welcome

thursday 12 april 2007 24:12

it was not my first time there – i felt welcome again. unthreatened. i could see on the volunteer’s faces that we were. these people were refreshing and innovative, i mean mattress springs as fences! amazing. gas bottles as balusters. people seem so proud of the little that they have; so neat and clean.

it was a windy day – dusty, hot, dry. there seemed to be such vastness and an infinity of undeveloped space bound by train houses on one hand and flat, sprawling landscape on the other. everything so low and horizontal and squat.

green grass was sparse – little oases scattered around trees and besides the over-waked paths that cut into the earth. winter was coming.

we walked the sites, quiet and contemplative. chess park to indaba tree to civic centre to beerhall to houses.

there was a huge and obvious juxtaposition between the well-kept yard and the abandoned, littered shells of ruins. post-apartheid i guess…