Through our group work in the fall and writing our research proposal, I felt confident that I had a sense of how the South African economy was working. I knew that the economy as a whole is suffering. There are high levels of unemployment (28%), complexities with education access, and there are limited opportunities for sustainable jobs. The formal economy in broad terms made sense to me. However, what I was really ignorant of was the informal economy, and how there are such obvious economic systematic disparities among the people of South Africa.
One day, our class visited the Langa township. At first glance, this township looked unimaginable. It was nothing like I had ever seen in America. Houses were made from steel scraps and car parts, people were dressed in old and torn clothes, and multiple families together were cramped into a tiny room. The conditions were almost unlivable. At one point, we came upon a market with various handmade items. Our group looked around for a while before a couple of people made some purchases from the woman. She was overly grateful and shook our hands saying “god bless you all”. I started to inquire about the economy to our guide. She explained that most everyone living in these townships are living in extreme poverty. They are making less than a living wage, and therefore depend upon “group collection”, where families and friends combine their money to buy items/electricity/food for the whole group. What very little they are buying, they share with one another. I then asked what people in these townships did for work. Our guide explained that this was a very complex issue. She stated that some men woke up early every morning to travel to more urban areas to work. These men may only have the chance to work a couple of days a week, because sometimes the bus to the city was too full, or men would get to work and they would be told that they are not needed that day. Thus, lots of people are only brining home a two day/week salary, and that is not a livable wage for one person, much less a family.
The women in the townships had a variety of roles. Most mothers stayed in the townships to look after the children. Some women made creative crafts and various items to sell to tourists who come into the village. The kids would go to school. However, getting the children to school was even difficult. Those who could afford transportation for their children could arrange their children to be driven there. Most cannot afford transportation, and so these children and their mothers are walking miles to and from school each day. I also learned that school is only mandatory until grade 8. Therefore, some of the older children would drop out of school to look for work just to bring in more income.
To be honest, I was disturbed by a lot of this. I told our guide that my group was researching the economy in South Africa post-Apartheid. At first she chuckled, and seemed to joke that “not much has changed for us”. Intrigued, I asked what she meant by that. In short, her response dealt with the idea that the impoverished townships and the poor are not reaping any economic benefits, but instead these communities are continuing to struggle for years and years. The women who work endlessly on homemade crafts and goods barely make any profit, and the money that they do make never lasts long. Thus, the cycle of poverty continues. Their lives are essentially the same as they were during the Apartheid, when there was purposeful segregation and economic inequality. On the bus ride back from Langa, I thought about our tour guide’s comments and reflected on my own observations. Immediately I thought back to our class discussion and the “dance of the lemons”. The way we discussed this saying in the fall was regarding the issue of less educated and essentially lower-quality teachers would be assigned to teach in poorer districts. This perpetuates the cycle of poverty because then children are less motivated and may not finish their education, and they remain “stuck” in what they know. After talking with the principle at Ekukhanyisweni Primary School, she noted that teachers are so undervalued and outnumbered that most days they have to spend more time waking up and prompting children in class rather than actually teaching material. This caused me to start to think about the dance of the lemons in a broader sense in dealing with the economy.
