Children of the Townships, Thando, Table Mountain and scary prawn heads

This morning we enjoyed a sumptuous breakfast at the hotel with fresh baked buttery croissants impossible to resist, and then met our guide for the entire Cape Town portion of our tour, Calvin, as well as our guide for today's Township tour, Thando Seysek. Thando's life story should be a novel optioned into a film with Will Smith (rather than Morgan Freeman) playing the lead role, as Thando is a very beautiful man of the Xhosa tribe, both Mandela and Bishop Tutu are also Xhosa. The Xhosa have a unique language and dialect that involves many clicking sounds that are impossible to replicate (trust me we tried) and quite fun to listen to. Thando's name means "love" and as he explained to us, he has lived with a heart full of love even though he was conceived of violence to a woman in prison where he was born, and later as a young man was imprisoned himself for terrorism during the early days of the anti-apartheid movement. From Terrorist to Tour Guide was how he described his life, and it was with great pride that he pointed out the Township where he resides, as there are ample permanent cinderblock homes visible rather than just the tin and crate shacks so prevalent elsewhere. Of the 5 million inhabitants of Cape Town, it is estimated that 4 million live in the so-called Townships, which are the slum neighborhoods. These Townships are separated into Black Townships and Colored Townships, with the Black Townships being the poorest and we visited two on this day.

It is difficult to describe the sprawling vastness of the Townships and the stark poverty and barren living conditions, but imagine hundreds of thousands of 8'x10' makeshift shacks constructed out of discarded shipping palate boxes with tin roofs and inhabited by no less than 8 people sharing 2 beds, no running water, no plumbing, no electricity other than the occasional lightbulb in the shack of a "working family" (there is 70% unemployment in the Townships), no playgrounds, no foliage, no flowers, no infrastructure, and one water tap for every 1,000 inhabitants located on average half a kilometre from one's shack. This harsh environment is contrasted by the warmth, openness and friendliness of the children we met there.

From the moment we set foot on the dusty ground of the first Township we were encircled by ten smiling children aged 3-7 who slipped their hands into ours without fear or expectation, eager simply to touch the strangers and play a little with us. Livvy and Justin were especially sought after and soon were teaching our miniature entourage a skipping game that everyone partook in with giggles. One of the older girls, a sparky 7-year old with natty hair and bare feet, proudly showed off her English by reciting the 5 sentences she knew with careful enunciation. "Hallo my nem is Vivee-en. Aye em sevn yeez old. I em vehry gled to meet you-eh. Whot is you-eh nem? Whey are you-eh frrrohm?" Vivien shared a brief rhythmic dance performance with us and we meandered through the dirt roads of the Township with our band of tots growing more numerous with each step. One little girl who joined our merry band spoke up smiling, "I em five yeez old," she said holding up just 2 fingers for us to see. Livvy gave her an especially big hug.

Thando addressed many of the children by name, always with a caress and a smile as well as some words of encouragement. He explained that the children are taught not to beg and that we should not offer any money to them for, "It is not by their current circumstances that they are to define their potential." Much to my surprise, this Township was full of hope in spite of the squalor. Only 14 years have passed since Apartheid was abolished and as Thando reminded us, it will take generations to erase the past but it must be done and it shall. Thando drew numerous analogies between Apartheid and the Holocaust, and seemed to have an excellent grasp of Jewish history which made the kids feel quite connected to him and the entire experience. He thanked us for our visit and explained that our presence in these Townships was a gift for it says to the children as well as the adults that they are important enough for foreigners to travel half way across the world just to meet them.

We then visited a community soup kitchen founded in 2006 by a local woman resident in a Black Township, who now feeds upwards of 300 children and elderly each day from her shack. She gave us a full explanation of how she began her "proh-ject" (which has spawned 7 other soup kitchens in the area) and how it operates with the help of 6 volunteers plus donations from near and far that have slowly poured in as her work has gained notoriety. Her daughter shares a room with two foster girls orphaned through HIV/AIDS which has savaged the area. The girls invited Justin and Livvy to play net ball with them, though there wasn't any net, while the other children seemed content to hold Chloe's hand and sway in the sun. All the children were eager to be photographed and so we snapped up many pictures of these adorable, cuddly youngsters saying "cheese" with the biggest of smiles. Before leaving Chloe, Livvy and Justin insisted on leaving a donation of their own and vowed to return again someday soon and volunteer.

We drove back to the marina and said goodbye to Thando and his clicking, sad to think our time with him was over but feeling as though we would carry a small piece of him with us forever.

We enjoyed lunch at the marina and then headed to Table Mountain to enjoy the magnificent vistas from a top the summit. Calvin explained after Thando had left that Thando's impressive knowledge of Jewish history and culture comes from the fact that his wife and the mother of his sons is a South African Jew. Who'd have thunk.

Dinner was at a delicious seafood restaurant where Justin had a minor freak out at the sight of all the prawn and crayfish heads. "Why don't they peel them for you and remove the heads, it's so disgusting. I can't eat Mom, it's like having a cow's head on the table and asking me to eat my burger." He insisted we peel and behead all the shellfish, discard the remains in a large bowl at the center of the table and cover it with a napkin. Livvy thought Justin was massively overreacting and took great pleasure in licking her garlic butter covered fingers in front of her big brother, pretending it was shrimp guts.

Tomorrow we visit the Cape of Good Hope and avoid shellfish.