Fireproof

I've spent the last two days in a state of absolute bliss. 

I'm invigorated. I'm excited. I am young. 

Tuesday morning I went with Desiree, my pre-journalism minibus driver, to the site of the building project. It's in an informal settlement called Village Heights near Lavender Hill (that's where Mike works). By informal settlement, I mean community built entirely of shacks. No sewage systems, no toilets, just bits of tin and scraps of wood on sand. 

This wonderful woman named Bernie has five children, two of whom aren't old enough yet to be in school. They hang around and watch the building project, clinging to their mother, too shy to say hi yet. She laughs and tells me that they're still getting used to white people. 

The building project is in her backyard - it's going to be made into a creche for the neighborhood kids. It's a  sandbag structure that's cemented on the outside. It's soundproof, and most importantly, fireproof. 

They took me to a site a few paths down where three days ago twelve or fifteen shacks burnt to the ground after a fire was started in a shack. 

I stood looking at the blackened pile in the sand. Burned wooden posts, once-colorful clothes now black, the remnants of a charred Bible. I stood there, gazing past the people who were pouring out their story for me at a man picking through the rubble with a stick, pulling out things he might find useful. His slow progress marked the time for me, as the stories came. 

One man with four children no longer has identification or birth certificates for his children or himself. 

Everyone has lost everything. 

What are we supposed to do? was the refrain. 

Every story came back to that.
We have nothing now. 

And it broke my heart. I shifted the baby on my hip. (Bernie's youngest had finally warmed up to me enough to let me carry him around. I would pretend to drop him and a baby smile would break across his serious baby face.)

I listened as the government came up, adding to the melody. What have they done? What will they do? Nothing, nothing. 

And we stood and they spoke and I felt their excitement. 

Bernie told them all I was a journalist and I told her not to give me so much credit, but I felt it flow through them. The smiles told me everything. 

You'll tell our story, someone will hear us. 

And I tried to tell them that their story won't be told to mayors or governors but that it would be published in a small magazine. 

Abroad! 

Well, some copies will go abroad. 

People will hear. 

That's all that matters. 

And then we walked back, I shifted the child again on my hips. I watched them speak and I felt that perhaps even the speaking was a start. 

I came home happy and so full of everything. 

Priscilla and I got a new roommate, her name is Magreet and she's 48 and from Holland. More on this to come. She has her own room, though she will come and use my bathroom. So I'll have to keep the Bat Cave clean, or at least clear. 

Today, I brought my friend James with me to see Village Heights. 

He came in to meet Mama P last night and I've yet to hear her reaction but I think it will be favorable. He's heard me speak of her all the time and he told me that he's sure that she loves me. "You can see it, she loves you much," he said. (and I glowed on the inside, I so very much respect that woman.)

He has lived in and around Cape Town his entire life but has never gone into the Cape Flats or the townships or anything. Up until last week he'd never come to my side of the tracks (literally) and so I've decided that I'm going to show him my Cape Town. We got in the minibus this morning with Desiree and I watched his eyes widen. We went through Vrygrond and then through Lavender Hill and then finally into Village Heights. The people took to him instantly, although they were a bit shocked that he was a South African and not a volunteer. 

I took him to the burn site and left him to fend for himself while a crowd of well-meaning women descended on him to talk to him. He stood there and listened and observed and I was so proud of him. Not because he was making some big leap that he had been previously afraid to make, but because he actually asked me if he could go. The other day, he was driving me home and he told me that I should take him around sometime because he's never spent time where I live. I appreciated that. 

Today, he jumped right in and helped mix cement and lift sandbags for the building project. I am secretly feeling as though I'm helping to bridge the gap that still exists between the whites and the colored and black here. It's not because anyone means for it to be there (that's not entirely true, but....), it's just that it's the way things are and no one sees fit to change them. 

By the way, the building project manager thinks I'm adorable. I appreciate this support. He told me I was bubbly and adventurous, although he reprimanded the boys for letting me work so hard (since I am apparently a "lady lady" and not some sort of hulking man-girl). 

Bernie also reprimanded James for not carrying my backpack as we walked through Lavender Hill. I was carrying her son Ethan and my backpack and when he offered to carry the backpack, she said, "Should have offered a long time ago."

It was cute. 

Race is still very important here. It matters. And as an outsider, hanging out with a white crew, living with a colored woman but working with black and colored, I feel as though I'm able to walk between the invisible lines. I feel like I'm getting the full spectrum of life here and that's what I'm here to do. I can go to places where people live on meager government hand outs and I can go to places where people live comfortably and I can go drink a swanky cocktail and look adorable (ha, just kidding. I was really excited about my outfit last night.)

Ah, last night, fast cars and glittering city lights and sweet uninterrupted sleep. 

And tonight, fast cars (maybe not) and dancing.