This morning we went into one of the townships outside of Cape Town. Cape Town is a famously beautiful city, but it has a secret. The secret is that the other side of the mountain, totally hidden from the city, on the sandy flats, is where all the less wealth people live. During apartheid, this is the area where they built the townships where Blacks were forcibly concentrated. Now it's home to many poorer people, living in small houses, new government built housing, old shacks, and recently built informal housing (what we might call slums). There are a number of townships here, and we spent the day in one of the larger and more vibrant ones, Khayelitsha. There is a gleaming new hospital, relatively new schools, and stores amidst the brown-fields and shacks. BMWs slip in with ancient beaten up cars on the streets. We rounded a curve at one point and two men pushing a stained king sized mattress set on a single shopping cart were right in the road, the mattresses the size of a vehicle moving way under speed.
Our destination was an amazing community project, the SCAGA community garden. This project teaches people to grow fruits and vegetables in their backyards, and gives the people of the community small garden plots. They have also worked to create direct markets for the fresh organic vegetables that come from these gardens, which helps provide steady income to a number of people. There are a number of garden spots in the townships sponsored by the NGO that operates this project and the one we visited was the oldest and most developed site. It was amazing! They had several buildings, some greenhouse tunnels, gorgeous garden beds in various stages of production, a seed and bedding room, and mature fruit bushes and trees. This garden is an amazing oasis in an area surrounded by barren sandy ground and small tiny houses and shacks.
There was a team of people waiting for us, some of the 'mamas' from the community, the older ladies who have garden plots on site, and some of the younger newly trained farmers. There were kids from the school across the street, who sang for us as we arrived. We were welcomed by one of the administrators, and we broke up in teams to help work in the garden. The high school students and mamas worked with us. We had three tree-planting teams, a group who were planting trays of seeds, and a large group that was clearing beds and putting in seedlings. We also carted compost to a new large indoor bed in the new greenhouse, for a 40 foot by 8 foot spinach bed. We worked for a few hours, got dirty, talked with kids, used unfamiliar tools, and learned how to plant seeds, prep beds, and put in trees. After we were finished, they served us a light lunch starring a very fresh salad made of veggies from their own garden.
Our destination was an amazing community project, the SCAGA community garden. This project teaches people to grow fruits and vegetables in their backyards, and gives the people of the community small garden plots. They have also worked to create direct markets for the fresh organic vegetables that come from these gardens, which helps provide steady income to a number of people. There are a number of garden spots in the townships sponsored by the NGO that operates this project and the one we visited was the oldest and most developed site. It was amazing! They had several buildings, some greenhouse tunnels, gorgeous garden beds in various stages of production, a seed and bedding room, and mature fruit bushes and trees. This garden is an amazing oasis in an area surrounded by barren sandy ground and small tiny houses and shacks.
There was a team of people waiting for us, some of the 'mamas' from the community, the older ladies who have garden plots on site, and some of the younger newly trained farmers. There were kids from the school across the street, who sang for us as we arrived. We were welcomed by one of the administrators, and we broke up in teams to help work in the garden. The high school students and mamas worked with us. We had three tree-planting teams, a group who were planting trays of seeds, and a large group that was clearing beds and putting in seedlings. We also carted compost to a new large indoor bed in the new greenhouse, for a 40 foot by 8 foot spinach bed. We worked for a few hours, got dirty, talked with kids, used unfamiliar tools, and learned how to plant seeds, prep beds, and put in trees. After we were finished, they served us a light lunch starring a very fresh salad made of veggies from their own garden.
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