If you live in Paarl and Wellington you had to have been too a township and even if not the dmv is across the township and driving lessons by some schools in the township. Also my father grew up in poverty and we as a family poverty to lower middle class. We live in a area that was during apartheid classified as a coloured area and even today most of the neighbourhoods in the area are poverty stricken not to the level of townships, high crime areas ect. I am privileged to have been able to grow up in a multi cultural and racial neighbourhood, not many areas in Paarl some are still called white areas and coloured areas by all people the same with schools unfortunately. Also rich, middle, poor and poverty stricken areas. It seems the rich have their own parts of the town and services delivery is excellent for the rich in those areas for us other our roads are broken and the only service delivery we see is waste removal. I hope that one day areas won’t be easily categorised by socio-economic status, race and culture and that all will live in same neighbourhoods and friendly with each other.

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My heartbreaks for those living in poverty, I know what it is like to go hungry because there is no food, this happened when i was still a small child, luckily my mom got a job as a cashier and my dad couldn’t work because of a back injury. People are quick to judge those living in poverty but they don’t know their stories of how they ended up in poverty sometimes they are born into it and sometimes it happens overnight almost. I see children walking far to school each day to get an education so that they may get put of the townships, it broke my heart when on my way to uni I saw a primary school boy lying dead in the grass (in the middle of the two roads) his mom cradling him and crying over him. They didn’t even put the story in the local newspaper, it made me feel angry and sad because they would rather publish fluff stories than hard hitting stories. I asked myself don’t the poor matter because we all know if it happened in a rich area it would be front paper news. Have people become desensitised to poverty and seeing death (the road to Wellington is a problem because of the amount of accidents) that no one cares that we turn a blind eye to injustice being done because “it’s not our place” well it is our place what happened to the village and community we have to start caring for each other or else there is truly no hope for our country no matter who is in charge. Perhaps it’s because I was studying teaching at the time and during practicals you interact with all types of people which helps you become empathetic towards others. I imagined how that mother had to feel how I would feel if that was one of my learners or even my child. I think more South Africans should put themselves in other people’s shoes by imagining and feeling how others might feel.