The Reality of Cape Town

Friday, September 9th 2011.


So as you probably know Cape Town has a lot of areas that are poverty stricken and people literally have nothing. Today we took a tour of the “townships” or areas where people live in pretty much whatever materials and scraps they can find to make a home for themselves and their family. On average around 6 people live in one of these homes which may or may not have electricity. We went to the different areas around Cape Town including Langa (one of the oldest townships), Gugulethu (where we had gone last Sunday for church), and Khayletsha; which is one of the largest townships in Cape Town. I had seen the townships from the highway when we were driven around the area but had never really gone through them before and saw just how they really were. It was very emotional and difficult to see just how little these people have ot live with and definitely made me upset. But we were able to go to one of the townships community center where people of the town sell goods that they have made so I was able to contribute to the community by purchasing a gorgeous sand painting of table mountain.



In Khaylethisa we visited TAC (treatment action campaign), an HIV/AIDS Advocacy Organization that provides education, testing and treatment for residents of the area poth HIV+ or not. It was great to see that so much was being done to educate and prevent further spread of the disease but still sad to see that 33% of the community is infected.

After that we visited Elonwabeni Project, a residential facility for vulnerable children who were taken away from their families for usually between 6 months – 2 years until they have a stable home life. The home also has a job creation facility for mothers and other members of the community. We were able to see the work that the mothers do and even purchase some of their wonderful crafts that they make daily. The woman who runs the facility was so very welcoming to us and had us all hold hands in a circle and introduce us to each of the woman and explain exactly what they do there. We then got to meet the adorable children staying at the facility and even got to listen to them sing a song for us! SOO CUTE ☺

After that crazy busy day, we relaxed at Chai Yo an absolutely delicious Thai restaurant right in my town that I definitely will be frequenting a lot!