Turning Langa Inside-Out

Crossing the threshold of my home stay house in Langa, I had no idea what to expect. All of the township I'd seen before was the shanties, AKA informal settlements, that line the main highway from the airport into Cape Town. Coming into our comfortable lodging in Observatory on the outskirts of Cape Town, the dilapidated shacks of Langa and other townships were merely a blur, footnote or asterisk on our journey.

Having the opportunity to live in Langa allowed us to actually take the time to examine this footnote and really see how the poverty of wealth of township life shapes the way people think, act and live. Little did I know I would be thrown head first into this my second day in Langa.
Last Sunday, I met Kenneth a wirey man of 40, visibly aged to what seemed to be 55 by life with a big smile thrown off balance by a missing front-left tooth. He was firmly planted in a chair in my home stay living room as Cooper and I returned from church. I plopped down on the couch adjacent to it and introduced myself in broken, mispronounced Xhosa. As we got into a deeper discussion, he passionately told me about the changes in his country and how much hope he had for the younger generation.
The most notable moment of this conversation came as he stated that he thought South Africa was the best nation in the world. As he said this, my mind immediately went to GDP figures, international acclaim and other sorts of measure that we often use to justify such claims. Instead, he simply asserted that the spirit of his nation was so welcoming, so kind, so communal oriented that knew he was part of the greatest people on the planet. In his eyes, any poverty of wealth in South Africa is certainly counteracted by a tremendous wealth of spirit.
After hearing him say that he was a man of little means who simply worked odd jobs to stay alive, he offered me something that I will never forget, a chance to experience how people live in Langa. I accepted, slightly unsure what he meant. I certainly am glad I did. He took us all through Langa, from old apartments with 6 people living in 3 beds in 1 room to the new apartments the government is not building fast enough to, reluctantly, his own, dilapidated shanty to a dark, drab shebeen (informal bar rife with an African beer made of sorghum (however you spell that) and milk). It was an incredible, eye opening experience that I only now am beginning to process.
What made it so difficult to do so was not the dire poverty - I expected this. What made it so difficult to process was the stunning contraction between the absolute, bitter poverty and the amazing openness, magnanimity and friendliness of those I met, especially Kenneth.
Throughout our journey, I carried the baggage of being white. I was repeatedly approached for money, money that I could certainly afford to give away. However, Kenneth was our buffer, repeatedly telling those who approached us in isiXhosa that we were her to see, to experience and not to give. This gracious attitude pervaded as we approached his dull, one room shanty. We sensed his reluctance to show it to us, but he did so and invited into his shack consisting of a chair, a bed, and a small table with an oil lamp on it. This was an immensely emotional moment as I stared eye-to-eye with someone with twice the kindness, compassion, magnanimity that I will ever have yet without the very basic means of survival that I have come to take for granted, take as human essentials.
Yet, part of why this was so hard to process was the moment as he dropped us off at our home stay. As we were saying thank you and good bye, he quietly asked us if we could give him some money. I was happy to do so as he had given me a priceless experience, but this moment showed that despite his desire merely for us to learn, he had to eat too. This is something I certainly cannot fault him for.
The view of Langa I was given is not what most outsiders see. Yes they see the shacks. However they see them as inanimate objects lumped together as a "shanty town." They don't usually have the amazing opportunity to really see how people live, to really see how America's obsession with dialectic materialism completely loses focus of what happiness is. The stark contrast between poverty of wealth and enormous wealth of spirit is something I still am processing and something I will surely not soon forget.