I’m watching the curtain at the window too and fro in the wind and thinking back over the past few days. So many things have happened but I’ll come back to that next time.
On Monday I decided to follow a Township Tour. Having been to the Townships on previous occasions I was interested in observing the reactions of the tourists and why they would want to go. Was this just another organised safari? Well I don’t think they appreciated the danger that they were putting themselves in walking around Langa with their video cameras and jewelery. On a few occasions passers by would berate the tour guides for bringing the tourists - it was never safe - but the the Townships never are.
On Wednesday morning seven tourists were robbed at gunpoint in Langa, a number of them assaulted when they refused to give up their possessions. In the afternoon forty more tourists were robbed and assaulted. I wonder if the tours are still running?
The days are passing by so quickly now, on one hand I’m pleased as it’s hard to at times to be out here and a small part of me just wants to go home. And yet on the other hand I want the days to slow down so that I can get all of the images I need. I know that doesn’t make sense but at times nothing makes sense out here. It’s almost as if you are in an alternate reality where anything can happen which is both frightening and exciting. But the sun is shining, the wind gently blows through the leaves of the Palm Trees and you are once more seduced into forgetting.
Perhaps everyone copes out here by constructing their own alternate realities. Some withdraw to a gated community and others to religion, booze or ‘tick’. If as Musa had said “..life is touch and touch is pain”, perhaps everyone attempts to retreat to worlds where they can’t be touched.