a picture in front of it and he seemed very proud of where he was from. No one was home and he said the doors were locked until his dad got home. So basically after school, he had to go to Africa Jam and hang out until his father got home.
Vooya was out of control. This kid was the epitome of ADD. He had so much energy and talked a mile a minute. He was very talented in his acrobatics that he had obviously practiced. He was constantly running and doing back flips and twisting off anything he could find. We got to see more of his life than Bonga because he ran around so much finding people for us to meet. We went to his house, met his uncle, a local rapper, his mother, and his brother. His brother was about 6 months old and his mother was just hanging outside the house as we walked by. She was an extremely nice woman but didn’t seem to want to talk to us much. They were also waiting for the father to get home to let them into the house. I though this was weird that everyone waited for the father to get home to be allowed into the house considering it seemed that women were the caretakers of the children and the keeps of the house, but they didn’t have a key to it. The funny thing about Vooya was that he could never finish a sentence, he would get started then run off mid sentence to find something for us to look at and usually Bonga would finish for him. They were a great pair and complimented each other very well. Vooya was 14 and they said they had been best friends for almost 10 years.
After our hour was up and I had successfully beat them in 2 foot races to the park, we had to go back to the conference center (which was the shack stated before). We asked them where they liked to play and the shack was the place to be. We realized how true this was when we got back and realized that the primary school had also gotten out while we were out in the township and there were children everywhere out and about playing. Whether it be playing soccer, just running around screaming, or playing games that required singing, they were all there and having a good time. Then I made the mistake of pulling my camera out. They swarmed like flies and couldn’t believe it took their picture. Our tour guide told us that some of them had never seen a digital picture of themselves before so it was not uncommon for them to swarm to a camera and get in so they can see themselves. I enjoyed it and they made my day more than they know it even though I guess I made their day too bay taking their pictures.
Finally, we had to go into the shack and most of the kids had to stay outside. We sang songs, danced, and told stories about what life was like in the townships. We played silly games similar to Simon says but they were fun to laugh at one another and break down the comfort zones. We were then told to get together in our group and we had to act out our tour guides. So the 4 of us had to act out Bonga and Vooya as a way to show appreciation for what they just did for us. We were excited but didn’t want them to know how bad of actors we were. We came back in and they all had a choreographed dance prepared for us that was planned by an 11 year old girl. Then they had poetry read that they wrote which was extremely powerful. This was reinforcing how Africa Jam was extremely interested in making sure the kids know they have a voice when they are there and that they can do anything they put their minds to. It didn’t matter how old they were, they could do something and they had a say.
The day was finished with Anthony having a dance off with a guy that called himself Biance. It was hilarious because both are your flamboyant gay personalities and they were flaunting every bit of style they had to show the other one up. I would say the victor was Biance but Anthony put up one hell of a fight. It was fun to watch more than anything and I don’t think it really mattered who won. The videos are something I will laugh at every time I see them.
Leaving the township, there was a general feeling that we could have done so much more. We drove away to see the swarms of men coming over the bridge and back home after a day of work. Most of them were walking home from who knows how far away. It really put things into perspective.
We left the poorest conditions that I have ever been in and went to Camp’s Bay to one of the most luxurious places I had ever been. It was the full 180 from where we were but we were going to someone’s house for Africa Jam Dinner. This was unique to the one day that we went and every other Africa Jam would have stopped after the township but our purpose there was to help raise money for the program. Ellen, the director of the program, had the house that was roughly $3 million dollars. It was on the ocean with a view of Table Mountain in the background. It would not have been a tough place to live. It wasn’t Ellen’s house but someone she knew and they were just using the house for the dinner. There was a live band there (get it Africa JAM) composed of all people that are from or grew up in the township. Ellen’s husband was from there and Quentin was very talented on the piano and vocals. Ellen was just the regular well off kid from the United States that decided to come here about 9 years ago and live in the townships. Coming from Minnesota, she was hit with culture shock and realized that something had to be done. They started Africa Jam as an after school non-profit organization to help children learn how to grow into adults and think for themselves. She was truly an extraordinary woman.
There was wine, cheese, and fantastic food all around. I thought that I would somehow like wine, being in South Africa, but I still think it tastes horrible and stuck to the orange juice. On a side note, to all those that thought I might be able to send wine home for later purposes, a good bottle of wine was about $20 (something you would pay $300 for at home) but to send it to the united states, it was going to be about $100 per bottle. Not worth it if you ask me, especially considering I don’t even like wine.
Something I took away more than anything from Africa Jam was how empowering and humbling it was to see all that I did. These people had nothing, and to them they weren’t missing out on a thing. Africa Jam was over, we had 1 day left in South Africa, and I had a decision to make: to sleep or to go out?