Endless Summer Tiny World

Last night ended up well, a bunch of us were hanging out on the hostel terrace and decided to head down to the waterfront for dinner. It was fun, there were 9 of us who went so it was a good time!

This morning I woke up early and went a township tour. The townships are communities that are basically squatter communities, where a lot of the people who lost their homes during apartheid moved to and now continue to live, sometimes in one room houses they built themselves! It was very down to earth educating tour. It sort of made me realize that I really was in Africa. Though it would not be the best way to live. I went there with so many questions and think that now I may have even more! It was very eye opening and I would recommend something like this to anyone who comes to Cape Town.

The tour started out at the District 6 museum. This is the museum about the area (district 6) which was the largest community of coloured people who were forced out of their homes during apartheid. They were forced out to create room for new developments and this became a white only area. These people were mostly moved to the Cape Flats where they squatted on government land. Some areas have government housing, or hostels and others are all houses built out of material the people found themselves. Some look like a normal neighborhood with cars and everything you could need, and other parts of it are all makeshift houses, or businesses in old shipping containers. There are now tons of townships all around Cape Town, as well as other cities as well,  and the largest one they think has over 1 million people living there.

After being to the hostels they lived in, it is amazing how small of a space the government planned to put these people in. But also how small of a space some people are still living in! There were people out everywhere, everyone was very nice. And we got to go to a “brewery” and a witch doctor. There were terrible smells at the witch doctor, and this beer is pretty unbelievable, they fill up a bucket about the size of a paint bucket and you get to have it. It takes 4 days to brew and is made in huge plastic barrels.  The hostels were tiny and two families shared an itty bitty room with two twin beds. You paid rent for a bed and put a number you bought into an elecric box and that is how you get electricity.  There were 6 families sharing one bathroom and one bigger dining room area.

There were nice places and houses that looked pretty normal and some that were built by the government and after paying rent on them for awhile you were considered the owner. After that there were the makeshift houses and shipping containers. The shipping containers were mostly businesses because they were so hot during the day. The self built houses were basically whatever and however big you built them. They had no water, and they share toilets at the edge of the section of town. There was one spot that had water, they get water for free, and you went there to do your showering and cleaning of clothes and get buckets of water to take to your house.

It really was amazing. There are so many questions to ask when you are there and sometimes it is so hard to understand how this happened. But all in all, it is pretty eye opening to smell, hear and experience! I have attached lots of pictures of the hostel bed you rent, the brewery and its brewmasters and drinker, and the community.

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