A Visit to the Townships

We saw a side of South Africa today that tourists rarely see up close when we toured the townships near East London under the watchful eye of our local guide, Toto. The poorest of the poor live in the townships but it does not seem to be a dark and depressing area ... on the contrary it is full of life and colours, with kids chasing us to be included in photos (they seldom see how they look), clothes on lines flapping in the breeze, street soccer, music blaring and everywhere smiles. Maybe it is because there is such a strong life force and upbeat feeling despite the poverty that it instills a strong sense of sympathy for their plight .... most of these people are unemployed and subsist on government hand-outs. 

The harsh reality is that some 80.000 people live permanently in a horrific situation as 50% of the core city’s population is crammed onto just 2% of the land. There are 3,500 formal dwellings and 14,000 shacks, while densities exceed 2,500 people per hectare in some areas.

Although we felt conspicuous, at no time did we feel unsafe despite several stops, including a shabeen (bar) and the inside of a small, 3-room home of one of Toto's acquaintances.As much as we were curious about the people of the township, they had a strong curiosity about us ... and we certainly had the sense that very few white people, especially tourists, venture through the winding streets.

"Live the Life you want to Live"

At the edge of the township is a monument, topped by a statue of a Zulu warrior, as a tribute to the 23 people killed in the 1985 Duncan Village Massacre. In those days of apartheid the township had become the scene of a running battle between youth and police and after the funeral of a slain civil rights activist the violence turned even more deadly.. Our visit was relatively brief so it was not possible to really sense the depth of today's issues , but crime, HIV, and all the misery associated with over-crowded settlements of abject poverty can not be far below the surface. How ironic the brightly painted sign behind the children in the adjacent photo which reads "Live the Life You Want to Live" ... for all but a fortunate few they will never get that opportunity.

And yet, from what we could see the place has a vibrancy and pulses with life. It happened that we visited the township on a national holiday, Human Rights Day (the anniversary of the 1960 Sharpville Massacre) and just down the road an East London park was filled with hundreds of people in a holiday mood, music blaring and the air filled with the aroma of meat grilling over the all-day charcoal braai. The most touching memory of the township though, was that of the children who would come flocking to us in groups, laughing, posing, singing, dancing and running ... and their unbridled enthusiasm about being included in a photo and then seeing the image of themselves with their friends. Such excitement over what to us is such a simple thing ...

Bulungula - African Village on the Wild Coast

Last weekend, ten of us made the long drive to the remote village of Bulungula, the last 40 km of which were over a very rough dirt road lined with people walking long distances and children running toward the vehicle laughing and excitedly waving their arms. Every twist and turn hailed a new scene of people going about their daily activities, lush hills and valleys, multi-coloured thatched huts and random livestock roaming at will ... and endless photo opportunities.

Our destination was a lodge comprised of a number of sleeping huts identical to those we had passed and which are in common use ... we slept five to a hut on simple beds adorned with nothing but a single solar-powered light. We cleaned up in "rocket showers" ... you stuff toilet paper into a pipe, douse it in paraffin and light it for seven or eight minutes of hot water. Food was served at a cafe/bar and was typically African ... samp (white maize) and beans for lunch, curried chicken and rice, Xhosa bread etc. - all delicious. Many Castle milk stout in litre-bottles or alcoholic cider were consumed by the campfire on a hill over-looking the beach at the junction of the Indian Ocean and the Bulungula River. At night, there were others from all over the world around the campfire and as we conversed we all joined in beating an African drum with a steady rhythm, sometimes sitting on chairs made of whale backbones.

After an early morning rocket shower on Saturday morning I noticed a colourful procession of villagers headed to the beach carrying a drum ... it turned out to be a spectacular baptism ceremony at, for them, an unusual venue because a regional chief was in the area that day. The people were exuberant, making music and dancing in an incredible setting as dawn broke over the ocean.  

Later that morning we went fishing out in the tidal channels using soft-shell mussels as bait. Big fish are often caught there but we were unsuccessful so our consolation prize was buying several large, live crayfish for 15 Rand ($2.50) each from a fisherman we met on the shore and having them for lunch.

That afternoon we went for a guided tour of the local village, starting at the hut of the healer who is reputed to be able to cure anything but HIV, TB and asthma using traditional herbs and medicines mostly gathered from nearby forests. Hanging at the top of the wall in the healer's hut (as well as in homes of those who believe) are cattle bones symbolic of the link established between a person who has died and their children. As we continued to the local shop we learned such things as wives are not free ... the man must pay at least 10 cows (cost under $1,000) to the women's parents ... sometimes as many as 12 cows. The shop offered only a few very basic staples so we continued on to the "pub".

Pass the pail

As you enter the "pub" they explain that married men sit on benches on one side and married women sit on mats on the other side while singles are free to move about. The beer is made from corn using packets of powder costing $1.25 that are big enough for a barrel that is brewed one day and drunk the next. It costs $2.50 for a 5-litre pail that is passed around from person to person. It tastes awful and most of us could not wait to get back to the good stuff back at the lodge. But first we had to explain to general shock and disbelief, as chickens wandered in and out of the pub, that in our countries no cows change hands when a couple marries.

The essence of this place can not truly be captured with a camera - the mood, the sounds, the smells are all part of it - but the vibrant colours and many contours are amazing. The people here lead very simple lives and would be considered impoverished but they seem genuinely happy. Bulungula is tranquil and inspiring ... you want to stay for a long time, oblivious to the daily trials and tribulations back home.

Road Trip

Today, Marco, Jason and I, in the company of Mr Dumisani Makubalo of ECRFC, headed to a rural area of the Eastern Cape to conduct branch office interviews. Unfortunately, our team-mate Anna felt too ill to join us.

