A Month in Imizamo Yethu
by Natalie Lencioni
I recently took part in a month long working experience that took me beyond my borders and into the reality that is Imizamo Yethu (IY). IY is a township in Hout Bay, a suburb south of Cape Town on the Atlantic side. My time there was spent working closely with youth through the British gap year program, RealGap. Through sports and recreation, the goal is to better the children’s sense of self and create opportunities to participate in after school activities. Volunteering duties included teaching assistance at the school in the mornings, leading outdoor games in the afternoon, and coaching the school soccer team in the evenings. The schedule sounds simple enough, yet I was faced with many of life’s harsh lessons.
Natalie Lencioni
One of Lencioni's students playing with a soccer ball after school
The accommodation provided was a home stay with an English family on a three-acre ranch with horses, dogs, a cat, a swimming pool and other amenities inside. Outside the front gate there was a road. The contrast “black and white” is overly used but happens to be the very epitome of this road. Across the road was a cluster of shacks put together with sheets of tin. Amenities lacking were electricity, running water, sewage drainage and personal space. The informal “squatter camp” creeps up onto the mountainside and is what makes up Imizamo Yethu, home to 14,000 people.
The township began as a government project in 1992, during the apartheid period, to give people of color housing near the Hout Bay harbor. Hundreds migrated hoping to find jobs to support their families back in their homeland, the rural providence Eastern Cape. When people surpassed the amount of available work at Hout Bay’s bustling fishing harbor, a squatter camp began forming around the government pre-built houses as land around the area was free to build.
The road that divided my accommodation from the thousands in IY is the same road that led to the primary school. The school, Oranjekloof Primary, houses grades 1 to 8 with 1,100 students. The school is run at no cost to the students and everyone is required to wear a uniform and proper shoes.
I arrived daily at the first break and found myself swarmed by students shouting hello and touching my hands as they ran through chasing one another.
Fighting is a way of life in IY and young kids learn early that they need to fight in order to get anything. This carries on into the classroom. Supplies were never in abundance and the students not willing to fight and argue for them were left without.
Inside a classroom, there are 50 faces, minimal decor and never enough books. Most chatter among the students is in their native language, Xhosa (pronounced Kh-osa), and includes a clicking noise to accent certain letters. I was paired with a fourth grade class and the students were very respectful of my role as teacher assistant.
It was very common for teachers to be absent so I was often used to fill in for other fourth grade teachers. I spent many days “entertaining” other classes with games of hangman on the board, which the students didn’t quite understand but enjoyed anyway.
After an exhausting couple of hours inside the class, I would make my way outside to the yard in back of school. The first grade students were let out early and so they would arrive to meet us at the yard to partake in outdoor recreation rather than go home. The schoolyard was hardly safe or big enough for more than 20 first graders to play with just two soccer balls, six plastic racquets and six tennis balls. If one didn’t run to be the first to get a racquet, then they would fight the person with the racquet and grab until either one got hurt or the stronger one won. The girls enjoyed netball, which is like basketball, and the boys played soccer. There was always a soccer ball being kicked around.
The school soccer team was a collection of boys aged 11 and under who were chosen by Kevin, the program manager for RealGap and permanent resident of Cape Town. At the time, the project was only nine months old but seemed to be going quite well. Similar to conditions at the school, there was a lot of fighting. The field was only sand and mud. The natural talent and soccer played on the pitch was of a high standard and fun to be a part of. The school team even stood undefeated against other local schools at that time.
I got to know and develop unique relationships with the children through the sport of soccer and beyond. Their presence and familiarity provided so much insight into their lives inside the township. Extreme poverty, murder, rape, HIV and petty crime are all alarmingly high. For the children it was brushed off as a part of everyday life; for me, it was a wake up call.
There is apparently a lot to be done to give the people of Imizamo Yethu a better chance at life. Although apartheid and colonialism has tainted South Africa’s past, the future is open to new horizons.
Giving people our time temporarily can benefit the cause as well. Time spent with those living in conditions like Imizamo Yethu brings knowledge from outside their community and has given myself and the other volunteers a catalyst towards being proactive. In the end, everyone benefits; even though it seems I was lucky just to play soccer with South Africa’s bright and talented youth.
Natalie Lencioni graduated from the UI in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in international studies. A former member of the Iowa women’s soccer team, she travels only when enough money has been saved. She is fascinated with world culture and the sport of soccer.