No Tricks but Treats: The Second Visit to Langrug 31/10/2013

It’s a very cold and rainy day.  Many struggled to get out of bed this morning due to a long week and a long night following the Red Sox victory.  It’s even colder on the other side of the mountains in the informal settlements where we’re working.

The purpose of today was for our team to visit the settlement of Langrug to start forming connections with the community, begin assessing the WaSH facility built last year, and to find out what the community expects of us.  Olwethu, one of our sponsors from CORC, picked us up at the lodge and drove us through the rain to Langrug.  Our advisors, Scott and Lorraine also met us there for about an hour before they had to meet with another group.  Once there, we talked with Trevor, the elected leader of Langrug who is very passionate about getting what is best for the community.  He is intent on getting more facilities with flush toilets in other areas of the settlement. We got to see a different side of Scott as he negotiated with Trevor and made him understand that we’re here not only to assist Langrug but to advance the project centre’s research on WaSH facilities.  That’s why it’s important that our first week be spent analysing the usage and costs of the facilities that are already there. 

Once Scott and Lorraine left, we began our work by interviewing Trevor on how the new WaSH facility has impacted the community.  We wonder if he exaggerates its effectiveness so that he can convince us that Langrug needs more.  We then talked with three women who are paid to maintain the facility, and two women who volunteer because they are friends with the workers and want to see the facility flourish.  Trevor is fairly well educated and speaks decent English.  There is however a language barrier with the three caretakers.  They can communicate in broken English for basic greetings and simple questions, but for more in depth answers regarding the facility’s maintenance we had to translate through Olwethu.  We would have walked around more of the settlement and met more people except for the cold  weather.  So cold in fact that even I was cold.  One of the women noticed me shivering in my hoodie, and insisted on giving me a towel she was using for additional warmth.

Another one of the women leads a support group for those suffering with HIV AIDS.  They hold some of their meetings at this WaSH facility because it is a central location with a table that they can sit at.  If the facility had been a full multi-purpose centre as intended, they would have their own space to meet that would not be so open and near the toilets.  Yet as I looked into her yellow eyes and toothy smile full of decaying teeth, I saw how excited she was at how the group has grown, the work they have accomplished, and their plans to raise awareness of the disease in the community.   

Trevor and Olwethu left to get more toilet paper and cleaning supplies for the facility.  The caretakers entertained us by teaching us childhood games (one very similar to Simon Says) that got us moving to beat the cold. When the men came back, it was time to leave.  Olwethu drove us back to the lodge, and we took him to lunch to one of the local restaurants we have begun to frequent (Hudson’s has fantastic burgers and milkshakes!)

Prior to today, we had interacted with Olwethu the least of our liaisons at CORC.  However we really got to know him pretty well today.  He was raised in a rural area and studied to be an architect.  However, he was always concerned about the fact that many architects work for wealthy clients to build urban structures.  He used to teach and taught his students to think outside the box, especially when designing for the poor.  CORC found him and hired him to design re-blocked informal settlements.  He told us about some of the other projects he is working on now.  He is very proud of his Xhosa origins, and wants to someday be a consultant for CORC and get recognition for his own work.

Talking with Olwethu and the women who selflessly work to better their community, I am awed.  Though we truly enjoy this project, we are doing it as a graduation requirement and in six weeks will leave while they continue to work.  Like the donuts on the bus, our lives will return to normalcy while the settlements and those working in them are left behind in this third world.  My thoughts return to Trevor’s question: Why are we here?  How will we leave the community a better place?  Perhaps we will find out tomorrow as we tour the settlement and look at the other, less elaborate toilet facilities in Langrug.

My ladies and I

Clarification on this blog

So here's the deal with this blog - for our work on our project, our advisors want us each to write individual reflections for the days we do major work.  We can do this in any format we want, they want us to be creative.  From these individual reflections, each team will post one scene per event on our project website, which is available here.

http://wp.wpi.edu/capetown-2013/homepage/projects/2013-2/wash/

This is the new version of the project centre website.

