On Friday, as part of our Leaders in Grassroots Development class we headed to Cape Flats to visit an informal settlement in the Township of Guguletu. Lotus Park used to be a bush area before it was cleared out for informal settlements, in some ways a shanty town. All of the houses in the settlement are made from scrap material and have tin or boarded roofs, there is no running water except for spigots that are unreliable and shared by many houses (all of which are one room and house up to 10 people), electricity is a complex web of exposed wires, toilets are outhouses, it is a maze to get from row to row of unmarked dirt paths, there is glass, litter, and standing polluted water everywhere, and the entire settlement is squeezed up against the edge of the train tracks, half of which has no fence to keep the children from running onto the tracks. The main part of our morning was exploring the community with the help of a local guide and take notes, which we will later collect and help with development planning to assist their community organization, SNAC/ SUN development. SUN development is actually Claire S (my roommate) and Corinne's service site. They each spend one day a week working on constitutions for groups needing funding (Claire's is a rap group!) and one day in a seriously overcrowded and underfunded creche.
In contrast to some of the other groups who were lead around by members of the community development organization, my group's guide was just assisting and described Lotus in far less than favorable or optimistic terms. When I asked her what her favorite part of living in Lotus was, she responded that there was nothing, from the sanitation and toilets to the water and electricity, to the unemployment (she said most women were unemployed, and some men. She herself was unemployed), she hated living in Lotus. The tour was an amazing opportunity to see everything and really hear her side of the story. Like most of the Lotus residents, our tour guide came from Eastern Cape looking for jobs but hasn't found work. All the jobs within the community are stores set up inside people's homes like fruit and vegetable stands or private creches to avoid rashes and sickness that could come from the overcrowded main creche. On our tour she pointed out where she was once mugged at knife point, where the trash is picked up weekly in a large canister, and other details. She explained that the doctor was a taxi ride away, at 12 rand round trip. There are free clinics but no places to get free food and although the community has church services inside some homes, the nearest churches are also far away. Students, called learners, who can afford to pay for transportation get to attend better schools but most can walk to the local schools and do not attend college.
There is even more information I could share, as it was a few hours worth of asking questions and hearing stories. Although many in the community were eager for us to help, it was also sad to hear that they were asking our tour guide, "Are the white people here to build houses?" "Are they here to fix the toilets?" It certainly was an eyeopening day. It was especially interesting to see the communities and informal settlements, where women now at Saartijie Bartman came from. While I have been dealing a lot with the after affects of violence and poverty, seeing Lotus Park gave me an insight to the roots of the problems.
