Day 15

I spent the day travelling out to the suburb of Howick to help one of the L’Abri staff dudes with his (work) computer

Travelled there by taxi, which here means squished with 16 zulus in a Hiace van 20+, from the middle of a black town to a church in an affluent white suburb, which was a weird experience in itself

I’m learning that stories here will always, always have a racial bias in them, even from the best hearted people here, but even with that in mind, there must be an element of truth of the street team (all black) of that church (all white) having an office, separate to the rest of the building, and in the basement; earlier that week the rest of the offices had been renovated with air condition units, but not theirs; theirs was where the old fans were dumped...

Spent the morning troubleshooting the one, old computer they’d been given to use, and then afterwards shown around Howick

There’s a small tourist bit, where they have a 107m waterfall that’s quite beautiful, after which we made our way back into the main town to get back to the taxi rank

Again the transition from affluent white suburb back into the Howick town centre is sudden and quick; the suburb is a pro-apartheid stronghold, a few minutes and meters later the town centre of Howick is ALL black; it’s gotten to the point that an alternative shopping area had been built a little further out of town that coincidently mostly non-blacks frequent

Behind the buses there are rings of people sitting in rags and on dirty paint cans, drinking home-brewed beer and playing gambling games to try and win more money for more beer

Also had to deal with in a more tangible way feelings of possibly underlying issues of being ‘used’ for my what I represent in terms of wealth and opportunities in another country...

All in all, an incredibly exhausting day, and a little confusing