Since I've been in the mood to write this blog lately, I've been writing my reflections as if I'm writing to you - my audience at home.  So I'm hoping to continue to post my personal reflections to this blog.  It may get more technical about our project than you need to know, and for that I'm sorry, but I'm not forcing you to read this.  The project website (linked above) will have our reflections compiled into scenes that provide everyone's perspective, so that this doesn't happen

Make sense?  By the way, if you've been wondering about the spelling, for our published writing we are supposed to use South African spelling - that means using an 's' instead of a 'z' and spelling words like "centre" the British way.  I've just gotten in the habit of doing it.  Hope you don't find it confuzing!

Meeting our Sponsors: Lost and Found 30/10/2013

Our sponsors were busy on Tuesday (29/10), so we spent the day at lodge debriefing about what we saw on Monday and planning the rest of the week.  Wednesdays are typically reserved for meeting with our advisors, getting some writing done as a group, and sharing our experiences with other groups. However our liaisons (Baraka, Sizwe, and Olwethu) wanted to meet with us on Wednesday to discuss their ideas for our project.  Since we had used Tuesday as a writing day, we agreed.

At Scott’s suggestion, we decided to take the train to the CORC office in Mowbray, Cape Town.  We left the lodge around 13:30, and as we were walking downtown we saw a lot of trash in the street, which seemed uncharacteristic of the clean city of Cape Town we had been seeing so far.  We also noticed some police activity and wondered if something was going on, but it didn’t hinder us from getting to the train station.  We found out later that apparently there was a political riot around where we were at about exactly the time we were walking through there.  We’re still not really sure how we missed all the excitement, but we got through it completely unscathed and unaware of any commotion. 

http://news.howzit.msn.com/news-features/rioters-cause-havoc-in-cape-town-cbd

http://www.news24.com/Multimedia/South-Africa/Cape-Town-station-affected-by-riots-20131030

We were a bit confused by the train station, but after talking with some friendly workers, we were able to purchase our tickets and made our way to the correct train.  As we were sat on the train, we heard two women walking through the cars singing for money.  It was a hauntingly beautiful song accompanied by the jingle of coins in a tin.  Three of us avoided making eye contact with the beggars as they walked by us, but one of our team members noticed that the serenading duo consisted of a young woman leading an blind elder, presumably her mother.  After they passed, we all looked at one another, and knew that we had witnessed a scene of true African poverty. 

We got off the train in Mowbray, and realised that in our primary concern of getting to and navigating the Cape Town train station, we had neglected to find directions to the CORC office from the Mowbray train station.  Though we had been there on Monday, we had taken a cab to get there.  All we knew was the words of our advisor “It’s about a 5 block walk from the train station, the route should be rather obvious.”  In light of this advice, we made the obvious decision to cross the tracks and head toward what signs indicated to be the centre of Mowbray.  We reached a major intersection and intended to cross the first of our presumed 5 blocks, when a man yelled and pointed at us from across the street.  He clearly wanted something from us, and began to cross toward us.  Unnerved, we quickly decided to turn right instead.  In my peripheral vision I saw the man give up his pursuit of us and board a “crazy taxi”.  Relieved, we decided to cross at the next intersection and head back on track.

At some point in this our directional skills apparently failed us, and after walking about four blocks we realized that we were utterly unaware of our whereabouts.  Panic threatened to descend upon the team with the realisation that we were in fact lost in a foreign country.  At least we still had half an hour until our meeting. We inquired at two different shops if anyone could point us in the direction of the road we knew we had to go to.  None of them seemed familiar with the street.  Thankfully, one man pointed us in the direction of the police station.  The clerk at the station showed us a map on the wall and informed us that we were actually on the wrong side of the train tracks, and pointed out the route to get to our destination.  I took a picture with my iPhone (I carry it around out of habit, though it doesn’t work as a phone here), which he recommended hiding while we were in the street. 

