Lunga cannot stop smiling as he describes what it was like growing up in the townships. He is giving us a tour of his neighborhood today.We are packed into a white van with a driver who does not speak English and drives 5 mph on the freeway. There is a melody to his voice. I find it irritating, frankly. He's smiling and I can't help but feel like he's not being genuine.
"You will be surprised when you walk into the townships by just how friendly and gracious everyone is," he says.
"Yeah right," I think to myself. We're a bunch of white American college students. We look the same as the white South African opressors. We should be hated. Hell I'd hate if I was poor and black and a bunch of white people came to my town and looked around. The words poverty tourism cross my mind.
We drive down the freeway by the coast, up a ramp and on to the freeway. We pass by downtown, which is mostly industrial-looking warehouses (Port Elizabeth is the automotive capitol of South Africa, and where most of the world's VW Golfs are built). We pass a tire factory and the van fills with the stench of burning rubber. We continue driving and suddenly it looks like we're really in Africa,- there are shops with hand-painted signs, people are out in the street, sitting on the concrete, reading, talking, laughing, eating. The physical space is being used to the fullest extent. People are suddenly at the forefront of the scenery, not buildings, not trees, not enormous gates and guard dogs , but real human beings. Big billboards advertise for Coca Cola. The only American franchise restaurant is KFC: I see three KFCs on our way to the New Brighton Township. There are also signs advertising for funeral services, and a large billboard which reads "Don't Be A Part of the HIV Generation. Love Life." The houses in this neighborhood are made of brick. Lunga says two families are packed into every house. If you include grandparents, aunts, uncles...one could assume that every house contains somewhere around 16 people. Every block or so, I see a pile of rotting garbage. It doesn't seem like there is any sort of trash collection system in the townships. A few children are poking at the garbage with sticks.
"Aww, look how cute they are," someone says in the van. I instantly think about all the Anthropology courses I've taken on development. I hate the person who said the kids were cute, but they are cute. Still, I feel like we're "otherizing" the kids. Why are they cute? Just because they're black?
"Stop here!" Lunga yells. We're now in front of a shanty house, the houses South Africans construct out of scrap metal and wood when they are unable to secure government housing. The South African government has promised millions of South Africans their own brick homes like the ones we saw earlier, but there is such a demand that many South Africans have been left homeless, forced to construct houses out of whatever they find laying around in the streets. Migrants from Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Botswana have come to South Africa looking for work and have also been denied government housing, adding to the number of shantytowns constructed.
"Get out of the van!" Lunga yells and hops out of the passenger seat. We all look at eachother for a moment. Here? Get out here? We don't know anyone here. But we all get out of the van. Many bring their digital cameras and instantly start taking pictures of the shantytowns, the sheet metal, the vagrant dogs, the huge African sky which seems even huger out here. Lunga knocks on the door of a house. "Hellooo!" He says. A dazed man opens the door and says something in Xhosa, one of the main dialects here. "He says come in!" Lunga says to us. We walk slowly inside the house. The ceiling slopes down. It's made out of pressed wood. When the wind blows (and in PE the wind always blows) the house shudders. It sounds like the ceiling is going to collapse. Anthony, one of our group leaders, whips out his video camera. He's filming the entire scene. We're all character in his documentary. Everyone is smiling and talking to each other in short sentences, admiring the baby pictures taped to the wall.
The man's son emerges from the bedroom. "Ah you have a big boy," Lunga says. The boy smiles, confused. He must feel overwhelmed with all of us in his living room. Lunga asks him a question and then translates his response into English. "The boy says he loves having American visitors. He's had many Americans over before." It seems as if Lunga is trying to smooth over a complicated situation. I look at Maddie and she looks at me like "what the fuck are we doing here?" But somehow it's alright, it's ok. The son is smiling. Zach, a tall and muscular African American basketball player is taking pictures with him. Zach looks so happy, so thrilled to be connecting with his African roots. I can't help but feel warm all of a sudden. The moment seems so genuine, and I feel cynical for every having thought that this African family would reject our company. Look at them! They're smiling for the camera, laughing, talking with Lunga.
Everyone in the group is soaking up the moment in its intirety: this is our first trip, as a group, into the townships in Port Elizabeth. For many of us, its the first time we've ever been into a shanty town and I can see us proccessing it differently. We're all comparing the images of the townships to the images of poverty we've seen in infomercials or on Oprah. There's no voice over this time, no white Christian voice telling us to donate money, or sappy music making us feel sad. Just the howl of the wind, and a dog barking in the distance.
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