Vulnerable children end up in the arms of Masizame, St Kizito or the Institute because in one way or another they have been abandoned by father and mother. This tragic reality is here for all to see. Inescapable. Whether we are a people of faith or a people of no faith is largely irrelevant. The words of the psalm simply point to the gathering in of the orphaned and the vulnerable by a people on fire with compassion.
On my last full day here I am with the Xhosa speaking women of the St. Kizito project in Gugulethu. I arrived early and waited outside the locked gates in my car. The streets of this vast township are busy on Sunday afternoons with smartly dressed church goer’s returning to their homes and men of all ages moving around from one drinking hole to another. The streets were busy as I set out for a walk. Eventually I met with Thobeka. Simultaneously, a man touched me on the shoulder. He had followed me from the car to make sure I was safe!
We spoke for a while, he and I and Thobeka, about the rivalries between townships, fly tipping, youths on street corners, upwardly mobile blacks moving into places like Constantia in the suburbs and whites moving off the street as a result, whites moving into a township and blacks wondering what they are up to. We embraced the guardian angel dressed as a man and went in to St. Gabriel’s. He had started work at the Institute hostel two months ago and recognised me!
The women talked about their work, some in their Xhosa clicks, some in English. As always the theme is the children in a world of poor and messed up adults. The mothers with young babies to multiple partners, the men who disappear, the child allowances collected by relatives no longer caring for the child, the neighbours caring for children who are not their own. The volunteers are like detectives unravelling knotted balls of wool. Alongside the spectacular story with a remarkable ending is the one that would frustrate a Sherlock Holmes.
Thobeka invited me to her home in another part of Gugulethu to meet her daughter Tamara and beautiful little grandchild. When it was time to leave she insisted on escorting me to the N2. It was not safe for a white man on a Sunday afternoon to stop at intersections overlooked by black men drinking. She left me at the slip road and walked back into her world to get a taxi. I coasted down the motorway to collect Karen and Marc at the Waterfront, ten minutes and a world away.
So ends this time of ours in the Cape.
We return in late February. The blog will continue in the meantime for Cape and Dale dwellers alike.
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