Taxi

Well really it was a Cab (taxi’s or white taxi’s are more like mini buses that people cram into and go all over the place and I have not really figured them all out yet, but would like to)

A cab is more what we think of as taxi or a cab.

I think something most of us can agree with about traveling and taxi’s is that taxi drivers often have their own opinions and something about the cab driver customer dynamic makes it come out.



Rachel and I decided to take our first trip, our first overnight bus ride, and therefore our first cab ride in South Africa this week. We have some time off for the holidays and decided while we really want to see other parts of South Africa while we are here, we can only take so much time off work and most of our traveling and visiting other communities is with our work in Africa not in South Africa.

As a nature of that sometimes it is hard to focus on the history and South African society, because much of our work is a broader scope- so we really don’t know enough about the place we are living and the different cultures here. The three-day trip to Port Elizabeth really helped with some of this.

Port Elizabeth is indeed a port so it was also nice to relax and sit on the beach. Jen, who was staying with some friends in a different part of Cape Town and helping at the church there, had previously been to PE which helped set the context some. It has an interesting aparthied history. Kind of reminded me of going to Santiago de Cuba to get more of the history of the Revolution in Cuba. However, I think most cities here would have the same affect for how widespread the effects were.

Jen also told us of a good museum she went to there in New Brighton, which happens to be a very historic black township. We have really wanted to spend some time in townships with some people we know in Cape Town and where we have a feeding program with SHADE but the holidays have made it a bit difficult. We also have personal problems with huge tour buses going in and taking photos and leaving. And it was way too far to walk and not knowing anyone there we also didn’t want to be stupid- and all we wanted to do was see the museum.

When we brought it up to the woman where we were staying she didn’t even know about the award-winning museum in her town. But when we told her where it was she told us, “You can’t go there, you will die.” I wrote a shortened version of this story to my friend Julia and she brought up some good points asking if that was just because we were two young white girls from somewhere else that may just not understand everything and really stick out. This is always sort of the case, so we do try to be smart in how we travel and interact.

But the fact she didn’t even know about this museum dealing with a community in her home town that she was scared of and hence ignorant, did not exactly give me patience with her advice.

So we called a cab number we had and the dispatcher could quote me a price to get all the way there. Pat soon after came to fetch us. Pat was our Taxi cab driver who has grown up in PE and used to swim everyday. He also became sort of our older uncle watching out for us, even if he was a bit gruff. And was the same one to pick us up and then fetch us when we had to get to the bus the next day.

As we were driving into the township and then could view the museum he started talking about problems he had with the museum- which with his views on other things I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear it. But he said he didn’t like that they built this new expensive museum and the people living next to it didn’t even have running water. Which is kind of a good point in some respects. (Rachel and I had thought there was more community involvement based on what we had read.) But the way he said it he blamed the ANC for doing things like that and not taking care of their own people. That is what struck me.

At what point does someone living in your same town, in your community, in your nation become someone you care about. And it happens all over the world. If you don’t have a similar background as me its not my responsibility… Rachel and I talked about religious groups doing this, or the disparities in cities, or political parties and placing ‘blame’ and responsibility.’ And I remember during the election and inauguration people kept saying, ‘yes we did’ because President Obama got elected. But in fact in a democracy or anything you belong too, your only action is not voting, we should be active members in our communities. I am more of fan of ‘yes we will.’ That ‘we’ is a lot more powerful then all the complaining we do.

As this is very long I should probably write a whole different blog on the Red Location museum. We learned a lot about the Langa shootings, where a group from the new Brighton was trying to go to a funeral, that they were unaware had been ban, because Apartheid police found that funerals were becoming too political and could become an organizing tool. They also found crowd controlling weapons too insufficient so the order was cleared to use more powerful ammunition. And after they shot people, they placed rocks in their hands to show they had to control the riot. The number of people that died is still not completely known.


(from Nelson Mandela's journal where he wrote the first draft of letters, before editing them to write to send from Robben Island)

One of the exhibits was a photo essay of the forgotten people in the struggle for freedom. And I think it was a very powerful reminder of all the people that struggled for freedom and were involved in politics. And they are still facing hard lives and no work afterwards. Some of these leaders became members of parliament and have other positions of high respect, but there isn’t space for everyone and some had powerful stories of where life was taken them.



I think Rachel and I are still processing the museum especially with that much reading and that many stories.

But I am thankful we met Pat the Taxi driver. Because we got a lesson in PE and politics and South Africa and the debates between different cultures here- that you can’t get in any other forum but the back of a taxicab.

I could write a whole other blog on being on an all night bus ride. But we also enjoyed the people we met on the bus and waiting on the bus. I think I learned more about South Africa on the bus and in the taxi then the past few weeks living here.


This I just find funny, because when I traveled with the band in middle school and people asked what I played- I used to say the camera...)