Oceanview-Through a Glass Window.

We drove along the coast of South Africa for 9 hours today, teetering on the edge of mountains and hills that overlook the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Peering through the tinted bus window, I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and watched the seemingly unreal landscape unfurl before my eyes…rocky ledges jutted out from the untamed and untouched overgrowth that coated the sides of the cliffs…the green blanket sweeping down the hills to some lower neighborhoods where houses nestled into the bay, facing an expanse of blue water that faded into…nowhere it seemed, the clouds and the water meeting at the horizon in the distance, and little waves that broke into white surf flirted with the sandy beaches that were occasionally speckled with brave surfers. We started the tour at the University of Cape town, weaved through the V&A Waterfront, Camp’s Bay, and traveled to the Cape of Good Hope.

Halfway to the Cape of Good Hope, we stopped in a little town called Oceanview for “entertainment” and lunch. The heavenly landscape was in stark contrast with the broken homes in the area…children cloaked in rags, men hunched over on street corners with beer bottles in hand, cracked windows and barbed wire fences distorting faces of women inside the cinderblock buildings, clothes lines stretching across alleyways. Our buses pulled into a guarded compound with security agents that held scrambling children outside the wall until the “guests” were safely inside. We unloaded the buses and then filed into an auditorium where a local woman told us about the neighborhood. Oceanview was a township with over 40,000 residents, and almost all of them are coloureds who were relocated to the area during apartheid. (In South Africa, “coloured” is not a negative term at all, but is used to describe the people whose skin color is in between white and black Africans) The woman told us that the township was purposefully made with one exit/entrance so that the police could shut down the compound if the people tried to initiate an uprising against their oppressors. Liquor stores fueled the alcoholism that resulted from depression, poverty, and hopelessness, gangs were created, families terrorized…women are still terrified to leave their homes after 6pm each night. Just 20 years ago, if a white person wanted to come visit someone in the township, the local “coloured” person would have to apply for a permit to have a white guest, as well as provide separate utensils and table for meals. Though much has changed since the end of apartheid in 1994, the scars and pain of the suffering.

A few women in the township had prepared a meal for us, and so we ate rice and meat, along with some fruit and desserts. A little into the meal, another announcer stepped up to the microphone and introduced several children that would be dancing for us for entertainment. She thanked us repeatedly for “sharing this experience with them” and for coming to Oceanview. For the next hour, coloured youth of all ages danced to hip-hop music, belly danced, and sung songs…while white Americans complained about the “weird ethnic food” and then snapped pictures and laughed as the children performed. Sitting on the floor in the front row, it was apparent that these youth had not showered in days, and their lack of nourishment was evident in their baggy clothes that seemed to fall off their bodies as they shook and turned across the floor.

A wave of nausea swept over me, and my eyes began to fill with tears. I watched the precious children gaze across the room with empty eyes, watching the flashing cameras capture moments of promiscuous dancing. There was one girl in particular, dressed in a blue longsleeve shirt, that caught my eye. She seemed numb and tired, looking up at the performers from her seat on the floor…and she never smiled—her face marked by a distant gaze. Her eyes were glued to her older peer who belly danced across the floor, egged on by cat calls and applause from the audience…and my heart cringed as tears rolled down my cheeks. This poverty, this pain, this darkness was her home, and now these guests had come to take pictures of her hell for their facebook albums…and this older girl who seduced the crowd was her example—for making money and for a future. I longed to hold her and hug her and tell her of her Father’s love for her, to protect her from the dark future that beckoned her from the dance floor… but our group left the old auditorium and got immediately back on the buses, drove out of the guarded compound, and watched the faces of poverty race by through a glass window.