The first drive from the airport to our Cape Town hotel was our first exposure to the townships. Along the highway you can see tin shacks crammed together for miles in each direction. This was Khayelitsha. The Monday and Tuesday before we left for PE we were able to spend some time here doing work. As part of our training we were taken out to a Skillz tournament that was going on at one sight in Khayelitsha. The focus of the tournament was the girls because it was National Women’s Day in South Africa so we helped run a few games and explain rules to the participants (with a little bit of translation help from the coaches there). The tournament was a success from what we could see with small-sided matches going on in one area and Skillz curriculum games being enjoyed in another. The children are so happy to hang out with us even though I did get mauled by about 20 of them on our way out (I think the video is on YouTube). The field was a large, mostly dirt complex in the middle of one part of the township.
On Tuesday we were able to take a tour of another part of the township. This may sound a bit voyeuristic, but it was actually very cool and good for the community. We were led by a group called Ambitious Youth. They are a group of young men from Khayelitsha who offered us a free tour in order to give us a better understanding of what was goes on everyday in these towns. It was amazing to see how developed the business and lifestyle actually was. From the outside looking in, it just appears as though they are quiet miserable places where people only live and eat. In actuality, there is a lot going on. We first visited a fishery which is where people can get fast-food type stuff. It also had an arcade inside. Next we walked past a bar with pool tables inside and TVs. There are markets all over the place where people can get groceries. All of these are contained within these tin shacks. It is weird for locals seeing a large group of white people walking around, but they know about the tours and seemed to welcome our presence with smiles and greetings. One of the places we visited was a shebeen where some of the elders gather to drink homemade beer and gossip. The whole tour was really amazing and changed my entire perspective on what the townships had to offer. The tour guides from Ambitious Youth were awesome and I would definitely recommend getting in contact with them if anytime is spent in or around Cape Town.
After the tour we went to the main event for the day: a GRS soccer tournament and braai (South African term for barbeque). We met at the CTC ’10 field which was built in honor of a student from Franklin & Marshall University who passed away just before is senior soccer season. Amy Cawley, one of the GRS interns who graduated from F&M, will be spending a lot of time working at that field with orphans and some GRS groups. The field is a beautiful ¾-size field-turf field located at one of the primary schools in Khayelitsha. All the staff and friends were divided up into teams and a fun time was had by all. Kids from the township who caught wind of the soccer events lined the field and cheered us on. We all showed our appreciation by giving away our jerseys. A few local women cooked up some great braai and we concluded with a feast.
Port Elizabeth is actually known to have some of the poorest townships in the country. This is interesting considering the industrial state of the city. GM South Africa, Volkswagen, Continental Tires, Goodyear, Cadbury, Ford (just to name a few) are all located in PE. It is hard to fathom the fact that the unemployment rate is up to 80% in the townships around PE. Nevertheless, the township is always buzzing whenever we are at work.
I have been spending a lot of time driving around so far. I was the only one of the four of us here able to drive a standard, so I have been able to go out anytime someone needs a ride. There are three areas where the Port Elizabeth office runs programs: Zwide, Motherwell, and New Brighton. One of my supervisors, Siya, has been taking Sarah and me to Motherwell each day to ask schools to accept us into their curriculum. Sometimes it is a challenge to convey our ideas and our purpose to the principals of the schools, but with time and patience we usually get our point across. Initially Siya did most of the talking, but after a few schools Srah and I both had our chance to introduce GRS. We usually speak with the Life-Orientation teachers for 12-18 year-olds, and set up times when our coaches can come in and run Skillz interventions with the kids. The schools are very receptive to our proposals and for the most part have accepted us. We visited eight new schools and we will start running programs at seven of these schools this coming week. It seems as though the schools are used to NGOs coming in and making proposals. With a lot of teacher shortages schools are eager to get help from outside sources which we like to capitalize on. I think the teachers and principals recognize that it is important for children to learn about HIV/AIDS and the stigma surrounding it; however, it is a difficult topic to bring up in a school setting. This is why GRS and the Skillz curriculum are so important.
Other than driving around I have been helping out around the office with whatever needs to be done. Sarah and I have been helping keep track of attendance for coaches. They sign an attendance sheet every time they run an intervention and this is how we keep track of how much each coach will get paid. Rosie and Mike stay busy with their jobs and we help them out whenever we can. The coaches are all from the township so they are in the office most days hanging out and waiting for assignments. Every Friday there is a coach development session held where all 41 coaches in the area get together at the office to go over developments in the program and anything else that needs to be covered. The first week we went over a contract for a coach’s code of conduct which they got to design for themselves. Last week we celebrated Women’s month by playing netball and soccer together. Having the coaches around all the time is great because they are all so nice. They teach us random things about the town and recommend cool places to hang out. They have also been teaching us Xhosa (pronounced “click-osa). This is the main language spoke amongst black people in the townships. It is one of the nine national languages in South Africa. So far we have got “molo” which means “hello” and “unjani” which means “how are you”. It is tough to get the clicks down because it’s not very natural, and Bere, one of the coaches, told us there are about 85 different click sounds. We will work at it though.
Working in the township is awesome and is really what I was hoping to do when this whole thing started. It is just great to work right where all the kids spend their day. Anytime I want I can usually go outside into the courtyard with a soccer ball and kick it around with little kids. They run a Skillz Street League at Sithembile too so I’ve been able to take part in running that. There is one really cool spot in Zwide where we like to catch lunch. It’s a butchery where you go inside and get a certain type and amount of meat, possibly a loaf of bread, and drinks; then you go around back where there are guys with a braai set up that will cook the meat up for you. It’s greasy and delicious! The township is full of energy with so many schools. There are also mini-bus taxis flying all over the place that definitely don’t follow traffic laws, making driving an adventure. The townships are extremely poor, but it makes you wonder what people need to get by and keep a good mindset. Though there is good reason to be negative in such surroundings, the vibe I get whenever we are at work is a positive one. Through the energy of the kids and the enthusiasm of the coaches it seems like we will be surrounded by a lot of optimism this year. The townships definitely have downfalls too as we have read in the paper and heard at work: a corrupt cop got shot and a fight that ended in a stabbing. There are also huge problems with drugs and crime which make for sketchy surroundings at night. All this being said, I feel lucky to be able to work in Zwide every morning. I will never forget the drive from the airport to the hotel that first morning as we passed by Khayelitsha. By the time I leave South Africa next year, it will be hard to imagine the initial impression I had of what the townships would be like.
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