The date is Monday, May 22, and today, our group visited an
informal settlement in Soweto known as Kliptown. Prior to this experience, I
can’t say I had a lot of expectations going into Kliptown. Our tour guide and
friend, Sibusiso, had briefly taught us about Kliptown and the environment in
which its residents live in, but I wasn’t very knowledgeable on the settlement
as a whole. However, the second I stepped foot into Kliptown, I was immediately
blown away and inspired by one aspect of life in Kliptown: it’s powerful sense
of community.
Travelling has always been one of my favorite hobbies
because I genuinely enjoy meeting new people from different places and having
the privilege to hear their life stories. While I’ve been greeted by nice
people in every country I’ve travelled to, no city’s level of hospitality and
community compares to that of Kliptown’s. When walking through the streets of
Kliptown, I was astonished at the amount of residents who either said hello or
waved to me from afar.
In the United States, in my opinion, it’s very rare to have
such a genuinely friendly encounter with a person whom you’ve never met before.
When walking down the streets of a big city such as New York or Boston, most
people are either in a rush or prefer to keep to themselves, so rather than
receiving a friendly greeting, most people will either look away or scroll on
their phones as they walk past you. In Kliptown, however, it’s the polar
opposite. People of all ages, from toddlers to elders, make it evidently known
that they are happy to have you there in their presence.
Kliptown has a very close-knit population which is proven
through not only their close community, but also through the close proximity of
the houses present within the township. All of the houses in Kliptown are very
close together spatially, allowing the residents to have a very intimate living
experience further fostering a strong community. There are many narrow little
streets and paths between the houses, allowing residents to walk throughout the
neighborhood, whereas in America, I feel that most of the neighborhoods I’ve
seen have very wide blocks, unless you’re travelling in certain areas of major
cities where they’re a little cramped on space. It’s also very rare in America
to see two houses next to each other without a fence or some sort of border
between them, which in my opinion, diminishes the sense of community.
When walking through Kliptown, I was very shocked to see
their bathroom arrangements. Present within Kliptown are a few bathroom stalls
that serve as communal bathrooms for the residents, and as stated by our tour
guide, these bathrooms are very problematic because they are often locked
preventing residents from actually being able to use them. This is a very
drastic change from what we’re used to in America because we are privileged
enough to have clean, private bathrooms that most citizens take for granted. Some
might see Kliptown’s closely placed houses as an invasion of privacy or a mere
lack of space; however, this is the American perspective. To the people of
Kliptown, this is simply seen as an opportunity to develop an even stronger
community.
I was also shocked at the level of trust present between
Kliptown’s residents regarding the movement of children. Nowadays, I feel like
it’s very rare to be encouraged to go somewhere alone, and as a result,
communities can lose their trust in each other as a result of a sense of fear
being distilled into the minds of others. However, in Kliptown, I noticed that
while we were walking throughout the township, there was a little boy who
followed our group for most of the tour. In America, once someone’s child
starts walking in the opposite direction as their parents are, most parents
will go to grab their arm and teach them not to do something like that again. I
never met the child’s parents, but they must’ve felt that as long as he stayed
in the settlement, he was protected knowing that all of the residents look out
for each other. Also at one point, our group was standing around listening to
the tour guide speak when a little girl, who was initially sitting outside of
her house with her mother, came up to one of my classmates and hugged her leg.
As children, many of us were taught to have the mentality to not talk to
strangers; however, our group can easily be seen as strangers to the families
of Kliptown, yet they greeted us with so much compassion.
Personally, I thought this was such a comforting realization.
I was under the impression that the people of Kliptown choose to always see the
good in others, and during a time like today, this is a very important virtue
that should be practiced among people of all nations. The residents of Kliptown
may not be rich in personal possessions, but they all strongly possess some of
the most important qualities: love, compassion, and trust in others. I strongly
believe numerous communities throughout the world can learn something from the
people of Kliptown through their unbreakable sense of community.
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