And more...

Dear colleagues and students

I write to you on a most serious matter. You will recall my last communication to you on Monday, 27 August 2007, when I expressed my deep concern and the position relating to the protest action by certain taxi associations around the Jammie Shuttle service.

It is with regret that I report to you that the situation has worsened. Despite our best intentions and close monitoring of this situation I was forced last night to make the decision to suspend the Jammie Shuttle service operating on Main Road, Claremont route, until further notice.

The taxi association is insisting that UCT is operating outside the parameters agreed between Sibanya (the transport company contracted to operate Jammie Shuttle Service) and the Operating Licensing Board. We know that we are operating in terms of fully compliant licenses and within the clear stipulations of the permits. The taxi association has a particular issue with the Main Road, Claremont Route.

Although we were particularly concerned with the threats of violence made in the public media by the representatives of the taxi associations on Monday, we were determined to operate our service as we are legally entitled to.

However, yesterday afternoon a minibus taxi stopped next to a Jammie Shuttle. An occupant of the taxi produced a firearm and threatened the driver of the Jammie Shuttle. The driver was forced to run a red light to get away. Mercifully, none of the students and staff traveling in the bus was hurt. We have reported the incident to the South African Police Services and a charge has been laid.

The situation is untenable. I simply will not take a chance with the safety of our students and staff. This is my first priority. It is unfortunate that many students and staff will be inconvenienced. Please make alternative arrangements for your transport until further notice.

Be assured that we are treating this matter with the utmost urgency. We are engaged in discussions on various fronts and will do all we can to resolve this matter. I am grateful for your patience and understanding.

Yours sincerely.
Prof Njabulo S Ndebele

Certain acts of violence here are just hard to understand.

From the Front Lines...

Dear colleagues and students

We have had reports that some taxi associations will stage a protest action today in Main Road. This is taking place as we speak. The South African Police Service is on the scene and monitoring the situation. The Associations are objecting - among other things - to the Jammie Shuttle using the Claremont Route.

UCT and Sibanye (the transport company contracted to operate Jammie Shuttle Service) have the necessary legal licences and permits to operate the service. We comply with all the conditions in the licensing agreement.

We are monitoring the situation closely and we are deeply concerned about the threats made publicly by the taxi associations. We have alerted the South African Police Services, The Traffic Authorities, the Metro Police and we are taking added safety precautions. Whilst the Jammie Shuttle will remain operative it might be best to make use of alternative transport if at all possible and as a precaution.

You may rest assured that the matter is receiving immediate and urgent attention at the highest level.

Prof Njabulo S Ndebele
Vice-Chancellor & Principal

Oooo!!! We'll have to see how this goes down! The Jammie is the shuttle service that runs on and around campus to areas of student housing and Claremont is a little further away so I'm guessing that's what the taxis are pouty about, but I don't know of any legal justification for a protest. Because of the extent to which people try to avoid walking around at night, calling cabs is really common, sometimes even for fairly short trips. But I'm not even positive the Jammie runs out to Claremont at night, so again, I'm not sure what the protest is about.
Interesting, nonetheless.

Stairs & Rain

Its not so much that getting used to the weather as cold or wet or sunny is difficult... its hard getting used to all of those within the same hour. On the flip side, I think I've seen more rainbows in the past month than previously in my life.

I find stairs to be the most dominating feature of UCT's campus. It is built into the sloping base of the mountain, and while on the campus map they gave us at orientation, it looks like a nice, simple campus, the elevation throws you for a loop. If you enter a building from the back, you might be as high as the fourth floor. I have class in one building where the odd numbered floors are on one side of the stairs and the even ones are on the other, so you only walk half a flight of stairs to each floor. This confusion starts to come in handy, though, when you start using back doors to dodge the rain.

I went on campus and took pictures, but I dont have them with me right now.

