Rainbow Nation indeed. It is now two weeks into the project. Durban seems like a blur of color; a memory only half recollected through the rush of yet another leg of the trip spent in hotels, of tipping back beers to calm our individual tensions, of the subtle fear of being very far from home.
Our calluses are getting thicker. Enough time has gone by in our temporary home of Richards Bay that we are no longer shocked by the shacks that line the roads out of the major cities, the haze of cane smoke or the obvious fact that we are the extreme minority in the places we drive through in the back of Loftus' truck. We have gotten the tourist's excuses out of the way, we have seen the animals and done the game parks. For the past two weeks, we have lived a sanitized version of the African Reality, filtered through the front, side and rear windows of our auto and watered down even more by the fact that our lodging in Richards Bay just happens to sit across from the local yacht club. Up until a few days ago, the human landscape seen through our car windows was almost fantasy. We would drive to and fro from meetings in Mtubatuba these past few weeks and see the situation fading past our car at 100 kph, but we didn't necessarily believe. People only lived like this on those cheesy saturday morning charity commercials, right?...
Monday marked the first time we were able to really remove ourselves from the safety net of our car and take stock of the obstacles the Servites and their Catholics face everyday. The pictures you see are all part of a building project that a Servite priest has been developing here in Mtubatuba for the past decade. His name is Fr. Andre, and he has single handedly been coordinating the construction of these simple two bedroom houses along with local builders in the areas that contain the poorest of the poor.
Several times he has been burned by dishonest people in the past; nothing here gets done entirely on trust or good will. First the foundation gets poured, then a paycheck. Then the walls, then a paycheck. "If paid for upfront" he says in his french-canadian accent, "then we would find the builders in a ditch a week later, still drunk off the liquor they bought using the construction funds. Non bon". Wasted contractors are actually the least of his worries: three times in the past decade he has been carjacked with a pistol at his temple. He leaves out the fact that another Servite missionary was slain in the exact same way in '97. Whether he omits this purposefully we can only guess. He says that since he has been doing this for so long, the locals now recognize him and the work he does; a lone white man behind the wheel of a small pickup no longer causes the scene that it once did. He does caution us though. Only two of us can accompany him on the tour of the houses. Anymore would arouse too much noise, and it is implied that any excess attention can turn for the worse given the factors of our complexion and the poverty we will be surrounded by.
That is not meant to sound racist, but the fact remains that even though official apartheid ended in the 90's, the spectre of economic apartheid is still divided along very concrete racial lines. Even in our interactions with some local white and Indian South Africans, after pleasantries fade the conversations seem to be littered with cautionary advice and general acceptance that the skin color of your fellow man is inversely proportional to the amount of trust afforded right off the bat. Racist? Yes. Ignorant? Probably, but then again those kind of views are really just shaped by the economic realities the country is immersed in. Poverty, hopelessness, hunger and disease can motivate a person like nothing else, and it seems the path of least resistance is almost always rigged to be the darker one.
Even after all of our cautioning and conditioning however, our experience in the slums couldn't have gone better. With Andre acting as our guide, we visited several newly built homes and extension projects for families. That is a loose term here; the "families" Fr. Andre builds for are usually nothing more than a single mother with anywhere from three to eight (!) children. And sometimes not even that much- AIDS often leaves most of these children orphaned and vulnerable. Life comes fast and hard for these people, and it is evident in their faces. The expressions of the children when we approach are almost always ones of cautious excitement, of intrigue. But the expressions of everyone even just several years older couldn't be more hard or weary. With Fr. Andre leading the way though, the people we visit melt into smile and laughter. When we try to say the few zulu phrases we have learned, the laughter and smiles grow even more. Even that little effort on our part shows an investment into their culture, and tensions ease.
As you can see from the pictures, the houses are built right alongside the original shanties that families of 8 cram into. Dirt floors, mud in the rainy season, no sanitation, kitchen or water collection. Andre's houses offer a concrete foundation, escape from the mud, a room for a kitchen, sleeping quarters, rain-water collection and an outdoor toilet. All for 3000$ US. The status quo must be maintained though, and the houses are only built to reflect the surrounding neighborhood. Anything nicer would draw suspicion and hurt Andre's cause. It is a fine line he must contend with on a daily basis.
Pics include: Fr Andre in his sweet gucci knockoffs, the various children we were surrounded by, some friendly, some hard. A rainbow of drying clothes; color amidst the mud and trash, Jubiliana, one of the little girls Andre helps with housing and food every month. She was the most stoked girl ever when we drove up because he always brings he a big bag of candy. We only had a piece of gum, but she warmed up once we showed her the pics we took on the cams lcd screen. Various shots of the houses that were built in the last year, before and afters.
Words: Hamrock
All photo credits in this post: Hamrock
