How the other half live...

Since we just got back internet i'll be putting a few posts up to cover the past couple of days. This past weekend was a busy and exciting one. On Saturday morning, the Washington College kids along with other international students from France, Romania and the Netherlands went on a tour of the townships surrounding Grahamstown. As I mentioned previously, the townships were areas that under Aparteid were resereved for non-whites. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Township_(South_Africa) Today they are still almost all non-white and are plagued with extreme poverty and poor living conditions. They are dangerous to visit after dark.

The tour took us into the heart of Grahamstown's townships. We stopped and visited with a woman who was 79 years old, she invited us into her home to show us what township home life was like. Most of the buildings were small, concrete block homes with tin roofs. They all for the most part have running water and electricity provided by the government but not much else. We also went to a community art center that was called the Egazini Community Outreach Project. It was situated in a large warehouse that was used by the South African State Police during aparteid to tourture people from the townships. After that we went to the home of another township resident where we were served a traditional Xhosa (pronounced Ko-sah) lunch consisting of Mutton, beans, spinach and maze and root tea. Attached are some pictures.