1 Mei

Today we had an interesting day. In the morning, we drove to the Township and visited one of Thamsanqua's houses. Whilst driving to another one, we realised that there was a rally being held at by the EFF at the local Football stadium, the Economic Freedom Fighters, who want to nationalise all land and mines, similarly to what happened in Zimbabwe. This, in combination with the facts that it was Friday (payday, so a lot of people get drunk), the 1st of the month (everyone collects what little benefits they get) and Workers Day (a national holiday) made for quite a volatile mix. In the drive to the house, someone shouted at us that we should go away and that we didn't belong there, and we got a lot of nasty looks. This may not seem like much, but even Tia who had been working there for decades was unhappy. We went to pick un Simpiewe (I probably messed up the spelling) who reassured us that it was on the other side of town and we decided to go through with the tour of the shack neighbourhood. Simpiewe seemed to know everyone there and we had to stand still every few minutes to talk with the people that had gathered round. It was a very friendly environment, as long as you ignored the smells and starving animals,especially considering the rest of Motherwell. When we got back we drove to a Township restaurant where we had beef stew, fish and chips and chicken and chips. The food was good, but the smell of the cow intestines someone was eating next to us was disgusting. Some local children also showed us a traditional Xhosa dance. This was all taking place whilst some workers were building an attachment to the building. After all this, we took the long way to avoid the rally and drove back.