I rode with Mr Makubalo and we had some terrific conversation ranging from business to sports, to politics, to what it has been like living in the country both before and after apartheid. He is unusual too in that he and his father bought 46 hectares of land shortly after the apartheid era, where he now has 170 head of cattle and 150 sheep on a farm he runs on weekends and evenings in addition to his job as the Credit and Risk Manager at ECRFC.Mr Makubalo holds a degree in Agriculture from the University of Fort Hare.

We arrive at Queen's Town

Our first stop was in Queen's Town, a beautiful place nestled in the green hills that we saw most of the day. We interviewed both the branch manager and the branch administrator/credit controller and explored many issues with them such as why some people have the mindset that they should not have to repay their loan ... for reasons such as a culture of dependency after years of deprivation, that free money from government grants is commonplace, that as freedom fighters they have a sense of entitlement. These are but a sampling of the very significant issues we will need to address in developing a strategy to reduce the rate of loan default.

Queen's Town Branch Manager

On the desk of managers back home one might expect to see a box of tissues or maybe business cards ... so the box of condoms on the branch manager's desk in Queen's Town seems wildly out of place until you realize what a massive problem HIV is in South Africa. The country has the fourth highest incidence of HIV in the world, which drives the life expectancy under 50 years - 178th in global rankings. Reminders of the life-and-death need to practice safe sex are everywhere.
 
Not surprisingly, the further we get from the client's office the more the perspective seems to change on business issues. For example, the customer service consultant in  Engcobo, a satellite office of Queen's Town, told us how important it is to include the "headman" (local authority such as councilor or tribal chief) in the group loans they make ... because he can exert influence if that loan starts to go into arrears.

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I find it interesting that people in the branch offices they have not heard of IBM ... which speaks volumes of how much ground needs to be made up by the IBM brand in South Africa. The people often want to know what IBM does - something I have never had to explain in my career. How do you tell someone in simple terms what a company does to drive $100 billion per year in revenue and employ hundreds of thousands of people?

Transkei Robots

The rural countryside on our long drive through the Transkei region was spectacular - lush green fields dotted with colourful houses and with picturesque hills or mountains as a backdrop. Every now and then the road would be blocked but cattle or sheep - what the locals call "Transkei robots", robots being the term for traffic lights and the livestock requiring vehicles to slow down or stop. The round houses are often made of mud and are cheaper to construct than square homes using concrete blocks.

The road-trip continues on Friday with more interviews in Mthatha before heading to a really exciting weekend visit to a remote African village on the Wild Coast ... stay tuned for what that is like!

The Cradle of Humankind

A few years ago I participated in the Genographic Project, a collaboration of National Geographic and IBM that starts with the premise that all humans are descended from a common group of African ancestors, and uses DNA to map the migratory routes out of Africa that started some 60,000 years ago. Sure, I already knew that my father's lineage settled in modern-day Ukraine, but to think that I carry that information with me in my DNA and that by analyzing a few of my cheek cells I can be told the route that my ancient ancestors took from Africa to their ultimate destination is absolutely fascinating.

One of the many early hominid fossils at the Cradle of Humankind

At the turn of the millennium, fossil hominid sites close to Johannesburg became the  Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site.There are over 200 caves on the site, with more still to be discovered. There are 13 fossil sites which have been extensively examined and some have produced fossils of human ancestors and their relatives. A variety of stone tools used by human ancestors such as axes and scrapers have also been identified. It is known that Australopithecus africanus were present in the Cradle from about four to two million years ago. It is generally thought likely that these hominids (upright walking "apes"), or close relatives of them, were human ancestors. Homo ergaster, present around 1 million years ago is even more likely to be a direct ancestor than Australopithecus.


Near where we are staying for our Corporate Services Corps project is the site of the Nahoon Footprints, the fossilized footprints of a child made some 200,000 years ago in sandstone. Discovered in 1964, large slabs of Nahoon Footprints are now on display in the East London Museum.
 
At the southern tip of the country, unfortunately a little too far for me to visit on this trip, is the more recently famous Blombos Cave. The important findings of the archaeological excavations at Blombos provide proof of the origin of modern intelligent human beings in this area around 77,000 to 133,000 years ago. The Blombos Cave was the home of the first intelligent human beings on earth, the Homo sapiens. They were people who had crossed the divide between animals and humans and had cognitive and conative talents like today's human beings. Since the discovery of the Lascaux caves in France, archaeologists believed that the modern Homo sapiens evolved between 100,000 to 150,000 years ago, but did not develop modern thought processes and behaviours until 40,000 years ago. The findings at Blombos Cave proved this hypothesis wrong.

Blombos Cave near the tip of South Africa

Delicately crafted stone and bone implements discovered there precede the comparable European artefacts by more than 80,000 years. More than 8,000 pieces of ochre, commonly used as colour pigment in artwork, were found in the Middle Stone Age layers of the Blombos cave. The cave was inhabited by successive colonies of these people who were hunting, fishing and gathering seafood in the vicinity. Moreover, these prehistoric occupants painted their bodies red for rituals and carved abstract symbols.  

South Africa, is a treasure trove of early of humanity. Much has come to light only in recent years and one has to wonder how much more natural history wealth lies just beneath the surface of a country whose mining treasures are normally considered to be gold and diamonds. Over the course of 60,000 years my ancestors migrated from Africa through the Middle East, then through Central Asia, and eventually to Canada ... how intriguing it is to think that our DNA is linked and that after just a few hours of travel I am living and working in close proximity to where it all began!