Township Tours

Today was township tour day part of the orientation. We discussed our placements and how to approach the project, which is going to be a group mural to be done on a giant wall by an orphanage for AIDs children. I will be working at Mary Harding, a special education school that has a tech room that will be used as the art room. It looks as though we will be doing rather consistant art therapy throughout the day.

Part of orientation today was a physical tour of some of the local townships. The main one that we toured was Langa, a black township. In South Africa, race is treated with much less political "correctness" as in the states. People state their race as black, coloured, white, asian, etc. etc. First we viewed District 6. I would explain in more detail what it is, but I think wikipedia does a pretty decent job. The only part that was really left was a chapel and a mosque.

I could not believe how close together the houses were and how people were living in such poor conditions. Literally there were shanty upon tin shanty..some concrete houses were constructed by the government. Women and children popped in and out from the corners..Literally, a million or so people live in these townships. It's really indescribable. I will show some pictures..because my words can't do it...it was seriously depressing.

smileys
view outside of Vicki's B&B
inside a school


-k