‘God created the rose
in the likeness of Woman '. It was written on the card Kamilla and I received on
one of our visits to the townships of Strand. Five ladies in blue t-shirts,
accompanied by their male colleague in police uniform, handed the cards out .
They visited the school to wish all female teachers a nice Women's Day. This is
was not the only Women’s event we witnessed that day. When visiting the school,
we noticed all female teacher were absent. The school principal had taken all of them out
to have a cop of coffee. Should this this have happened at a Belgian school all
kids would have been shouting and having a party. In this school, children were
working and this without having a teacher in front of the classroom. ‘This
would never happen in Belgium’, said Kamilla. Elsa, the lady who was my guide
for the day, is very proud of the township school. She contributed a lot and
invested a lot in the school. She even is paying for a music teacher who started
a choir, but she also made sure there were computers and a lot more. The school
principal is proud to say that the number of pupils has tripled in recent years.
I would like to
dedicate this story to celebrate Women's Day and you can be a witness of these 'wonderful women' as they are called. In my quest
for stories about people in post-apartheid, I was brought into contact with
Elsa. She was a doctor in psychology in Potchefstroom. Like many others, when
she retired, she traded the dryness of the desert for the coastal beauty of
Cape Town. She is a convinced member of the Dutch Reformed Church, and
precisely because of her faith she thinks it is her duty to care for the less
fortunate. My first conversation with her had me baffled. Stories of people who
have experienced apartheid as Afrikaner and were part of a system, evokes
ambiguous feelings. At one point, she told me that during the eighties the
Cosby show was shown on TV, people realized that 'blacks’ also could be
intelligent. It became clear to her that everyone is equal in the eyes of God. It
kept playing my mind ‘How could a teacher psychology (psychology) think like
this?’
Like every Afrikaner I
talk to, she is convinced that getting rid of apartheid was a good thing and
at least everyone gets an equal chance now. This opened up a whole range of
possibilities for a lot of people but it also the gave opportunity to people
that has been so haunted by their history to re-profile themselves. Although
religion is declining, South Africa is still a very religious country. There are so
many religions as there are people and despite the many problems in this
country, between different religions, there appears to be no conflicts. Elsa is
a convinced member of the Dutch Reformed Church and finds that in the present
circumstances it is her duty to help the less fortunate. She raises funds for
the local school in the township to buy food, organizes food handouts in the
hospital for HIV-patients who have to take their pills with food, she wants a
daycare center for children in the poorest township in Strand, Casablanca .
Casablanca has an exotic name but it is a sad sight of deteriorated houses.
Elsa shows me the plot of land where they want to build the daycare center for
children. Now they make do with a small container without water and electricity
for the children. There is only room for 12 kids from the neighborhood
and it is Elsa’s dream to be able to house all the kids of the neighborhood. The
poverty of the area is hard to describe. Not only Elsa is doing a lot but the
women of the district are putting in their weight as well. Irma is one of the
people who are better off in the neighborhood. Her husband works in
construction and they have build a 'proper' house. It is not huge but cozy. She
also has a stove on which she prepares soup. Elsa provides the ingredients and
Irma prepares the soup twice a week in
her Sopkombuis (soup kitchen). The locals can get soup for free. At least they
eat healthy twice a week, she says. Last Friday we helped at the 3-monthly
second hand clothes sale in Casablanca. The magnitude of the poverty struck me
at that moment. The sale had the same effect as sales In Belgium. The people
rushed onto the clothing and for 0.2 cents a piece, they could get a whole
outfit. Elsa said she had to ask money because the first time when everything
was for free, people started fighting and
burned down the place.
There was a kind of
roughness in the room. Boys rushed to our car upon arrival, hoping to earn some
money by helping us carrying bags. The cringing behavior, sir, madam ... I do
not get used to it. Yet, there was also some happiness. Adolescent girls found
a pair of pink boots with very high heels and this was reason enough for them
to spend some time in a dream world and have the illusion to be a model.
I talked to Jennifer
that day. She also lives in Casablanca and is considered the mom of the
neighborhood. She also helps with the sopkombuis because she wants to care for
the people. ‘I love people’, she says, ‘I do not have anything but I like to
give because I know what it is to be hungry.’ She has three children, and has
already known a lot of misery in her life. Her son was hooked on tik, a type of
drug, and he even robbed her of what little they possessed, because he needed
the money. Luckily he gave up on the drugs, she said, and now has a job. Her
youngest daughter was pregnant when she was 15 and now Jennifer takes care of
her four year old grandchild. She is so proud that despite her daughter's
pregnancy, she is a good student at school. This could not have happened
without the generosity of the people from church, she says. She really wants
her daughter to get her diploma so she can find a job. ‘I keep faith in the
Lord above. He means the best with us ‘ she continues. She is a member of an
African Christian church and this keeps her going. ‘God is
there to take care of us.’
I only had one thought
in my head when we drove away. God can never have wanted all this misery.
And yet it is moving.
Elsa with her group of volunteers from the church, living in the nicer part of the city, trying to give their fellow citizens in the slums a dignified life. The religion
as a bridge between two parts of the city. Many questions still haunt my mind
but for now I stick to the testimony of women who get the strength from their
faith. One to help each other, the other to give meaning to her existence.
And if only for one hour, a few teenage girls get pleasure from a pair of pink
boots ... 'God created the rose in the likeness of Woman '
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