Living in Cape Town for three weeks was quite interesting. And we really were living there. We stayed in a rented house (not a hotel, motel or hostel of some sort) and we cleaned (mostly) daily and made all of our own meals. We even got to experience a blackout.
In all honesty, it didn’t feel much different from living in the states. But there were differences.
- Heating: Houses and buildings just don’t have any heating and are poorly insulated, for the most part. In fact — I don’t think we saw any building that had any sort of built in heating. Space heaters in the bedrooms or hot water bottles in the bed were the norm, not the exception. It didn’t bother any of us guys, that I know of, because we generally like it cooler anyways (and it never got incredibly cold).
- Restaurants: Eating out in South Africa isn’t like it is here. People just don’t do it often and when they do, it’s generally a big ordeal lasting hours. We ate at one on the waterfront in downtown Cape Town called the Santana Spur that reminded us of Chili’s. I didn’t think what I had was all that great though. Supposedly you can eat really well though for not that expensive (we were told you could get a really good aged steak for $15 or less). The other restaurant we ate at was the Masi Spur in Masi. It just served meat. Nothing else. We actually ate here twice: the first time we got a platter of pork and a platter of beef and the second time only pork. The pork was some of the best that I have had. It was seasoned wonderfully well and grilled to perfection. It was also nice and tender and easy to eat (the big problem with the beef was how tough and NOT easy to eat it was; it was seasoned well though).
- Mexican Food: Even in grocery stores, Mexican food is expensive and hard to come by. We did find “taco kits” which included soft shells, sauce and seasoning for meat but we never found ANY tortilla chips. They had salsa though.
Grocery shopping in general felt just like it does here. The only significant differences were in the prices of meat (significantly more expensive there) and the prices of fresh fruits and vegetables (significantly cheaper there).
Another difference that’s good to know: they call their stoplights robots. We kept seeing signs declaring, “Robot ahead” and for about a week speculated at their meeting. Someone finally clued us in.
While this hasn’t been a deep post by any stretch of the imagination, perhaps it will help set the scene of Cape Town a little more…
We got into Cape Town on a Friday evening and after some drama, made it back to the team house around 7 in the evening. The longtermers we were working with (Mike and Kalyn Arndt) had a taco soup dinner waiting for us (which was great!). We spent the rest of the evening going over rules and logistically info (as well as some cultural info). We then went to bed in preparation for the morning: our first trip into Masi.
Masiphumelele (Masi for short) is the township were we spent all of our time and while there, we “adopted” the wetlands area, where the poorest of the poor, live. Our first time into Masi, though, we stayed out of the wetlands. At this point we really weren’t entirely sure what we would be doing (and it was a Saturday) so we kept things simple. The reason I mention it being Saturday is that things are a bit on the wild side in the townships on the weekends. Most people that normally work during the days are out and about and the boys are full before the clock strikes noon.
We split into twos (and took a translator to facilitate conversations) and went to the streets of Masi to prayer walk. Rachel was my partner and Vuyani was our translator. We walked all over hitting every major intersection (so said our translator Vuyani). It was both exciting and overwhelming. Masi is a huge place (we are told its home to 30 to 40 thousand folks). Had we not picked an area and stuck with it as we did, I think it would have been too overwhelming. Also lending to feelings of overwhelmment was the weekend atmosphere. It seemed that hardly anyone was working and that everyone was instead looking to have a good time. We were there at 10 am and the Chabeans were already packed (Chabeans are unregulated bars). Many were drunk. Many were high as well (there were several junctures where the smell of weed was overpowering). We also saw one fight outside of a Chabean between two “boys” not much younger than I.
I remember that our biggest prayers were (a) that Jesus would go before us preparing the way, (b) that he would use us to bless and minister to those that we encountered and (c) that he would grant us wisdom and insight when confronted face to face with issues and problems we knew little about (extreme economic poverty, alcoholism, drugs, AIDs, paganism, etc). While on that prayer walk, we had the opportunity to pray for 3 individuals: two ladies and a man. Rachel took the lead with the ladies and I took the lead with the man (whose leg was severely messed up from a car accident). This too is where things started to get intense and real: its really hard to know how to pray in situations seemingly devoid of hope. I so wanted to believe but just didn’t immediately know how to pray. I remember thinking “How in the world is this going to work?”
And thus we encountered Masi for the first time. Looking back, I think God probably worked in our team just as much as He did with the people we encountered (just in very different ways). While not yet in the wetlands with the people we grew to love, it was still eye opening and our own need for God was particularly highlighted. This was good though — we definitely wouldn’t have seen what we did without Him.
As many of you know, I spent most of the month of June in Cape Town, South Africa. We spent the vast majority of our time working in a black township called Masiphumelele (Masi for short). In Masi, 30 to 40 thousand people live in mostly poverty (there are a few nicer places but they are few and far between).
Our first day was spent exploring Masi. We met in the morning, prayed and worshipped for a while and then broke into twos (three’s if you count the translator) and headed into Masi to prayer walk, meet people, and get a general feel for the area. It was a Saturday so we were immediately confronted with some of the deeper heart issues of Masi. For lack of more productive things to do, most seemed to use the weekend as a chance to party. We went out at 10 in the morning and all of the bars were already full and many were drunk. The stench of marijuana was strong in many areas. We even saw one fight break out.
Right from the start, the work needed to be done in this township seemed overwhelming. There were so many issues that people were dealing with, many of them issues we couldn’t fully understand. Along with the aforementioned problems with drugs, alcohol and violence, there is an 80% unemployment rate, AIDs runs rampant, witchdoctors are quite prevalent, and there is any many places just the heaviness of hopelessness (and really, these issues don’t really even scratch the surface).
Despite our fears though, God did move in rather intense and amazing ways. Fruit was seen where once there was no life. We quickly learned that no place is truly hopeless. Look for more stories on what we saw and what we did coming soon.
