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We continued our tour through a part of Soweto today, called Kliptown. This was the first part of the trip I've felt uncomfortable, like an intruder. People were welcoming and politely smiled, but as we entered their township, we heard a man yell stop exposing us and I personally felt like this was justified. As we walked through the village, I felt like we treated the people there as if they were in a museum. I was invading their privacy and home, without getting an understanding of them. I kept wondering how I would feel if the tables were turned.
We (including myself) justified this by saying we are trying to educate ourselves and exposure is necessary to advocate for people in these situations, but after all the failed efforts they have been victim to, I expected a little animosity toward tourists like myself. Nevertheless, we walked through and gawked at their poverty. My group has the best intentions (I truly believe), so my criticism may seem harsh, but I think we need to think deeper about how we try to learn. Staring at people doesn't provide you an understanding, it emphasizes a stereotype.
In this town, our tour guide explained to us the many things that these people need and the failed efforts of the government. Non-governmental groups have offered some hope for change, but many of our group members wondered if their requests were unrealistic with members of the township being so resistant to move out of their community. Being that our guide was a member of the community, he could only offer his perspective and we found this somewhat confusing and frustrating, so later on we heard from a man that I can refer to only as brilliant.
Dale McKinley is an economist that works partially in academia. He was enthusiastic, articulate, and could simplify concepts so that we could wrap our heads around them. Our discussion of privatizing water companies sent my mind reeling. He made the very good point that water is being taken from where many of these people live and then resold to them through private French companies. They provide no other benefit or maintenance to the community and so the people feel they are deserved free water.
I realized that in the United States we expect things like these. If you have a well, you don't pay for the water that you use and if someone took that water and offered to sell it back to you that would be outrageous. However, when living in a town you pay for sewage to be disposed of, water to be cleaned, and facilities to be kept up. We don't object to paying for those services and Dale emphasized that if the people of Kliptown were receiving similar treatment they would be willing to pay also.
He then talked about the interaction of government and large business owners. He mentioned things like the rate that water is sold to people in communities like Kliptown is almost 6 times what is sold to the government. So while people in government may complain about the financial end of providing people who are dying because they are without water, the government is paying much less.
This conversation flowed over into our first group discussion that night and we watched a movie called Sarafina.
I have to say that our constant movement has kept me from getting overwhelmed with thinking about all of this, but it is a lot. My hope is that I absorb as much as I can while I am here. I'm already realizing that the comparisons are helping me to think more critically about the United States.
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Ann Wow, i'm really interested to hear what poverty looks like over there, I bet it will really put things into perspective. I can't believe the corruption of the water companies and the government!