Today I was going to go to the beach in Durban all day, but ended up going to visit Swazi’s friend in a township called Cinderella with Swazi and Lindi (Thys’s sister) instead. Around noon, we ran across the street to catch a taxi on its way to the inner-city. The taxis here are not like the ones in the U.S. Here, taxis are their main mode of public transportation. They consist of a large van with about five or six rows of seats and they pile as many people as they possibly can into each one. Seatbelts are not worn and children pile onto the laps of their parents. Swazi hailed a cab and we squished in to a crowded van with three empty seats. It was about a five or ten minute ride until we reached our destination of the inner-city, where we proceeded to buy coke and wine to bring to the township. People here drink coke ALL the time – it is incredibly popular, so we proceeded to buy four liters which the four of us finished by about 6pm. Next we went to a huge taxi station where we jumped in another taxi and waited for it to be completely full. I was squeezed into the back corner, my right arm/shoulder sticking out the window because we were so packed in. We rode another ten minutes or so to the township of Cinderella. There are lots of townships, each of which has its own name. Swazi pointed out some rough-looking shacks along the way as well as some nice-looking homes. She said the nice homes were the Indians’ homes. Living conditions are still extremely segregated – the biggest populations are townships which consist of blacks and coloreds only, and nice Indian communities.
Me, Swazi, and Lindi in the back of a taxi.
The huge taxi station - we caught one of these to the township.
Cinderella is located on a mountain and is surrounded by other mountains full of shacks and houses. One of the first things I noticed when we arrived was the beautiful view - I’m amazed by how far you can see into the distance. The taxi wouldn’t take us to the particular address we were looking for, so we got out and walked on the gravel road through the town. Two men drove past us in a car, stopped, and reversed it. They wanted to meet us, but they were obviously drunk as the driver had a bottle of vodka in his lap so we kept walking. Children were gasping, pointing, smiling, and waving as we walked and Swazi explained that Lindi and I were, for some of the kids, the first white people they had ever seen because they rarely leave their township, if ever. The way they are raised in the townships is that whites are superior to blacks and a white person is seen as good luck. This would explain the staring, curiosity, and amazement in their faces when they laid eyes on us.
Mbali's house.
We came to a small cement-brick house about the size of a trailer home in the township where we met Swazi’s friend, Mbali, who hosted us for a late lunch. The house consisted of two small rooms – a kitchen and a bedroom. We moved the chairs into the bedroom so that she could have some room to cook while we ate some appetizers of samosas, spring rolls, meatballs, and fruit. Her two-year-old son was taking a nap on the bed so we spoke softly. After the appetizers, I went outside for a view of the dumping site for all of the nearby townships, which was situated right up against one of the townships. Mbali explained that people there were sick for many reasons, one being that adults would sift through the garbage and sell expired food items to children in order to make some money.
The dumping site - it looks like a thin stretch in the middle of the photo right up against the township.
A few minutes later, a young boy probably about six years old appeared behind Mbali’s house. He smiled and waved, took a good look at me, and hopped on over to ask me some questions. Within a few minutes, more children started coming out of their houses and finding their way over to me. At first, many of them were obviously curious but didn’t know whether they should come closer or stay back and observe. However, once they touched my skin they couldn’t stop. It was not long before I was bombarded with excited children climbing all over me, which is how I spent most of the afternoon. The types of questions they asked me were: “Do you have a dad? A mom? You have both?! Are you married? Do you have kids? I want to come to America!” I taught them some games we play at du Nord including elbow tag and Little Sally Walker. One of the older girls (about fourteen) would translate the rules to Xhosa as I explained them so that the younger kids would understand how to play. They taught me some phrases in Xhosa as well as some African games. They loved my hair and were very interested in my eyes and eyebrows. They also loved taking pictures with my camera and ended up taking a little over 200 photos by the time I unwrapped their little fingers from it. They would take a picture of me with them and then run and show it to their parents. They would then run to me and tell me that their parents wanted to meet me so I would go to their house and there would be adults sitting around inside a dark room. They didn’t know whether to come out and greet me or not – most just smiled and stared as I played with their children. One man ventured out and gave me the Zulu handshake.
Mid-afternoon I went into Mbali’s house for the meal she had been cooking for the previous few hours. She LOVES to cook, so everything was homemade. We had some chicken and cooked vegetables, rice with gravy, and spinach dip. For dessert we had mauva pudding with custard. It was so very tasty! Mbali said that she doesn’t get visitors often because you need to be extremely careful about who you let into your home. She explained that once you let someone into your home, they know what you have and that can be very dangerous.
Mbali cooking away!
During the time that I was playing with the kids, there were men walking or driving up and down the road selling food items such as corn and fruit. I asked to take a picture with the corn sellers and they said OK so I went and stood next to one of them for a few seconds while a young one took our picture. Suddenly the corn selling man who was maybe about 30 years old turned toward my face and started smelling me and grunting – it caught me by surprise so I jumped away… it made for a slightly uncomfortable moment.
To see an American was so exciting for everyone. People would stare out windows and walk from around the corners and down the street just to get a look at the white visitor. I felt like a celebrity! In the townships, they are raised to see whites as superior to themselves and white skin is a sign of good luck. It got busier in the evening as more people came home from work. The streets were full of children running around and people socializing – there seemed to be a real sense of community.
In the evening, I peeled the kids off of me and went in Mbali’s house to sip wine with Lindi, Swazi, and Mbali until Mbali’s hairdresser came. Mbali asked her hairdresser, Khathiwe, to come a little early so that she could see if it was possible to braid my hair the Zulu way. She came around 19:30 and it was a success! After a few practice rounds with my “fluffy” hair, she got it down and finished braiding my entire head within a little over an hour.
During this time, Khathiwe, Mbali, and Swazi spoke of how lucky I am to have hair like I do and all of the work that they need to do in order to get hair like mine. Mbali said that even though it is expensive, no matter how much money one has, an African woman always needs to have her hair and nails done. We laughed and they explained that to get a weave sometimes takes up to two 9-hour days of sitting in a salon chair. We also discussed the weird beliefs that some people have in South Africa. There have been cases where people have paid 25,000 rand for a rat that they think will go out and retrieve money for them. When it doesn’t come back, they are flat broke.
At the end of the night (around 21:00), we called a taxi because public transport stopped at 19:00. We said our goodbyes and made our way back to the YMCA.
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