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Reflections from the South African streets...April 2008

Joe Walker writes from Durban, South Africa:

"I feel at home here, settled and excited about the months ahead. When people ask me where I live, often an eyebrow is raised when they hear I live just down the road from the Point road area of town. Point was where I first met street children in Durban ten years ago and it is the community I am now part of. It’s a community of street children, former street children, refugees and people living on the margins of society. Their stories of struggle and often deep crisis help me to make sense of why I’m here.  

People I speak to on the phone tell me that the stories told of the people I meet and the experiences I have are the most powerful. The other day we parked up by the beach where were met by a couple of young men who needed our help. Lying on the ground in a heap was a man who was skin and bone. He was barely able to open his eyes. It was clear to everyone that he probably had AIDS and was seriously ill. He was well known on the streets. He was 29 and had been homeless since a young boy. We found out he had been a street child since 1985 when his parents has been killed in a car crash. He was left alone and had found his way to Durban. His face told a story. Although just a year younger than myself he looked like a middle-aged man. The years lost to the horror of the streets could be seen in his crumpled face. His eye’s were filled with tears has he tried to speak to us. He knew he was dying. It struck me that when you know you’re dying you want to tell your story and his was an important. This might have been his last chance and he got it. Every one has a story to tell.

This story had a deep impact on me, although this is not uncommon on the streets of South Africa. As I reflected on the experience a little later I watched a surfer come out of the sea. He sat down at a table in a cafe, lit a cigarette and proceeded to do a crossword in the paper. He was probably the same age as the young man dying just a short walk away down the beach. The contrast could not be more evident.

South Africa is full of contrasts. The simple fact of the matter is that if you’re born poor and black the chances of creating a better life are low. Of course there are many, many stories of hope and success for black South Africans since the end of apartheid and the divisions that exist can be economic as much a racial. A small visible and powerful black middle class has emerged, but the fact of the matter is that poverty and exclusion continue to de divided on racial lines. The ongoing fight against apartheid’s residual effects sometimes looses sight of the fact that the root causes of the system lay deeper than its manifestation. The ‘rainbow nation’ underpinned by reconciliation has not worked as it should have, but I would argue the unbridled optimism of 1994 was based on an unrealistic hope that South Africa could change so fundamentally in a generation.

Street children remain a excluded and oppressed group that do not enjoy the vision of a society built on tolerance, understanding, mutual respect and greater levels of material and social equity. Most street children are black and come from poor communities. Their struggle to find freedom in the new South Africa continues and sadly many more could die alone on the streets with an important story to tell."