Durban by night

Durban by night

This post was uploaded at the 12th of April

Hey guys! This weblog is written very quickly after the last one, but last night made a huge impression on me, so that’s why I’m writing you so soon!

The effects of apartheid are still visible in South Africa, also in the economy. A minority of the population is very prosperous, but the majority has to manage with very little money. Lots of black South Africans are unemployed and try to make a living by informal business. Officially, 26% of the population is unemployed, but the real percentage is probably somewhere between 40 and 60%. Most of the people are open to different cultures, but some white people still ignore the black people and the other way around.

When you’re walking through town, you see begging children, everywhere. They walk up to the cars at traffic lights and ask for money. I asked Marlijn if she ever gave the children some money, but she told me that many of the kids are addicted to glue (they all have this small yellow bottle in their hands), so when she can, she mainly gives to the elderly and handicapped, because they form the group that have the least opportunity to find work and limited access to social services. Last Friday I was sitting in this restaurant with Puck, Biza and Briënne, and in front of the restaurant was a woman sitting with her three kids. One of them was this cute little boy, probably around 2 years old. Out of nowhere, this beautiful white Lamborghini appeared and stopped in front of the boy. A girl came out and walked in to get something to eat. The little boy was trying to help the guy in the car to park, but when the car left, he was still standing there, empty-handed. Biza gave the poor child a bottle of coca-cola and the other two kids attacked the bottle like wolves.... It was awful to see.

Last night I went on a ‘Durban by Night’ tour, together with Guusje and Jeanet and a police officer named Martin. He took us to the less fortunate suburbs of Durban and told us about how Durban became the city it is today. Martin has worked for the Child Protection Services for 14 years, but quit because it had a huge impact on his personal life while achieving very few results. He cited ‘corruption within the South African justice system’ as the main reason for this. Martin worked in the child pornography and prostitution department, and has also worked as an undercover agent for a while. His first case was in the late nineties. It involved a young boy of eight, who was filmed by his own parents. 24 photos were found in their possession, on which you could see what the mother of was doing to her own child. It is all about the money in South Africa, and child pornography is BIG business worth millions of dollars. The parents were convicted to 16 years in jail, but when the father apparently offered a huge amount of money to the prison authorities, they were released after serving only 20 months in prison. The little boy is now 19 years old and lives at a foster home.  

During Martin’s time as an undercover agent, he often had a cup of coffee with his colleagues at this little cafe on the beach. One day, the owner of the place said to the police officers: “You guys must be drug dealers and if not, you’re definitely police officers”. They explained what they were doing and the woman told them that she was suspicious of a woman who often came at night to have a cup of coffee. While the woman drank her coffee, her child would disappear in a car – and when the car came back, the woman would walk outside, and let the kid leave again, in another car. She would then go back inside to drink another cup of coffee. The policemen knew right away that it was a prostitution case and they observed this situation for a week. After a week the woman got arrested. Her daughter was 15 years old at the time and had an average of two clients each night. The girl was brought to a foster home where she had a new chance at life – she eventually passed university with distinction and became a doctor. Martin told us that many people ask him why he is still doing this job in a country where corruption is such a huge issue. “This is what I wanted to do my entire life. Just this one life I saved is worth another 25 years of hard work” is what he said. That definitely brought tears to my eyes. It’s very unreal to be at the corner of the street where such awful things have happened.  

Next, the FIFA World Cup in 2010. Such a beautiful stadium, such a horrible story. Martin showed us a small community of very small sheds in Umlazi. These sheds are referred to as ‘shacks’ and this is where the poorest of the poor live in the townships. People build their shacks with anything you can think of and attach their shack to their neighbour’s shack, so they only have to build three walls. There are no floors inside – just mud and earth - and they wash themselves in small blue containers. Some people have been living in these shacks for more than 20 years. 

At another place, close to these shacks, there used to be another 500 shacks before the World cup. These shacks had been there for over 20 years. During the World Cup, one team was supposed to practise in the same area as that where the shacks were built and thus a decision was taken to destroy the shacks. Not just the 100 shacks at the place of the planned soccer match, but also the other 400 shacks; because professional football players also bring tourists to the country. The government promised to create a new place for these residents and this they did. Nonetheless, Martin refers to this place as a concentration camp. It is situated at an industrial area (no tourist will visit an industrial area after all) and after a few small roads we arrived at a remote area with lots of rows of small white houses. At first sight it appears to be quite nice, with these neat little houses, but when Martin brought us closer, it turned out that the small houses all consisted of four rooms and each room belongs to a family of 4-12 people. We found out that there’s probably only one shower for every 145 people. .. The worst part is that the kids were able to walk to school while at their former home – and now they have to go to school by taxi which costs R20 per day per child. And that while maximum income of each household is less than R80 (€8) and most parents have at least three children. As you can imagine, none of these children go to school.

The World Cup has cost an enormous amount of money. The country had to look more beautiful, cleaner and safer, especially on TV. Close to the stadium, they built lots of sport facilities. The main sport in this country is soccer, followed by rugby and cricket and hockey and volleyball for girls. There was even an American expert architect of sorts, who spent a fortune on basketball courts. Ever since these courts are here, Martin has never seen any child play basketball. He even said: “These kids probably don’t even know what a basketball is! They will probably lay it on the floor and play soccer with it”. Instead of these amazing basketball courts, lots of other beautiful and practical things could’ve been built with all that wasted money.

When we were driving back home, we passed the prostitution area. Lots of the prostitutes work independently to make more money. The prostitutes that work for pimps do not work for money but work for drugs. The clients pay the pimps and they will then take care of the drug supply for the girls. The ages of these girls are shocking. The age of 14 is no exception. A few roads further down, we drove through an area where lots of homeless people sleep. This really sent a cold shiver down my spine. It is a long road, with a huge row of sleeping people on the side of the road.

Finally, Guusje received a phone call from Bobby Bear (another project in Durban) and they asked if we had the time to spend the night. A few kids were just coming in for the night and they needed help. A little girl of three was saved by the cops when her mother tried to drown her. The mother was arrested and the girl survived. They also found a 9-hours old baby boy at the bathroom in a garage, but he survived. Thank God for that. Eventually Guusje and Jeanet went to Bobby Bear, because they only needed two people.

It is horrible to see what kinds of things are happening in this city. But I don’t think that I should close my eyes for these things and I really believe that things need to change around here. The biggest problem is the corruption from the government, which makes it almost impossible for auxiliaries (like the police) to solve problems. They’re trying to create a great tourist area to let Durban become a tourist city like it used to be and to maximize the safe areas. I truly hope that it will work out, because the success story that Martin told me is definitely one of the best stories I’ve ever heard..