Almost exactly 24 hours after I arrived at the Vaclav Havel airport in Prague, I touched down in Cape Town International in a new hemisphere and thousands of miles away, but, remarkably, still in the same time zone. Thankfully this, and the $40 memory foam travel pillow I bought during my layover in Dubai, meant that I wasn’t too jet-lagged and could immediately start getting to know my new home for the next few months.
On the shuttle ride from the airport on the eastern flats of the Cape Town metropolitan area to my apartment in Gardens just south of the city center, my first view of South Africa was the townships that lined the freeway. Each block consists of about ten small houses, each made of a mash-up of corrugated steel, weathered wood, and plastic tarps, most connected to a central, elevated power line making the overall shape resemble the structure of a circus tent less the red and white tarp.
I had read only a small amount about the townships in Cape Town so I knew they existed, and I knew they were some of the poorest, most dangerous parts of South Africa, but it did not prepare me for seeing them with my own eyes with the skyscrapers of the city center juxtaposed in the distance behind them.
It didn’t take long for the freeway to take us from the townships to nice and clean suburban homes that, aside from the high walls with electrified fences and barbed wire placed on top, conjuring images of Jesus wearing the crown of thorns, were indistinguishable from most suburban areas in the United States. It was during this first car ride that I knew I had underprepared myself for just how apparent the disparity between the affluent, white middle and upper class was from the poor, black communities.
Just 26 years since apartheid, I knew the country would still be far from any resemblance of actual equality even though there was now formal equality, but I did not even begin to understand the far reaching and visible effects of the poverty and segregation. The violent culture of gangsterism and drug addiction, which are impossible to separate into distinct phenomena, are the reasons that almost all of the youth I would be working with ended up in a correctional facility while their white peers were spending time with friends at the mall or preparing to attend college.
Arriving at my apartment for the next two and a half months, I realized I would be living in one of the more affluent, whiter suburbs, and therefore, as my mom was happy to learn, one of the safest places in the Cape Town metro area. Despite this, I was still very much on edge as I walked to the grocery store and explored my neighborhood a bit. On this first solo exploration of Cape Town, I kept passing men on the street, who, despite their reflective safety vests, looked like they might be homeless. About half of them greeted me, saying, “Hey my bru, howsit?” or “Hey boss”.
I quickly learned that these gentlemen as much a part of Cape Town as Table Mountain. Known as “car guards”, each one looks after roughly one block of the street, keeping watch over the cars parked there and collecting the small fee of five rand, or about 40 cents, from drivers before they leave. Many of them are in fact homeless, and their sole source of income comes from being a car guard and any other donations they might get during the day.
Even though these men are far from police officers or security guards, they are a visible presence that helped calm my initial worries. But it also shocked me that, if your car is not being watched or behind an electrified gate, it is likely to be broken into and stripped of anything valuable or stolen. The biggest culture shock so far has been getting used to that fact, the fact that due to a long history of discrimination, political corruption, and inequality, Cape Town, along with many other parts of South Africa, is a place where the law is woefully unprepared to fully protect its citizens and their property. Much of that responsibility falls upon the people themselves, and it made me uncomfortable to have that responsibility thrust on me as well.