Stunning Stellenbosch – heaven or hell?

Last year while jogging past the taxi rank in Stellenbosch, the student town of the Cape Winelands, I noticed an old man standing alone on the sidewalk. I stopped in front of him because I could see his lips moving, and since no-one else was around, it seemed like he was talking to me. I leaned in to make sense of his mumbles. “I don’t want to live anymore,” he said loudly, looking at me, but talking to no-one in particular. As tears filled his eyes I wondered how many times he had said that before.

I felt my body weaken as I stared at him, wide-eyed. His dirty clothes were torn and saggy with tiny holes and tears. His hair was grey and dirty and his beard grew wild. His face was pink, yet dull and between his sunken eyes and cheekbones, spiderwebs weaved years of poverty together. To this day I still carry the guilt of not responding.

Stellenbosch is one of those must-see places in South Africa. But stay too long, and you might soon find yourself in an inexplicable, undiagnosed state of Schizophrenia. Here we are surrounded by breathtaking mountains, we breathe fresh air daily, we probably have the best wine in the world and our acorn trees are evergreen, but to say that the region is heavenly would be inaccurate.

At first I thought it was. I was won over by the fact that the beach is just an exceptionally scenic 20 minute drive away, past lush wine lands. Almost everyone and everything in Stellenbosch is remarkably beautiful. The most common language is Afrikaans and the town is culturally vibrant.
For a small town girl like me who had to study for three years in the city, Stellenbosch immediately felt like home. Unfortunately it takes only about a month of waking up next to a township (I live on the corner of Adam Tas and Bird Street – right across from Kayamandi township), to be disillusioned.

In Stellenbosch, as most South African towns, you’ll find a case of extreme poverty versus extreme wealth. It’s hard to believe that in such a relatively small place there can be such radical opposites. On the one side, you have tourists and wine tasters who attend local bands’ CD launches and art gallery exhibitions – mostly blissfully unaware of the poverty that surrounds Stellenbosch.

On the other side of town, there are the residents who survive by selling cheap fish and fruit and vegetables or work on wine farms. These people live in areas like Kayamandi and Cloetesville. Some of them take care of their families through begging or guarding cars at shopping centres. Even though it sounds similar to any other town in South Africa, the inequality in Stellenbosch (considering its size) is frightening.

You can find bergies – the local term used for the homeless and for beggars – all around town. The class differences in Stellenbosch go hand in hand with race, and the majority of these beggars are coloured (a politically correct term in South Africa). Among the residents of Kayamandi and workers on surrounding wine farms, there is a serious problem with alcohol abuse and the use of tik. History reveals that workers used to be compensated partly with a salary and partly with alcohol, producing generations of alcohol abusers.

According to Eric Samanga, one of the residents of Stellenbosch’s night shelter, it is difficult to find work in Stellenbosch, unless you know someone who can help you out. “I moved from the Eastern Cape to Kayamandi in search of a job. In the first week my wallet, ID and cell phone was stolen.” Samanga now tries to find work or beg for food in the richer Stellenbosch areas. “People mostly swear at me and shout at me to leave. They don’t even give me a chance to explain,” says Samanga.

A Pick n Pay employee, Fezeka Ndabagaye believes a lack of jobs is the main cause of poverty in Stellenbosch. “People around here are fairly educated, but they are unskilled. Nobody wants to hire you if you have no work experience,” Ndabagaye says. At the same time a so-called bergie, Samuel Robbertse says he is jobless because of foreigners who provide cheap labour. “People come from other countries and are prepared to work for R40 a day. How are we supposed to compete with that?”

In my country we complain about car guards asking for money when they only watch over our cars for an hour. “How will they defend robbers anyhow?” we think. We complain about homeless children guilt-tripping us into giving them small change around every corner. We are outraged that these people beg because “they should work hard like the rest of us do.” And to ease our conscience, we believe theories such as “They probably work for syndicates and are much richer than we are by now” or “My friend says the other day she saw a beggar getting into his Mercedes when he went home, there’s no way I’m giving him money!” We tell ourselves whatever will get us through the day, because facing the growing poverty crisis is just too overwhelming.

In Stellenbosch we live in heaven, but we live in hell. The poor aren’t going anywhere, (except 30 kilometres per taxi home and back) and there’s never enough wine to keep our hearts blind. It takes such a large amount of energy to remind ourselves that the poor are human beings, that by the time they ask our help, we are exhausted. Poverty is one of the most complex issues humanity has ever faced, but at least we have the power to face it together. Right?

 

 

*Another version of this post was published in Financial Mail – Campus in 2010.

Picture-shy in Kosi Bay

Every day on my way home from work, I would drive past a group of children in the bush in rural Umhlabuyalingana. At first they were a bit shy, but eventually they warmed up to me (or got more curious about me) and would happily wave when I came past.
One day I decided to take a picture of them, but I had trouble asking them in IsiZulu, and when I pointed my camera at them they retreated back into their shy shells. I had to take about 20 pictures of the birds, the trees and myself, to convince them that my camera and I were harmless.

Here you can see the sequence from them being shy to actually posing for the final photo.
I am happy to say that these are some of the kindest, friendliest young people i’ve ever met.

