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...