When Hunger Comes Home

In September 2006, I travelled for the first time to Africa: to a conference in Cape Town, South Africa. After the conference ended, I asked if some local colleagues would show me around. A young couple with their 4-year old daughter offered to do so. They asked where I wanted to go, and I said people had suggested I see Table Mountain and the Waterfront. They said okay, but the first place they took me was Khayelitsha – the slums on the outskirts of Cape Town. And I’m forever thankful they did. This was the most profound experience for me, which I might have otherwise never had.


Most of the shacks did not have running water or electricity. In some cases people went on open spaces to “relieve themselves,” as I was told. There were a few locked toilets stalls to which people had to carry water from a well. Most of the people there didn’t have proper employment and there was a lot of crime. Children and dogs were playing in big amounts of trash that was accumulating along the roads. In some areas, people took electricity from larger lines and made smaller lines to their houses in what looked like “spider webs.” There were some nice looking schools, but how can children practice at home what they learn, e.g., about hygiene, if they live in such conditions? I felt privileged that locals took me there to see how a majority of people in the world live, but also burdened by what to do.

Submitted by: Carmen Aldinger