District Six

I would guess that many of my readers know nothing or very
little about the affects of the Apartheid. Sure, we hear about it and maybe we
can compare it to the civil rights movement in the US, but the history of this country
is still very young, and everyone has something to say about how the Apartheid
personally affected them.

Even living here I don’t know a whole lot about it, but I
have learned a lot along the way. I’ve heard stories straight from many people
whether white, black, or coloured.

District Six is an area in Cape Town where a big majority of coloured
people used to live. They had their comfortable little community right in the
heart of Cape Town.
They were well located because they could easily walk or take taxis to work and
to the shops. They lived in nice houses, and many of them had significantly
large homes. During the Apartheid, the whites came in and took over their land
and forced them out of their homes because of something called the Group Areas
Act. Each race had to have their own communities in designated areas of town.
The whites wouldn’t give them any eviction notice, but simply threw them out
and seized everything. They even arrested people in their own homes. The
coloured people were displaced and forced to live in small government houses
way out of town. They lost most of their things because their new accommodation
could not hold all of their belongings. The whites then built up the land in
places like District Six. While in Cape
Town, I visited Mitchell’s Plain where a large number
of coloureds live today. The houses are nice, but very small and very close
together. If they want to add on to their homes, they are forced to build
upwards. While driving through, it was interesting to see what they had done to
these homes. I could see that many of the homes had been remodeled.

Mitchell’s Plain is quite a far distance out of town, 40
minutes maybe. So, during the Apartheid, and even now, they have to travel
quite a far distance to get to work. The reason that they haven’t moved back
into town now that the Apartheid is over is because of two things. They are
comfortable now in their communities, though they are far away, and because of
money. They now have to spend money on traveling in and out of town.

These people were degraded and dehumanized. Something I find
interesting is that coloured people always find themselves stuck in the middle.
The white people often see themselves as the superiors of the country, and the
blacks are often seen as inferior. Coloureds are somewhere in between. And even
now, the government is trying to make up for the way the blacks have been ill treated. They are almost getting special treatment now. This means that, again,
the coloureds are still “second best.”

I spent the whole time in Cape Town as the only white person among
coloured people and I loved it. They are so hospitable and very friendly. I
feel as though I’ve made new family. It’s such a blessing to me that people
don’t even know me, yet they accept me as I am and treat me as someone very
important.

I love South
Africa with all my heart. You won’t ever be
able to take it out of me.