Area Q ,Walmer Township is a place I have very fond memories of , and a place that will always hold a place in my heart, probably till the day I die, which is strange, as it is not a pretty place, it is not a nice place, and it is place where I always was and always will be an alien and an outsider.
Walmer Township itself lies nestled in between Walmer Suburb, Walmer Heights, Port Elizabeth Airport, and the city tip and nature reserve. As you fly into Port Elizabeth it is one of the first things you see when your plane turns round as it taxis on the runway.
It is about 1 mile squared , is estimated to contain 70,000 people, compromises of new Government and charity built projects houses of a fair standard, poorer older built government houses, and jerry built shacks, (one of which God, Fountain Vineyard, and myself claim at least partial responsibility for).
The population, like many places, is a mixed bunch. I could paint a picture of pure slums and immorality to rival Gin Row in London at the end of the 18th century. I could tell real stories of crime and violence that still scare me, but that would betray the hard working people, trying to scratch a living in a tough environment that I believe make up the majority of the inhabitants of the township.
It would not give credit to the people in abject poverty and need , who live with ubuntu and a generosity of spirit for their neighbours . I can recall mothers looking after 8 or 9 children in their shack home, every day for their neighbours so their neighbours could work, without payment, or famailies below the breadline giving 1/2 of their food for the week away because the family across the road had none.
There are desperate issues in the township. HIV rates are estimated at 40% +, unemployment runs at 50%+. Many children are orphans or raised by distant relatives. Crime can be sudden, violent, and final. Parts of the township still have no running water or sewage system. Education is under resourced and often of a low quality.
My personal memories are varied,
Some are stressful, like when I was left isolated and alone in township after running the feeding program as my lift home had gone joy riding with her friends and left me to be questioned by police wondering what a scruffy , foreign, white guy was doing hanging round the township on his own.
Some are humbling, like when I had to turn up and apologise to a crowd of 120 hungry people that there would be no food that day.
Some are mind blowing, like when I saw a bunch of Xhosa guys walking with clubs and full golf gear back from the country club to their township shacks after a round of golf.
Some are amusing, like when I was praying for a drunken Xhosa woman, through interpretors, at the cell group we ran at Noluthandus house., thena realising everyone is laughing or mortified because the woman is coming onto me!! She did get healed by the way.
Some are joyful, like coming home after a successful feeding program, or doing a random Christmas toy drop unannounced and giving away a truck full of children’s toys.
And then there were the surreal days that were probably the most dangerous.
I suppose my warmest memories are of children shouting …jon! jon! jon!… and chasing me. Whenever my bright turquoise car drove into the township, and the bemused looks on the parent’s face, trying to realise what their children were doing and how they knew this white guy.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe for some of the guys in the township I wasn’t a stranger.
