The Gansbaai Project - Part I

Near the bottom of the continent of Africa, tucked into a bay on the shores of South Africa, lies a small community built around the rich aquatic life that fills its rocky shores. The rough Atlantic ocean supplies hake and other fish as well as squid and the precious, protected abalone - a mollusc about twice the size of a large oyster. The three "townships" that make up the year round community challenge the ocean for its diversity. The Masakahne township is made up of Eastern Cape families that mainly speak Xhosa -- the challenging "clicking" language. 8,000 or more people live in this tiny shanty town, with a 40% employment rate generally holding fishing factory jobs. In order to survive, many of these family illegally poach the abolone from the shores by hiding in the water and caves and diving at night for the expensive shells. The second township is Blompark and consists of families that have lived in this area for generations and generally speak Afrikaans now. Many of the families from this area have government jobs but still live in one-room houses and struggle with unemployment rates over 50%. The third "township" woudl hardly categorize itself as a township (and neither would I) but that is how it was labeled to me so who I am to judge. The houses in de Kelders were nice and some extravagantly constructed.

In the middle of three communities is a recently built state-of-the arte sports facility that provides the home to a group working to integrate the communities and to teach the children many life skills, including a heavy focus on environmental issues like recycling, agriculture, and protection of wildlife and the fynbos -- the local flora environment rich with over 600 species of plant in a 10 km area (who listened to the hosts?). By engendering a love for "their" environment, the group hopes to build community pride amonst all the children and to erase ethnic divisions by creating ONE community. All of this is done through sport. For the week spent in this naturally breathtaking environment, we saw strides taken by the coaches as well as the joyful children, despite the gale force winds in which we worked and the epic neckburn through which I stupidly suffered (I did become more "preceise" in my application of sunblock). I am now known as zebra neck; maybe my worst nickname yet.

One love,

Christian