6/6

This morning we went to the District 6 Museum for the first half of the day. It is so nice being in Cape Town, in the city. We walked about 10 minutes from our hostel and were downtown. Anyways, after getting a wee bit lost we finally found the building. District 6 was a multi-cultural neighborhood that was evacuated and demolished during apartheid. The community members were expelled from their homes and separated, forced to live in different townships far from the city. The founder of the museum is a man who lived in District 6 until he was 27, who now happens to be the tour guide. It was amazing to hear him speak about the glory of the old neighborhood, to hear his stories about the schools and the barber shops and the coffee shops. He spoke of each person that had established a life in the District. He spoke of the signs that went up, telling them they could no longer go home. He spoke of the men that hung themselves in the school-yard and the women who never saw their husbands because they were separated. He spoke of the mental games that the white people played, simple things like categorizing themselves as “white PEOPLE”, but the coloreds, blacks, and Indians as just that, too low to be named as a person. The man’s solution was respect. The easiest way to live together is to respect each other. Religion, sports, foods, music, everything. Respect and get respect in return and in that way live in understanding.

The founding statement was really beautiful, so I wanted to write it here:

Remember Dimbaza. Remember Botshabelo/Onverwacht, South End, East Bank, Sophiatown, Makuleke, Cato Manor. Remember District 6. Remember the racism which took away our homes and our livelihood and which sought to steal away our humanity. Remember also our will to live, to hold fast to that which marks us as human beings; our generosity, our love of justice, and our care for each other. Remember Tramway Road, Modderdam, Simonstown.

In remembering we do not want to recreate District 6, but to work with its memory; of hurts inflicted and received of loss. Achievements and of shames. We wish to remember so that we can all, together and by ourselves, rebuild a city which belongs to all of us, in which all of us can live, not as races but as people.

I wanted to end this entry with part of a poem by Lveen Conning-Ndlovu.

"And in the questioning comes the Who Am I

Out of the listening comes through You Am I

THROUGH YOU AM I."