Today I asked my coworker, Mrs. Duma, if it would be safe for me to walk around in Khayelitsha alone. I never intended to walk around alone; I was just curious what her response would be. She said if I was to walk around alone in Guguletu or Mfuleni (other townships) I would be safe. She then said that walking around alone in Khayelitsha would not be smart. This is mainly because recently there has been an increase in the amount of protests in the Khayelitsha area. In fact this past week, there have been protests right down the street from my office. The protesters are demanding basic necessities that you and I are completely used to; proper toilets (which hundreds of people often share), housing, and electricity. Here is a link to a story about a recent protest: http://westcapenews.com/?p=4714

Today at work I got a different picture of how much violence is in this community right now. We went to a local school to visit one of our clients. We were going to check how he was doing academically because we are looking to close his case soon. When we got there, everything was pretty hectic. We learned that our client was involved in a stabbing just a few days earlier. He and a couple other boys attacked another student and stabbed him nearly to death. The victim is currently in a coma. The reason for this stabbing is gang related. Today my service manager described the schools as being "out of control", due to the large amount of gang activity. Once Mrs. Duma and I got an idea of the situation, we went into the principal's office. In the room was the principle, our client and the other boys involved in the attack, their grandmothers, and a few random men with whips and sticks in their hands. The random men were taxi drivers and they were called by the principle. The principle called them to come get the boys to "interrogate" them. As the men walked out with the boys, Mrs. Duma and I were terrified. It was obvious what was happening and we could do nothing about it. The men were taking the boys to beat them, in order to get information about the gang.

This type of violence is unfortunately not uncommon. During my first week here, I heard a story on the radio about a man getting burnt to death because he robbed a store. A bunch of community members came together to track him down and kill him because of his offence. Here is a story on this: http://westcapenews.com/?p=4616

Once Mrs. Duma and I got back to the office, we called the school to find out what was going on. The taxi drivers ended up bringing the boys back to the school and the police were called. Apparently the principle just wanted to scare them. If these boys were men, I am almost certain that this would not have been the outcome.

From what I have observed, it seems like the violence in this community is a never ending cycle. People steal because they do not have access to the basic things they need to live and children join gangs because they often have nowhere else to go. As I was witnessing everything happen at the school today, it almost felt like I was in a movie. It didn't seem real but in reality this is all just the way of life for the people in this community.