A Closer Look at Township Life

Wednesday June 1, 2011 — Pietermaritzburg

Our group flew to Durban.  When we landed in Durban, where a beautiful African landscape and WARM weather greeted us!

The appearance of the country here is much more what I had pictured in my mind. Vast arid landscapes contrasted by lush jungle-type valleys. We rented cars in Durban and drove to Pietermaritzburg, where N's sister is living. We drove the remainder of the way, just over an hour drive. It is a beautiful route.

We arrived at N’s sister’s house, in Pietermaritzburg, early in the evening. All of us Canadians immediately stripped down into tanning clothes and sunning ourselves on the lawn. N’s sister laughed that her neighbours would think she was going crazy to have these pasty half-naked people lying all over her yard in the middle of winter. We stick out in our shorts while everyone else has on jackets and winter hats.

The view from the BnB window of the Botanical Gardens

N’s sister booked he and I a room at a quaint little BnB called The Babbling Brooke.  It’s lovely and private. The BnB backs onto a botanical garden, so the view is lovely. Even though it’s in the city, we feel nestled into the middle of nowhere.

We are getting all kinds of fantastic insider experiences that would never be available to us as tourists here. I am loving getting to see past the sights and having a view of what real South African life is like. It is a fascinating culture with a complex history—I suppose most places are if you really get the chance to see them.

The traditional Zulu meal they cooked for us

N’s sister is a doctor here and yesterday she took us to the Edendale Hospital, where she is currently working. In South Africa, they have both public and private hospitals, the difference in care and clinal is quite stark. Edendale is a public hospital. The facilities are decent but minimal, and the doctor to patient ratio is insanely bad.

After our hospital tour, we went to Ashdown Township where N’s sister has an old friend she met when she first came to SA, called Gogo Regina (Gogo means Granny in Zulu).

Regina takes in kids who have nowhere else to go. She currently has eight children living with her but has had as many as sixteen at one time all living in her tiny cement home.

We took one of the young women who help Regina shopping for lunch groceries. They are cooking us a traditional Zulu meal, in her home. Butternut squash is super cheap and eaten with everything, which all of us are really enjoying.  We also picked up some cow stomachs, from the butcher.

They performed some traditional Zulu dancing for us in Costume

We had to take a taxi to get to the store, which was quite a cultural experience. I use the word taxi very loosely here. They also have taxi service like much like what we have in North America. These “taxis” are big white 15-passenger vans. They are the primary form of “public” transit, although they are privately owned and operated. There is no bus or train system, so this is how everyone from the townships travels if they need to go further than they can walk. It is a bit of a mystery how the system works (even when I asked locals) as there are no official stops or schedule times but it is a relatively effective system. Each taxi has an approximate route they drive. I do not think the timing of these taxis is particularly reliable but, then again, most of the rest of the world is far less obsessed with punctuality. There is comfortable seating for fifteen passengers, but in reality, they usually squish closer to twenty people into them. At the end of a long workday, you can imagine they do not smell fantastic. It only costs R7 per person ($1.00) to ride in them though so who can complain. It was quite obvious that white passengers do not customarily use this form of transport; the other passengers were very amused and curious about why we were there. I am also fairly confident that this was only a safe option for us because we were travelling with someone from the township.