We step out of the air conditioned halls of the airport into a blast of Cape heat. It is nearly 30 degrees and I am wearing jeans and walking boots. I have been met by three friends from Hlabisa days, gathered in Cape Town for a wedding. We are chatting animatedly in the car as we leave the airport complex - developed massively for the 2010 World Cup – and I am struck by how glitzy and new everything looks.
10 minutes later and we are hurtling down the freeway towards the city. Table Mountain looms ahead of us, cloud pouring over its edge like the head on a hastily pulled pint. As the road curves the towers of the city centre buildings bristle at the mountain foot. I turn to look at the road side – I had seen it before but I am still startled: the glass of the airport buildings has given way to the shacks of the Townships and informal settlements that line the freeway. Thrown up with scraps of wood, corrugated iron, and plastic sheeting these are no temporary shanty towns. There are street lights, webs of cabling dangle from central pylons dispersing electricity to each dwelling, and one shack wears a precariously positioned satellite dish. At the edge of the road stand around 30 or 40 huts, each big enough to accept a person standing.
“What are those?” I ask, puzzled.
“Toilets” our resident Capetonian replies. “The shacks don’t have their own plumbing.”
As we approach the city the Township becomes more developed. Shacks give way to one room bungalows with water and waste plumbing. A large billboard by the highway shows a smiling black family and the tagline “From shacks to civilisation”.
My friends drop me off at my home for the next few months, a flat in a Cape Town suburb belonging to a family friend in the UK. I wave them off and lug my bags into the building. I walk into a reception area. “You must be Ed? We were wondering where you had go to!” says the smiling woman behind the desk in heavily Afrikaans accented English. The reception area is decorated with pictures of times past and several high backed chairs placed around a table are occupied by a group of white haired pensioners. A little old lady heaves herself slowly across the hall on a Zimmer frame, followed closely by a nurse. A poster on the wall declares “Are you having trouble getting to the shops?” I am momentarily puzzled, and then realise: this is a retirement complex.
A man comes down the stairs on a stick. “Look at you, young man!” the receptionist shouts at him cheerfully, “using the stairs at your age!”. My apartment is on the 4th floor. I take the lift.
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