We set out, embarrassed, and finally found our way to the CORC office.  We arrived at 3:10 for our 3:00 meeting, so on time for Africa.  Our sponsors didn’t even say anything.

The meeting was very productive – we learned so much about our project and what our sponsors want us to do.  One thing we learned is that there is a section of Langrug called Zwelitsha where there are roughly 500 families and no toilets.  The problem with this area is that since Langrug is built at the base of a mountain, this area is at the highest point and it is very difficult to pump clean water up there and manage the sewage/runoff water going down.  Thus, dry sanitation options (i.e. toilets that don’t require water) are probably the best options for this neighborhood.  It is likely that our project may involve working in this area. 

We called a cab (a company called Sport Taxi) on the way back to the lodge, because we had a project centre dinner at 5.  We waited on the curb, and a cab pulled up.  I asked if it was from Sport and the driver said yes.  However while we were halfway home, Sport called us and said they had arrived.  Oops.  However, one of my group mates left her South African phone in the cab.  A little while after we got back, several of the people with us who were in her phone got a call from the cab driver explaining that he had it (though he was really hard to understand).  Apparently when he noticed the phone, he came back and rang at the gate, but whoever answered sent him away because they didn’t know him and couldn’t understand him.  But this cab driver called her contacts until he reached my partner, and came back at 11 pm when he was in the neighborhood again to drop the phone off.  So even though he lied to us about being from the company we called, my faith has been restored in humanity.

Monday 28/10/13: Our First Day Working

Our day began with a cab ride to the CORC (Community Organisation Outreach Centre) office in Mowbray, Cape Town.  We got there early, and were shown to a conference room to wait for our liaisons.  CORC recently signed a partnership with Habitat for Humanity, and was planning to show about fifteen Habitat representatives around three informal settlements undergoing reblocking.  (Reblocking is a process of upgrading informal shacks into nicer, more organised communities).  The Habitat crew arrived promptly at 9 am Africa time (aka.  ~9:30).   We began with introductions, and the CORC members explained their “bottom up” approach to community reorganisation.  That is, rather than having outside organisations or governments upgrading settlements from the top down, CORC’s projects are community driven; planned and implemented by the people the new structures will be benefitting. 

Flamingo Crescent

Adi showing the plans.  Community leader M-- second from right

We left for Flamingo, our first stop on the tour.  They are about to begin construction on reblocked houses.  Sizwe and Adi (two of our liaisons at CORC) brought along a map of what the settlement will look like, and explained that they hope to have one flush toilet per family, as opposed to the 13 government-provided chemical toilets for roughly 100 shacks.  We also talked to a leader of the community, M-- (I couldn’t catch the pronunciation/spelling of her name) who has been fighting for a while to improve conditions.  She said that the government insists there is not enough space to improve communities, but reblocking is a way of “beating the government

 at the space issue.”

Samples of what the reblocked houses will look like

Children at Play

Flamingo probably held the most horrifying sights for us.   Despite the coming improvements, there seemed to be a depression hanging over the town.  Alcoholism is apparently rampant.  Dirty children played in the street.  “Shacks” seems to me a kind word for the dwellings in Flamingo. Surveying the town, it looked more to me like holes in a garbage heap than shacks.  Trash lined the streets, filled in crevices, and even seemed to provide the roofs of many dwellings.  I cannot fathom how anyone can live in these homes for as long as many of them have.

                       

                  "Shacks" in Flamingo

Yet despite these stark scenes we witnessed, I cannot say they took me by surprise.  Last years’ group warned us that, “Nothing can prepare you for what you’ll see.”  Maybe it was these words of wisdom, our extensive research of previous projects, or countless advertisments I’ve seen for helping impoverished Africans, but I was not altogether shocked by what I saw.  I knew I would see drastic images that no picture could capture, and I saw just that.   I was not really surprised. I was however struck by the contrast between our “first world” and what we saw.  Driving for less than a minute from Flamingo, we were back in a section of Cape Town that I could have mistaken for America.  We drank water and ate donuts on the bus.  Our stop in Flamingo was just a stop on a field trip for us.  For the residents, it’s a way of life that is not so easily escaped. 

