Christmas in Cape Town

“Don’t try driving this car down any chimneys soon, ” says a maniacal helium-soaked voice. Instantly I have a vivid mental image of a small man in green tights wearing a red pointed hood. No, I have not been smoking anything and no, I’m not wired on three cups of espresso, but like most men Mark loves to play with gadgets (he has bagfuls of gadgets) and one of them is a GPS.

Nothing out of the ordinary there, except that today our chosen navigator is Alfred the Christmas Elf. It is 8.30am in the morning and we are driving down the N2 listening to a Christmas Elf give us directions to Khayelitsha. For one reason or another we miss the required exit. “Are we going to the North Pole?” squawks Alfred. We arrive instead at Learn to Earn which is just as well because I need a reality check after that surreal incident

Learn to Earn is a skills development organisation which helps unemployed people become financially active by offering training courses in sewing, baking, graphic design, woodwork, basic computer skills and office administration. What makes this particular organisation so good at what they do is that they take a holistic overview to developing people socially, economically, emotionally and spiritually. They train about 350 people annually and have an excellent placement record of 80%.

Tozama Ndevu (30) of Khayelitsha, Cape Town

Today we speak with Tozama Ndevu, a graduate of the sewing training course. Her English isn’t good and she’s a bit shy about that, so Tim gently encourages her to express herself in isiXhosa during our video interview. When I spoke with Tozama before her interview, I had asked her a few questions and was sobered by her answers.  She is 30 years old and is married to Thandisile, who is currently unemployed. They have two children, Inga (10) and Lisa (2 years, 3 months). Before completing her training at Learn to Earn, Tozama was unemployed. She is entitled to receive from the state a R250/month child support grant, so their family of four was existing on R500/month. “It was hard,” she says, “there were times when my sister had to help us.” Tozama is now working as a machinist at the Zakhele Incubator, an intermediate project run by Learn to Earn, whereby trainee graduates undertake paid contract work, in a protected and supported environment whilst they gain experience with their new skills. Tozama now earns R700 monthly, which supplements her R500 child support grants, so now her total income is R1200 month. I asked her to list her monthly expenses:

No rental, as she lives in a shack
R120 train fare (R30/weekly. She lives in Site B, near Nonqubela Station.)
R300 food
R100 electricity
R100 school lunch box for Inga (R5/day x 20 days school per month)
R100 milk formula for Lisa
R150 Huggies (disposable nappies) for Lisa

I sit and look at these figures, for a long moment I don’t quite know what to say. At the end of her interview with Tim, I ask Tozama what she wishes for the future. She smiles and says, “I want to become self-employed; I want to be a fashion designer and have my own business.”

The Old Mutual Foundation funding contributed towards the 11-week Sewing Skills Training and Job Creation project for 25 students per year, for two years. I know that the need out there is great, but even helping 50 lives makes a life-changing difference to those 50 people.

My Life Journey.

Mark, Tim and I bundle into the car. We’ve got a tight schedule and I’m playing timekeeper, hounding the guys to get going to our next appointment. We drive out of Khayelitsha, an incredibly colourful, vibrant, noisy place. “Suburbs must seem so boring compared to township energy,” I think out aloud. Mark agrees from the front of the car, he used to think that, he says but lost his innocence the day he was hijacked. Tim nods, he’s filmed in most locations throughout South Africa and relates the experience of a fellow cameraman who survived a hijacking and attempted murder. Tim’s comment that haunted me most was that the young gangster who had aimed the gun at Tim's friend, had closed his own eyes tightly before pulling the trigger. Violence wounds not only the victims, but also the perpetrators.

By now we’re going past Lavender Hill and Bishop Lavis, some of the most hectic areas in Cape Town. The drug of choice here is tik (crystal meth) and the Cape Flats gangs are notorious. We head into Grassy Park, around Busy Corner into Zeekoevlei. Given that I was told yesterday that there’s no water for yachting in the vlei I’m not quite sure what to expect, so when we come around the corner upon the most beautiful open pan of water, rippling with a fresh breeze and bathed in golden afternoon sunlight, I whoop with delight. There’s water, I cry out aloud, yahooo!!

We meet David Rae who heads up the Zeekoevlei Sailing Academy, supported by the Old Mutual Foundation. Around him cluster a group of young guys, whom David has rustled up for us to meet and interview. They’re all students from schools in these surrounding areas and have been with the sailing programme for the last few years. Shannon, a young lad of 15 years, who I can see is developing some scrub on his chin, talks shyly with me. He’s just won the U16 Western Province Championships for the category RS Tera (a type of yacht, don't worry I didn’t know that as well!), and is going on to compete in the National Championships in July. I talk with Mornay, 19 with a scar on his forehead, he talks quietly, tells me how sailing got him out of gangsterism. His friends are still gangsters, sometimes they try to get him back with them, but mostly they encourage him to pursue this sport. I talk with Roscoe, 24, a student who now works full-time at the centre teaching the kids about sailing. What’s the biggest difference he notices when school kids come onto the programme, I ask him? He thinks before answering me, “The guys become calmer, less aggressive.”    


I watch the young guys interacting with David. They’re all fooling around and pushing at each other, like typical guys, reminding me of young bull elephants testing their strength. The word that comes to my mind is ‘healthy’, what I’m seeing is healthy – there’s fresh air, open water, a physically demanding sport, learning self-discipline, a natural environment, healthy male role models. It’s a way out of the cycle of violence and drugs which are so present for these kids, so easy to get into, so impossible to get out of once they’re in it.

I listen with delight at the details of Shannon’s upcoming National Championship Regatta in Sedgefield. If he wins through at this level, the top 6 competitors are chosen to go through and compete in the World Championships in Denmark later this year. I’m blown away at the possibility that Shannon, a 15 year old kid from Grassy Park who used to sit on his couch watching too much TV, has an incredible opportunity to fly from Cape Town to Copenhagen, a chance to compete in something like this.


Now what a gift that could be, I thought, what a life-changing present that would be. Perhaps something that even a cheeky Christmas Elf might approve of!

David Rae (far right) sits with youth from the Zeekoevlei Sailing Academy, Grassy Park, Cape Town. (Ok, so the vlei was quite low!)

PS: David and I laugh about the difference in interpretations of water levels between a sailor and a photographer. According to him, the water’s too low to sail, according to Mark and Tim we can still see the water, so that’s great!

PPS: Today, I insisted on a photo of Mark, so here's his choice!

Mark, our multi-mirrored intrepid photographer who loves all manner of gadgets.


PPPS: Follow Shannon Cupido (15) and David Jacobs (16) in the National Regatta on 16-19th June 2011, in Sedgefield, George, Western Cape. http://sailing.org.za/events/4-national

Some photographs to savour:

Learn To Earn sewing graduates, working at Zakhele Incubator, Khayelitsha, Cape Town.

Mornay Harding (19), Zeekoevlei Sailing Academy, Grassy Park, Cape Town.

OK, I just loved this sign!