Dear diary ... Just a reminder of where I am

Dear diary,

South Africa, one of the most beautiful countries in the world if you’d ask me. You can find gorgeous coastlines, nice mountains and incredible national parks with the Big Five and many more beautiful animals. However, it can also be quite a dangerous country.

South Africa has a short but very important history that can be summed up in one word: Apartheid. A word no one here likes to be reminded off. Yet you can still see the consequences of the system that purposely disadvantaged people of colour until 1994. You can travel here without noticing it at all but if you actually open your eyes you’ll still see the differences everywhere. 

If you see black people work, there is a big chance that a white man is bossing them around. The biggest houses have white people living in them and if a house has a pool you know a black man will come to clean it every once in a while. The easiest way to spot it is just to drive to any big city and you will see many tiny houses, dirt roads, an awful lot of trash lying around and only black people living there. Those places are called townships (or slums in general). 

We work there almost every day, driving around in our buses to go to the primary schools in the townships where we coach 6th graders (10 to 14 years old) in hockey, football, tennis, basketball and rugby. The one hour we come to their school is also the only hour they can practice sports. They absolutely love it and so do we. They are so happy and sweet. After the coaching session we always get high-fived, hugged and some kids even make drawings for us (haven’t got one myself yet but I’m hopeful I will at one point, I like to think I am sweet and drawable too). 

On the Wednesday we always go into one township with many volunteers for our weekly 5-a-side football tournament because of a cheap and good hall being there. Two weeks ago we drove towards the hall and only two minutes away from the hall we had to stop at a crossing. We saw a massive crowd surrounding a taxi van. Right next to the front right wheel we could see a white sheet covered in blood, the taxi driver lying underneath it. He got robbed from his life just a few minutes before we arrived. No police anywhere near. Just the crowd, including many kids. The body shocked me, but what shocked me more was that the kids were laughing about it, making gun gestures with their hands as they were to shoot each other with it. Apparently, the kids are used to it and that is sad to see. A harsh reminder that the townships can be very dangerous and that we should be happy with the safe environments we have back home. We cancelled 5-a-side that night…

Seeing this with my own eyes only motivates me more to keep doing what I am doing here. We are making kids happy, we see them grow and that is great to see. I hope that involving them in sports will keep them away from these kind of horrible experiences. It can be dangerous in the townships but most locals are very loving and they are happy while having so little. That is amazing to see and I do feel the people in the townships deserve to get better opportunities. It will take a lot of time for a systematic change to happen, to erase all the differences from the Apartheid times, but every little bit helps. 

I still feel very safe (for everyone that got worried while reading this), I enjoy every second here and I will continue to do so for another six weeks. 

Baie Dankie