Nice view, Knysna
Townships have a very bad connotation. They are mostly considered as chaotic, unhygienic zones for the most disadvantaged people in South-Africa; full of aids, alcoholism, criminal gang-behavior, covered by poor education and bad housing.
So maybe, that 3 year old, who showed me the cigarettes he had to buy for his father, should not have been a total surprise, but yet he was.
Just like the older couple who had a lot of pleasure in the middle of the day after obviously more than a couple of drinks.
The story of Quinten moved me. He was hit in a car accident by a drunk driver one year ago. He demonstrated how he uses the desinfection bottle by himself every day because he is unable to go to the hospital.
But he also pleasantly surprised me with the fact that he was on a waiting list for a new home. A home with bricks, electricity and water that eventually every inhabitant of Knysna townshop will get from the government, a true Mandela house.
Walking through the little dust roads I saw a lot of second-hand containers with a new destination: you can buy grocery stuff here or have your hair done for example.
In contrast to the full-fashion-awareness of the young female teenagers, I unexpectedly met two traditional white-painted Xhosa-boys, who literally came out of the bush after being isolated 3 months following their ritual circumcision.
So, after all, Knysna is nice?
