Happy Feet, Happy Heart

While I was in South Africa, I had the opportunity through a SAS program to visit the Langa Township and Happy Feet organization in South Africa. Here’s a little excerpt from my journal I’ve kept throughout the voyage from that day:

Aly and I made our way back to the ship to go on our field program through SAS to go to the Langa Township and Happy Feet. So in Africa, you have these places called townships where a large majority of black people live, whereas white people live in the wealthier suburbs of Cape Town like Camps Bay where our air bnb is. Apartheid, which was South Africa’s version of Jim Crow Laws in the USA were only abolished 20 years ago, so there is still extreme prejudice and isolation of black people because of that. At every restaurant we went to, every worker was black, and everyone sitting in the restaurant was white. It was like I went back in time. Townships are residential neighborhoods with shacks for houses and one toilet per 100 people, and full of extreme poverty. That’s what I was told before hand, and what my perception going in was. I was hoping it would be changed, but no, that’s exactly what these neighborhoods were like.

Our tour guide was born and grew up in Langa and currently resides there. He told us about his family life and how he has two daughters outside of marriage and introduced us to his now girlfriend. He gave us so much insight on what it’s like to live in a township and answered more questions than I could’ve ever came up with. He told us he had to pay his girlfriend’s family in “cows” and “damages” in order to be a part of his daughters’ life because he damaged his girlfriend’s ability to find a husband someday by.

Impregnating her outside marriage. He also told us that if people commit crimes in the daylight and are caught, they are subject to being beaten by the entire township. It was hard to believe this weird time warp was their reality.

We walked around streets littered with trash and sharp glass. Little girls were running around with calloused bare feet. The little girls I first encountered had ripped leggings, matted hair, and dirt under their finger nails. They were eating some sort of stringy meat while they walked over to us. They posed for photos like they were used to it, but their faces lit up with excitement when they saw us. We walked around some more and our guide took us to the town “beer hall.” No this was not a bar like the ones in Downtown Castle Rock, this was a former hostel that houses 200 people in 20 rooms…. how is that acceptable living standards? He brought us into a room on the left that houses one of his friends and there were electricity wires strung across the cardboard ceilings. There were faded photos of famous soccer players on the fridge, and in my 20 minutes standing in there I was sweating profusely because they don’t have air conditioning in the summers or heating in the winter. He sat on the bed very casually talking about what it is like to live there. The entire town shares 4 public toilets and all the showers are a 10-minute walk away and are shared by the community. It is required that you take a tub bath before going to the showers to conserve water, and unless you go at 6 in the morning, all the hot water is gone. We asked about the power situation, or “loadshedding” and he said it can go out for 48 hours at a time and it has caused the already prevalent crime rates to escalate. We experienced load shedding for four hours a day in Camps Bay, and were so annoyed every time we had to grab a fancy electronic lantern to help us see. How ridiculous now that I’m thinking about it. I experienced only a tidbit of the annoyance for five days and was over it, these people live in worse conditions all the time. Made me check my privilege, for sure.

The power outage leaves families in non-locked shacks to become extremely vulnerable to theft and rape. It was gut-wrenching to listen to that I will be going back to my multi-million-dollar boat with endless hot water. We complain when they run out of peanut butter in our endless buffet dining halls… meanwhile people live without basic needs every day in Africa. My heart began to feel like a weight was pulling it deep into my stomach.

He brought us to an area where some shacks were and I honestly don’t remember anything he said, I just people watched the men and women walking by the entire time. The women were wearing clothes too big or too small on their bodies and the men had baggy pants around their waists. There was one man that walked by where the left side of his face was covered in a weird infection – our tour guide said he was suffering from shingles. We walked down the road a little bit and stopped at a group of three women washing and cooking cow heads. COW HEADS. Like I was making eye contact with this cow as she threw it into the fire. There must have been 50 heads in the charcoaled pile… I didn’t know whether to throw up or laugh. The women were extremely nice and were teasing me because I obviously did not hide my expression discretely enough.

We kept walking around a bit and this is where we came in contact with like 50 children who ran down this dusty street all in our direction. They wanted to take photos and play basketball with us and play with my hair and hug us. A little girl came up and hugged me and looked up into my eyes and said “you’re so pretty,” my heart melted. I told her the same of course. Aly was playing with this little baby and was tickling her where she was laughing so hard. When we left she started screaming and crying, my heart broke a little bit. Another little girl tugged at my shirt and asked, “Do you have sweets?” and it made me think, how many white visitors come in here, give them candy or teach them a little game, and then leave for them to never be seen again? It made me kind of uncomfortable and sad, and unfortunately, I didn’t have any candy. That is a hot commodity on the ship, okay.

After walking around the township, we went to a youth organization called Happy Feet. This project brings young children and teenagers in from the streets and teaches them discipline and life skills through traditional dances. We roll up on our mini tour bus and the kids swarm the car. I was one of the first people off and this little girl ran up and grabbed my hand and walked me to a concrete patch. I sat down with her and she started playing with my hair while other little girls came and sat next closely next to me. Some of these little girls had beautiful long braids while others had hair like lion manes. There was one little girl with no hair that looked like she had shingles or some other infection all over her scalp. There was such a wide variety of children and it was fascinating to watch their dynamic among each other. They were like competing with one another for our affection like children do all over the world, it was funny to observe.

This group of boys put rain boots on and started dancing in front of us on the concrete patch with “HAPPY FEET” in graffiti on the wall behind them. They were chanting and slapping their boots all in unison to make music. It was incredible. The little girls did traditional dances and had so much rhythm it was mesmerizing. They were so damn cute, I never expected my heart to be overflowing with joy like it was there. This was so different than the Salaam Balack Trust in India, where I felt like I was watching fish in a fishbowl. Our role here was not to help, but to observe and give them love and confidence. I was much more confident in what our purpose there was and I wish I could’ve stayed for longer. We eventually had to get back on the bus and all the little kids were dancing and waving to us, it was THE cutest thing I have ever seen.

It was definitely my favorite thing I have done on SAS so far.

This is just a little summary of my thoughts and experiences from that day, but I am still uncovering the emotions evoked from that day. My heart broke by the lack of economic equality in South Africa and the reality that most black South Africans are still living in in the 21stCentury. Kids have smiles everywhere you go, and there’s touched my heart a little extra. But those smiles are because they don’t know anything different. I know different. I know suburbia in Castle Rock, CO where I have my own room, a full pantry, and a closet full of clothes I never wear. I know what it’s like to have unlimited hot water in a shower and a private toilet in my room at college. It was the first time on this voyage where all the poverty I have witnessed deeply affected me and made my insides feel icky. It’s so hard to be on a multi-million-dollar program like Semester at Sea and visit areas like this during it, but I am so glad I saw both sides of South Africa. Yea, sky diving and safaris are super fun, but this is reality. My time previous to this was a warped fantasy of South Africa, but this put everything in perspective. I’ll continue to pray for those little kids I met that day and for peace in South Africa as a whole.