The other side of South Africa

Jan. 8, 2014

Today was our long drive (about 10 hours) back to Cape Town.  Along the way we passed many "townships" which are large communities just outside of the cities where most of the blacks live.  Even though Apartheid has been abolished in South Africa, there is still a wide gap between those who have money and those who don't.  Some of these townships spread for several kilometers in all directions.  The houses (or shacks as we would call them) are crammed in beside each other and are only about 10 ft by 15 ft. in size.  The buildings are built of corrugated steel, wooden planks, or if it is really nice concrete blocks.  It is hard to believe that people live in these dwellings because they have no running water or toilets, no windows or ventilation unless there a holes in the walls, no privacy, and although there was power lines supplying the area, I'm sure most of the houses didn't have electricity either.  It is quite literally a roof over their heads.  Basically it would be like a whole family living in one bedroom of our houses back home.   I can only guess that there is one central area to get fresh water for drinking, bathing and laundry. We did see long rows of portable toilets at some of the townships for people to use to go to the bathroom.  

It definitely made us realize how fortunate we are, and what a good life we live in Canada. 

(Don't forget to click on the pictures to enlarge them if you want a better view.)

Typical township accommodations.

The largest township that we saw was just outside of CapeTown.
It spread as far as the eye could see.  We figured it was about 5 km x 5 km.

The other issue that they had in South Africa was the garbage.  You would be at a beautiful lookout like this one and there would be garbage scattered everywhere.  At least in this picture the garbage is in bags but in several spots it was just all over the place.  For example on Boxing Day we walked down to Camps Bay in Cape Town, and being a public holiday there was a lot of people that came to the beach for the day.  After dinner we were walking back to the hotel along the beach and there was trash littered everywhere.  The worst part about it was that the wind was starting to pick up and the garbage was being blown into the ocean.  We started to pick up some plastic bottles and styrofoam cups that were blowing into the water but there was just too much, so we eventually gave up.  Also, no one else seemed to care that this was happening. We were shocked!  It was a real shame because it was such a gorgeous spot, but after seeing that, it tainted our impression of the South African people.

Hitch-hikers were a common sight along the road especially around the townships.
Often the speed limits on these roads are 120 km/hr. Sometimes there were people hitch-hiking out in the middle of nowhere.  No houses or crossroads anywhere in sight and there would be people looking for a ride.  We wondered where they came from.