Kayla valuing and learning from her experiences in Ocean View & Khayelitsha

My past weekend was spent in Ocean View on our homestay. Ocean View is historically a  township intended for colored people. This means that Ocean View has better living conditions than a township such as Khayelitsha, which under apartheid was intended for black people, and worse living conditions than a suburb such as Rondebosch, which under apartheid's Group Areas Act was for white people only. For my internship, I work in Khayelitsha so I am pretty familiar with the living conditions of that township. Before coming to Ocean View, I knew that classified colored townships had better conditions but I was still imagining a living situation similar to Khayelitsha. I was extremely surprised to find this was not at all the case for the home I was staying in. However, to be fair, the home I was staying in was owned by a 70 year old couple that took pride in renovating their home over the years. The home I stayed in had three bedrooms, a bathroom with a shower, a garage, and a washing machine. I was extremely surprised by this because typically townships are simply viewed as incredibly poor.

I am currently reading a book called Native Nostalgia by Jacob Dlamini. This book speaks about townships and how there is much more to life than just poverty. Dlamini writes about how townships have a huge sense of community and that within the community there is a lower, middle, and upper class (as opposed to the singular poor understanding of all township residents). I have found these statements to be very much true for my experience both in Khayelitsha and in Ocean View.

In both townships, the residents greet each other and know at least something about their neighbors. My experience in the suburb of Rondebosch is completely different because I almost never see residents to greet, much less know anything about them. This difference could be attributed to a few different things. Firstly being that as an international student I have not been here long enough to get to know the residents of Rondebosch. Secondly being that most residents in Rondebosch travel in cars as opposed to the townships where many people walk to travel, and therefore there are less opportunities to interact. Either way, there is still a strong sense of community present in the townships that I have yet to experience in a suburb. I was also very surprised to hear my host family describe certain residents of Ocean View as wealthy, and even pointed out the street where wealthy families live to me.

I have really enjoyed my experience in the townships, both for the homestay and for my internship. I think it is extremely important to do more than just drive through the townships because that simply paints a picture of poverty of the communities. Actually interacting with the residents shows that they are more concerned with living their everyday lives than on concentrating on their poverty. This is not to view their poverty as less severe than it truly is, but to understand that even if people are poor they are still normal people.

Kayla & Eric in Ocean View with new friends