Mtshini Wam

Our next stop was much more encouraging – Mtshini Wam.  This settlement is in the final stage of reblocking.  Apparently, it used to be so dense that one had to walk sideways to walk through the neighborhood.  Now, the town is entirely transfigured into units that foster intimate community relations, while maximising space.  The impressive part of this settlement is that much of the progress has been initiated by the community itself.

                                 

Like Flamingo, Mtshini Wam currently has 16 government-provided chemical toilets and 3 water taps for 250 families.  However, they are in the process of laying pipes to provide taps and flush toilets to nearly every household.  What’s interesting about this transition is that the residents typically view toilets as unsanitary things that they would not normally want near their homes.

Current chemical toilets in Mtshini Wam

Construction on Pipes

This community seemed more vibrant and more hopeful than Flamingo.  One woman we talked to through a translator described how much safer she feels now that she lives in an upgraded home in the new configuration.  There was a stronger sense of community walking around, and small shops welcomed visitors to the settlement. 

Langrug

Langrug WaSH facility at the end of the 2012 project

Langrug WaSH facility at the beginning of the 2013 project

Finally, we took the hour-long drive through wine country to Langrug.  Langrug is the second largest informal settlement in the Municpality of Stellenbosch, and receives roughly 80% of the municipality’s annual funds.  Last year, a group of students from WPI helped CORC, the community, and local government to finish the design of a multipurpose facility, which would serve as a community centre and provide toilets, taps, and social functions to the area.  Unfortunately, they were only able to start construction of the water and sanitation portion of the facility.  Construction was completed by the community earlier this year, and has been operational with hired caretakers to maintain it.  The purpose of our project is to assess the current state of this facility and identify and implement improvements to it that could be applied to other Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) facilities. 

One woman sorts mail voluntarily

Once there, we ate a lunch packed by the Habitat representatives and toured the facility, which is also now being used as a mini-post office for the settlement.  We looked around, and even tested the facility for its toilet functions.  Trevor, the elected community leader of Langrug, showed us around the settlement and explained his desire to improve the community and noted the challenges that arise through finances and politics.  He also noted that community upgrading goes beyond improvement of house structures – such efforts need to also address the upgrading of the community’s mindset, so there is less violence and less vandalism of current infrastructure.

Throughout the day, we had a bit of an awkward relationship with the Habitat for Humanity representatives.  They were quite a bit older than us and held important positions in their organisation.  We felt they didn’t fully understand who we were and why we were with them until we arrived at Langrug and they saw the work that WPI does in these communities. At the end of our tour, Trevor bluntly asked the Habitat group what they will bring to Langrug to improve the community.  They explained that they were merely there to see the work that CORC does so they can establish their place in the new partnership.  Though Trevor seemed satisfied with our presence in Langrug, his poignant question haunts me.   What are we doing to benefit the people who still lack the basic human need for water?  I know our assessment will be good for CORC, but people like Trevor like to see results that have a clear benefit to the community.  Though it seems we are on the right track, we are not completely certain where our project will take us.  I only hope that all stakeholders will be pleased with the work we will be doing in the next seven weeks.  

Days 2 & 3: Settling In

Saturday was a relaxing day.  We met with our advisors in the morning to discuss developments to our projects.  The good news is, the WaSH team will be in Langrug more than we thought we would be.  This is the site of last year's project, where we thought we would not be welcome, but it seems like we will spend at least the first two weeks there.  

We went to a rugby game in the afternoon.  Rugby is the sport of South Africa.  Apparently, it was the championship match between DHL West Province (home team) and the Sharks.  WP lost despite our support.  I learned a lot about rugby from Morgan, who plays it at WPI and was more than happy to teach us the rules.  I also found that African sports fans are just enthusiastic as Americans (even New Englanders).  Then twenty-six hungry college students found the nearest Steers - what seems to be an African version of Burger King (without ketchup, to my dismay.  I survived).

