It’s Saturday morning on the Cape Peninsula. On the teeming streets of Masiphumelele (Success) Township just over the hill from Kalk Bay, it’s braai (barbecue) time.
The avenues are fogged with fragrant smoke as the aromas of beef steak and lamb chops and home-made marinades fill the air. Cheerful township women are roasting their mealie cobs and meat on makeshift sidewalk grillers while kwaito (township) music blares out from the open windows of battered cars as young men in dark shades pass slowly by. An old fellow in a red jersey three sizes too big for him comes ambling up, waving a bowl containing six hard-boiled eggs and two canisters of Aromat seasoning in our faces.
‘Cheap snacks. Cheap snacks. One rand, one egg. Spice for free.’
Charlotte the Guide
Like a schooner in full sail through this cheerful crush of township road life comes our escort, Charlotte Swartbooi.
‘The people here love it when visitors walk through the township and meet us,’ she says.
Charlotte, one of the community leaders in this hardscrabble enclave of about 24 000 souls, has an open smiley face and a bright red turban on her head. Her husband died in a car accident some years back, leaving her with three children and a township shack. She is making ends meet by showing visitors how this mainly-Xhosa settlement survives.
Foreign Donations
‘A lot of people – many of them foreigners – have donated what they can to Masiphumelele,’ she says as we stroll to the Bicycle Empowerment Network, operating from a set of containers off the main road.
‘We get old and broken bicycles from England, Switzerland and Germany,’ says Charlotte. ‘And they are fixed here and sold cheaply to the locals.’
As we walk, we can sense something close to an air of contentment in the township. Maybe it’s the weekend washing over us, but there also seems to be an attitude of self-help and determination, something found in valuable pockets in the sprawling, dormitory ‘locations’ that accompany almost every town in South Africa.
AIDS Awareness
We pass a European-funded clinic where people are tested for AIDS and, if found positive, are offered free retroviral treatment.
‘Ooh, but it makes you so sick at first,’ exclaims Charlotte as we continue. ‘I once knew a lady who started taking the retrovirals and I thought she was going to die. She asked me whether she should stay with the treatment and I said yes. I secretly wondered if she was going to make it through. But a few weeks later she recovered. If you saw her today, you wouldn’t even know she’d been sick.’
There is an orphanage for AIDS children, a vegetable garden project for the township women and a Habitat For Humanity home-building project, sponsored by an American couple who have visited Masiphumelele. This, everyone agrees, is the best kind of community help – where individuals make carefully monitored direct contributions.
Kiddies’ Contest
A man with dreadlocks crosses the road to speak confidentially to Charlotte, smiles at us and walks off.
‘He said to tell you how friendly the Xhosa people are,’ she relates. ‘How we should introduce you to more people who will demonstrate this to you.’
Our next stop is the Maranatha Kiddies Club Contest in a tiny church nearby. A woman is feverishly singing a hymn, accompanied by a serious looking man who plays the Roland electric organ with the limp-wristed jazz-cool of a strolling boulevardier. The reverend’s wife is far from detached as she makes the opening speech to the tiny competitors and their families crowding the room:
‘The children Hallelujah! are very important Hallelujah! They may be small Hallelujah! but they are like the postage stamp Hallelujah! which makes the letter go to its destination Hallelujah! Help your mothers and fathers at home Hallelujah! and always stick to the job. Hallelujah…”
The beauty contest turns into a dance extravaganza and a stunning display of vocal talent as a group of teenage singers has a full go at the harmonies on offer in the songs. And then – before saying goodbye - Charlotte takes us to the Masiphumelele Wetlands.
A Swamp – Or a Wetland?
A natural drainage stream flows out of a culvert between ramshackle dwellings looped and laced with electricity cables. Children clamber over the rusty hulk of a car wreck as if it is the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. To some, this is simply a swamp. To others, this is the beginning of a fine water meadow. All you need is faith, finances and a bit of elbow grease.
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