30deeds

During my stay, I am volunteering Monday-Friday and have the weekends free to explore the city.  Today, myself and most of the other building volunteers spent the day exploring Cape Town on a tour bus.  To be honest, I have never been to a more beautiful city.  The views on the coast are just breathtaking and the pictures do not even do it justice.  However later in the day, I was reminded of how sometimes the most beautiful places in the world can be the most dangerous.

Tony, the crazy Frenchman

The volunteers and I enjoyed the day taking in the views, wine tasting, eating, among other activities.  We enjoyed it so much so that we lost track of time.  This means that we had to take a train and minibus back after dark…bad idea.  As soon as dark hits, the streets, train stations and everywhere else that were bustling minutes before, empty out.  The only people left on the streets are…lets just say they are the type of people that you would not want to meet in a back alley.

We arrived at the train station, quickly found our train and hopped aboard.  We sat down and were the only ones in the car.  Soon after we sat down, a man with eyes bugging out of his head (likely on some sort of drugs) came up to us, leaned over the seat and repeatedly asked “what are you guys doing” and “why do you look so nervous”.   We ignored him for a few minutes until he eventually realized we weren’t going to be bothered and walked away.  It was an ominous sign to start the trip back home.

When the train pulled into our stop, most of the volunteers separated to head back to their respective house families.  Myself and Jomo (the Englishman) got onto a minibus and started our trek home.  The minibus was packed with people and dropped off one local after another..after another, until Jomo and I were the only passengers left in the van.  This was not a normal occurrence so I found it a bit unsettling.

As we continued driving, we stopped at a stop sign and looked to our right.  A man was crouched down with a knife about 8 inches long, just scraping it in the street looking through the window and what felt like straight through my soul.  Jomo and I immediately thought the man was going to get on the minibus.  After 3 hours of stopping at the stop sign, luckily, the mini bus continued on (OK, so maybe it was about 10 seconds but it certainly felt a lot longer!).

After driving for a few more minutes we came across a group of gangsters walking down the middle of the street.  They were carrying something large between two of them in a makeshift bag made out of a blanket and sticks.  The mini bus stopped and the driver and the gangsters exchanged words in the local language (Afrikaans).  I started to think the worst case scenario..Were the gangsters going to get on the minibus Were they negotiating to kidnap/rob us?  Was this the reason why the driver dropped everyone else off first?  It turned out to be none of the above and we kept on driving.  We finally made it close to my home and the driver asked us to get out a few blocks away from the normal stop.  To be honest, I had no idea where we were as I was born without an internal compass and everything in that area looks identical.  Luckily for me, Jomo knew the way home and we walked/ran all the way to the front doorstep.

Was my life in danger? Probably not.  However,  there is a reason why the Projects Abroad team members warn volunteers about going out at night without a door to door taxi.  I made it home safe but will most certainly not take public transportation after dark again!

Note: What made this night a bit scarier is that I found out earlier in the week that in 3 separate incidents, volunteers had been robbed. Two of them at knife-point and 1 at gun-point, which are stories all on their own.

View from the Winery

Today, I got picked up early in the morning and met the other volunteers.  There are 2 guys from France, 3 girls from Germany, a girl from china and a guy from England.  Just like every other volunteer I have met so far, they were nice and interested in learning my background.

The building site is about a 10 minute drive from where I am staying.  We pulled into town and there really is no way to describe what I saw.  Homes/shacks were made completely out of scrap metal, tarps, plastic, wood, tires, or anything else they could find.  There is no running water and most have no bathroom to speak of.  Most shacks house around 10 people or more.  Around town there are stray, very unhealthy looking dogs running everywhere.  There are children running through the dirt roads.  To be honest, it was all a bit overwhelming.  It was one thing to see it from afar, but another to see it up close and personal.

I did not take this photo but the village I volunteered in looked very similar.

When we arrived on the building site we were met by the building site manager, Deen.  As he does with all new volunteers, he took me around the grounds and told me his back story as well as the back story of the township we were in.  There really aren’t enough kind words to describe how incredible this man is.  Deen is from Indian descent but was born and raised in South Africa.    He is in his early 50’s with 2 sons in their late teens.  He was working a construction job making good money and and was relatively happy.  He heard about the destruction going on in a place called Lavender Hill and wanted to help.  He left his job making 10 times the money to help out.  Deen did extensive leg work to get the project off the ground including securing all the permits, getting the government’s buy in, OKing it with the locals, among probably thousands of other things.  Deen’s situation before the start of the project is something I can relate to and after the talk, I felt safe and right at home.

The way they are building the community center is much different than  I am used to in the western world.  Everything is made from cement and sandbags.  The structures are very solid and insulate very well.  After being shown the ropes, I first filled a wheel barrel with sand (plenty in the area) and brought it close to the building.  We added dry cement mix until we had a good color, added water, and then mixed it with spades.  I spent the next few hours plastering a wall to fill in some gaps and quickly learned two important lessons: don’t layer it on to thick and don’t hit the wall too hard with the trowel.  The first resulted in my wall collapsing and the latter gave me a face/mouthful of cement.  In all it was a great first day at the building site.

Unrelated to volunteering: That night we hiked up Lions Head mountain to watch the sunset.  The views of the ocean and city below were simply breathtaking.  It was nice to get some exercise and clear my head to get ready for the next day.

Me at the top of Lion’s Head peak