Of all the memories I can take from South Africa - the wine lands, Table Mountain, the inspiring beaches at sunset - I will most vividly remember my visits to the townships. I've often wondered how to approach the topic of township life, and how to describe the people who made the experience of being in the country so rewarding.
As we drove down the side streets and came to a stop, young children, unfettered by the triviality of consumerism and uninfluenced by the trials of harsh political reality, accepted us with open arms. They had not seen much outside these townships, neither people nor places. The family and surrounding community was all they knew, isolated in an all-black school outside the central city. Perhaps this would account for the incredible feeling of interconnectedness that beset the area.
The parents had lived through the hardest of times, when segregation was official policy, and yet could not help but smile when the children ran up and jumped in our arms. They knew we were Americans - far too young to have been implicated in their subjugation years back - though I worried that they would have been instinctually hesitant to encourage this tolerant interface. However, because we were friends of Lundi, we were friends of theirs.
While they lived in largely patchwork housing, they had made happy homes. These box shaped structures never had more than a few rooms, and likely had only a bedroom or two for parents and children to share. Several decades ago these township communities started springing up in the flats, as blacks retreated out of the city to claim a small plot of land for themselves. They took what they could in the form of spare wood, sheets of iron and aluminum, and pieced their lives together. Lundi had built his home in the early 1980's with help from neighbors, and it was one of the prouder dwellings in the area. He lived in three rooms with his wife and two children.
Since the first democratic election in 1994, considered a brazen testament to the success of liberation and equality over apartheid and the like, both presidents have been from the African National Congress party. The "miraculous" and seemingly instantaneous victory of the ANC brought about changes in the federal system. A progressive constitution was formulated. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was created to foster discussion of apartheid injustices. Lundi and his neighbors would all benefit from this cultural and political shift.
From there, the accomplishments of the movement become nondescript. South Africa remains one of the most asymmetrical economies in the world. Half of the population is below the poverty line. The HIV rate is estimated at 23%, quite disproportionately affecting the non-white population. Real changes, in the areas of wealth and land redistribution, have not materialized. Reconciliation has taken the form of pacification, largely for the elites.
I can't remember the exact moment I became overwhelmed - maybe it was as a group of the children gave us a surprisingly accurate (and entertaining) rendition of the 50 Cent song, "In the Club". I felt bad about continuously snapping photos of the children, though they found the digital camera so novel that they pushed and shoved to get a glimpse of their own image. It was more fun teaching them songs and games from my own childhood, growing up in far simpler circumstances. By the end I had given away everything in my possession but my clothes and backpack. This, of course, was wholly insufficient: they had no use for postcards of Washington, D.C. and a crayon each. Then again, neither did I.
I attempted to give an entire box of crayons to Lundi's daughter, seeing as he had been so kind to bring us by in the first place. The plan was foiled as she gave one away to each of her friends when we turned our backs.
We had been greeted so affectionately by the community during our short visits. The interaction was so innocent, entirely commensurate to the human capacity for sanguinity. Outside the townships, life was different: in some ways better, in others far worse. It made one wonder if, in some fundamental way, the "peaceful revolution" had been debased by its own phenomenal compassion.