The desire to live is the same within all of us – Rai Aren

During my first week in Umhlabuyalingana, a rural area in South Africa, I learned more about HIV and AIDS than I had my entire life. In the conservative high school I attended in my hometown, the message was more or less ‘don’t sleep around or you’ll get AIDS and die’. We were under the impression that HIV was a punishment for promiscuity, and that it was only black people in South Africa that could get it. I sit here ashamed tonight, as I admit that I was part of creating the HIV stigma back then, not because I advocated it, but because I didn’t have the courage to ask more questions about it.

HIV is cruel. The virus leaves you fragile and vulnerable. In most cases it leaves the poor poorer and the sick sicker. I have seen people with cancer, meningitis, tuberculosis, diarrhoea and mental illness – all thanks to AIDS – struggle to survive because they are malnourished or don’t have easy access to medical care. Umhlabuyalingana’s HIV rate is almost 40%.

During my stay I visited homesteads where people were on the brink of death – some aware of it, others blissfully not. I listened to people being taught what disease has attacked their bodies and the ‘simple’ measures they could take to extend their lives with a few years. Unfortunately when you live so deep in the bush and it is not within your frame of reference to use drugs daily, these measures become less simple. Even though these sights both pained and angered me, I still felt like the world was in some weird way still alright.

That was, until that fateful day when I drove several kilometres on sandy roads in the blistering sun to visit some of the region’s orphans. Outside of the crèche laid a dirty doll with half a head of hair, missing a leg and an eye and peering at me with the hole where her arm used to be. This doll should be used in horror movies I thought. It suddenly struck me that she was the only doll there, and in fact the only toy.

I heard children singing as I got out of the bakkie. I walked slowly towards the small, stuffy building which the crèche rented from a church, hoping not to interrupt them. As I entered, I could feel the heat ascend from the cement floor and I immediately looked up at the windows, hoping for a breeze to swim through.
At the sight of me, the children jumped up and down and cheered excitedly. “Miss, miss!” I felt a bit embarrassed that they were so happy to see a white person, until I realised the only whites that ever came to the area were either doctors, NGOs, or very rarely, some tourists. It was in fact possible that I had been the first white person most of them had seen in their three to five years of living.

“Sanbonani!” I smiled as friendly as possible. Snotty noses and big eyes smiled back at me. “Siyaphila,” their teacher encouraged them to reply. “Siyaphila!” They shouted in chorus, hyperactively fidgeting and moving around. I waved. They waved, all smiles.
I completed my stuttering interview with the isiZulu caregivers and waited for the children to say a few rhymes together, before we went outside for lunch. Today was a special day, instead of having the very nutritious fortified cereal (e’pap), the children were given vegetables, beans and rice from the nearby primary school. The children received water from big plastic containers and it struck me that there was no tap anywhere. Amanzi? I asked. “No. Siyahamba.” We walk. “Electricity?” I asked. “No,” she replied, and I felt a bit ridiculous for asking. Of course they didn’t have access to water and electricity, very few people out here do.

The children ate eagerly and I took some pictures while trying to engage with them, even though I only understood very little of their language, and they were too young to understand too much of it either. The carers explained to me that some of the children had been in a very bad condition before they came to the crèche. “Most of these children are orphans and have no-one to care for them,” she said.

I tried to imagine what it must be like, being an orphan. No-one to buy you clothes and toys, in fact no-one to buy you food. No-one to hug you when you come home from school, in fact no-one to send you to school. No-one to chase away the monsters under your bed, in fact no one to provide you with a bed. No-one to teach you the smallest of life lessons and no-one to comfort you when you are sad. I choked up. No wonder these communities have learned to take care of each other – there really is no other way. After a few hours of observing the children’s playful interactions, it was time for me to leave. I found it hard to say goodbye and kept wishing I had something more to offer them. They waved eagerly as I drove off, back into the wilderness.

Back at the office I discussed how I felt with one of my colleagues. “Unfortunately many of these orphans are also born with HIV,” he said. “If they don’t get Antiretrovirals, they might only make it up to eight.” My face turned pale. I showed him the pictures. He sighed, his eyes refusing to look up at me. “Some of these children are already in their final stages of AIDS,” he said softly. He put the photo down in front of me.
I tried to pick up my arms to support my heavy head, but they just hung lifelessly beside me. My head started spinning and I grew extremely nauseous.
The world is not alright.

That night, my brother sent me a text message with an unexpected question. “Cope jy nog?” Am I still coping?
I didn’t know the answer then and I don’t know it now. Ever since that day something in me has changed. I wake up knowing those children are out there, living with an ill fate, and I go to bed knowing those children are out there, living with an ill fate.

Back in ‘normal’ society I hear people saying “That is so sad,” but I shouldn’t expect them to change their lives, or expect the thought to linger in their minds for more than a few minutes. Some even say “that’s just how the world goes.” Damn it, that’s not true. I am not okay with it, and I am not okay with everyone being okay with it. I don’t necessarily know what to do, but I know for sure ignoring the problem is not making it better.

The unfairness of it haunts me. And the absurdity that we consider some lives as more important than others, well, that just bluntly drives me insane.