It was a quiet night at the lodge.  To describe the accommodations, we are in a "backpacker lodge".  Four people per bedroom in bunk beds.  I'm with three other guys in the "Flat."  It's a building adjacent to the main lodge - we have our own bathroom and kitchenette.  It's nice because we're away from the noise of the main building.  The downside is we have to go through a separate gate and are a bit isolated at times.  On Saturday we tried to plug an American power strip into what we thought was a transformer – turns out it was only an adapter.  Quick ECE lesson, anything you would want to charge (i.e. laptops, phones) will probably work with just the adaptor – the box in your charger will transform the voltage from 240 V to 120 V.  Not all power strips (like the one we tried to use) are rated to do this.  So yeah, we blew out the power strip and lost power.   We found a circuit breaker, that didn’t solve the problem.  We were told an electrician could come sometime Monday.  It really wasn’t a big deal, because we only sleep in the Flat, and we had a flashlight for the bathroom.  Thankfully, the power magically came back on Sunday afternoon.  I’m still not really sure why… not asking questions.

Sunday: Three of us went to Catholic Mass at St Margaret Mary’s.  We got there ten minutes late because Google lied to us and almost led us to walk on a highway.  But it was a really nice Mass.  It felt like a Mass at any traditional Church in America. I was very grateful to able to have such a comfortable experience, even thousands of miles from home.  Reasons why I love Catholicism.  Sometime while I’m here though, I’d love to experience a more African Mass like the ones missionaries describe when they talk at our home parishes.  (I wonder what Mission Sunday is like in Africa…).  It looks like All Saints Day will just be celebrated next Sunday, which is good because I don’t know how feasible it would have been to get to church on Friday.  (The Immaculate Conception is also thankfully on a Sunday this year.  Seems like someone’s looking out for me).

Cape Town is an interesting city.  It doesn’t really feel like Africa for the most part (at least the section we’re living in, which seems to be fairly affluent).  Of the cities I’ve been to, it feels the most like Boston particularly in its cleanliness.  The driving is also very similar – I’d say only slightly worse than Boston drivers.  Not necessarily for lack of skill, but for over-confidence.  Stopping inches (sorry, centimeters) short from another car is the norm. 

I got some great car-riding experience after Mass on Sunday when a group of us went to the beach.  Apparently, the best way to get there is via “Crazy Taxi”.  These taxis drive up and down the main road, yelling out the window for anyone who needs a ride to jump in and catch a ride for R7 ($.70).  They don’t deny service to anyone, even if the van is packed and people are sitting on the floor.  They’re remarkably efficient, almost more like a bus than a taxi.  For those reading this who may be concerned about my safety, remember that you probably at one point in your life rode around Boston (or India) in a packed car without a seatbelt.  And you clearly survived.  There are more legitimate taxis that we call to get us to our projects and flights, etc.  The “crazy taxis” are merely a cheap alternative for small excursions, and provide an entertaining story.  I can now check that off my list of things I’ve done.

The beach was nice, the weather beautiful, and I only got slightly burnt on the back of my hand. 

Beach

We came back to the lodge, I went back to the waterfront with a friend to get a couple of things (including starting my Christmas shopping).

Waterfront

 I missed the group that went to out dinner, so I made some instant pasta I had bought.  The stove takes a while to heat up and I had to estimate mL, so it didn’t turn out great, but food is food.  We spent tonight booking our flights for our Safari over Thanksgiving and finalised details for our first day of work tomorrow.

WaSH team will be meeting with our sponsor in the morning, and then we will be touring three informal settlements (including Langrug where WPI worked last year) along with a Habitat for Humanity group that has begun working with our sponsor.  It’s going to be a long day, but hopefully quite insightful.  We’re all really excited to get started.  I should probably go to bed since we have to leave the lodge at 8, so Ubusuku benzolo! (Goodnight!)