Lastly, I need to tell you about my cab driver friends.
Here, you can call a cab company and get some random driver, but drivers will also give you their card with their own contact on it. This works out because you get to know them, and which guys are reliable and which ones will take 40 minutes to show up. Also, some of the cab companies will charge you for how long it takes from them to leave downtown to come pick you up and then to wherever youre going, so if you have the numbers for drivers who are more local you save money.
This one driver, Archie, someone found and we've been calling him a lot when we need a ride. He gives us advice on where ever we're going or where we should go next time, and then tells us stories about his other job as an EMT. Another driver I've called more than once was really useful this past Thursday. It was National Women's Day, a public holiday, and we knew there were events going on in one area of town, but could not find details anywhere. He asked us where exactly in that area did we want to go, and when we asked him where he though events would be going on, he completely elaborated on all the activities that should be going on and where.
Basically, I've found easy reliable transport, and since we've called them more than once, they're pretty flexible on their pricing, which is nice, too.

I've really got to do these updates more often

So I'll just tell a quick bit of whats been up.

I'm taking a class on Urban Geography and its fabulous so far. I'm overwhelmed both by how much I'm about to learn, and how much I don't know that I'm scrambling to find out, because I'm in a class of people who have been in Cape Town for at least three years if not their whole lives. Still, very very exciting.

On Wednesday, for the first time, we went to the site where we will researching. Vahalla Park is a township. As families grew larger as the generations carried on, but without more space or money, people were living in cramped conditions and/or moving into the backyards of their parents houses. A group of people set off and set up an informal settlement of shacks on land that had previously been a park, but now was being used as a dumping ground and area full of crime. Then the city came in and called the situation a land invasion and told them they had to evacuate.

The civic organization we're working with, called The United Front, along with some lawyers, brought a case against the city. In South Africa there is a constitutional right to housing, so the members said they were merely using that right, and the city claimed they were jumping the queue in front of other people who also needed housing and therefore could not just take the land. Surprisingly, the judge actually called a couple day recess and traveled to the settlement, and declared that it fit within the emergency situation exemption to land invasion and they won the right to stay there.

The class I am in has been working with the civic for the past four years. At some point, they mapped what the houses and the shacks were like and how many people were living in each and the civic was able to use that data as evidence in the court case, so the research that has been done with UCT students has been of use to the civic.

Following the court decision, the civic has had to fight more battles to get infrastructure of water and power and toilets to the settlement, and then later to a second, larger settlement of shacks.

We met with some members of United Front and they told us about what they've been going through. There was a point when there was not water in in the informal settlement. The civic leaders went to meetings with the city and very nicely said yes, we will wait, yes we will wait, and the city kept telling them 'soon, soon'. Then the city told them they did not have the money to run the water out to them, and they suspected the city was lying. They found a room in the city building in Vahalla Park that had water faucets. They told everyone in the town that they could to come down, bring the buckets, have your kids bring buckets, bring your laundry, we're going to go down and use their water. One woman told us that she told the women, "bring your panties, I dont care if they're dirty or clean, bring them," and they all did laundry outside of this city building, and then hung it all to dry around the building. As cars went by they all hooted their horns in solidarity.
The security guard told them they would have to leave, and they insisted that this is a city building and if it belongs to the city then it belongs to the city residents and they were going to stay there until they would get water.
They got water the next day.

They told us they had to ramp the fight up, because two babies had been born that day, and they were all hauling water all over to try to help the mothers and they decided that was the line.

They told us that the civic is "the mother, and the father" for the community. They are the activists, the soup kitchen, the police force, the community entertainment organizers.

And they're all of low education and little to no employment. And no one taught them to how to do this, how to do community organizing. They are the epitome of community activism coming from community members. The sense of action with the city that they have should shame everyone in better situations to stop whining and start writing or acting or something. I feel like I have sat in poli sci and urban classes before and talked about "how do we get people to do this?" "how do we convince people to organize?" "how do we help people organize themselves?" and here's this community where they just did it all themselves, just figured it out. They make it seem so obvious, so a part of human nature.

Its incredible, I have so much to learn from them.

Our project is going to involve interviewing families in the settlement about their lives -- where they lived before, and what is has been like living here. The settlement is going to be updated by the city, so we're basically researching and documenting the settlement so what happened can be preserved as part of the history of the township.

Whew, that's all for now, I'll try to write more often and post when I can...