27 May 2008

This morning I received a phone call explaining that people were organizing clothing to be donated, and asked if I would join. Upon arriving at the site, which was about a 15 minute walk from my flat, I had actually only made it for the last bit of the work. Mike, our director, then asked if we all wanted to see where the food and clothes would be going. We all agreed and hoped in the back of a buckie (truck) to the site where the people were. Yes, the donations were going just down the road.

The site is a community owned area (usually used as a tourist place due to the age of the colonial buildings) which had been turn into a sort of refugee camp. About 300 people from the local township, Kayamandi, where I work in the elementary school were forced out. These people are immigrants from other African countries who let in fear after the Xenophobia attacks from the weekend. It seems that Friday night there were about 30 foreign owned businesses that were looted and attacked in the course of just a few hours. The attackers are mainly teenagers who are using the fear of the time to force people out of homes that they have occupied for many years.

Looking around the area is was basically a small indoor and outdoor area with random people sleeping along walls and children running around kicking a soccer ball. There were about 50 people there when we visited due to most going out to work during the day or find some source of income. Local churches had set up a food distribution area where they could get sandwiches and warm meals, and blankets piled in the corners for when everyone would return and need something to sleep with in the nights. How could these people have done anything worthy of running in fear?

Added later: For the last few week I would my time driving the school van picking up donations to be sorted and then taken to the camp in Stellenbosch. I was great driving around for just three days and showing up with the shelter having collected an entire van full of donations - clothes, food, baby things, blankets… People are amazing sometimes. The biggest thing, however, was when I went to Strand to volunteer for a day at the camp of people displaced from Kayalisha (the largest township in the area). There was some expected disorganization, but I ended up working at a Crech (day care). The kids were adorable, and while many of them were too young to talk, or just didn't know English I really enjoyed getting to hang out with them for the day. Of course there were the crying moments and such… but it meant that they parents could spend their time finding a new place to live or work.