Being in Port Elizabeth again was staggering. Each view
brought waves and waves of nostalgia, of places I didn’t know I remembered and
of memories long buried. Many, many of the memories were with Stephen, so a remeant trip in that city with him made the nostalgia even
grander.
It was overwhelming how much of the city stayed the same while it was
me that had changed. I remember the Walmer township being one of the first
views from the plane and in 2012, I thought to myself, “THIS is the real face
of poverty.” This time, I was amazed to see how NICE the township looked, in
comparison to villages and some parts of Lusaka, I presume. The houses have
plaster walls, are painted bright colours, have electricity and metal roofs,
and have communal water sources. I’m remembering the Cape Town township I
stayed in had running water inside the house, too.
Throughout PE, nice houses
and businesses accent their gazebos and braais with thatched roofing for an
authentic African look (in my external opinion). In stark contrast, thatched
roofing is used in the village setting because it is free to grow, harvest, and
build.
Things I remember being dowdy in South Africa looked outright luxurious
this time around. Paved streets with curbs, planted flower gardens, numbers on
houses, even roundabouts on small streets: all just exclaimed development!
People dress nicely, the taxis are still new and appear solid (I rode in one in
Lusaka that had loose wooden planks as a floor and you could see the road
underneath), and people have options.
The economic and racial disparities were
still shocking to me. I guess, this time I could see how much wealth is present
in the municipality, if not in the society as a whole. There are ritzy cafes,
security details, billboards, traffic control measures, and active construction
works. What is lacking is support infrastructure: there were still hungry,
homeless people on street corners, without shelters or social welfare available
to offer help.
Maybe a city inures us to collectivism. Here in Zambia, even
lazy drunkards belong to families, are tolerated and fed, because where else
could they belong? In the city, we assume SOMEONE ELSE will take care of them.
In some cities, that may even be true.
7 September 2017
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