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March 25th
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South Africa Day Two, Into the worst and the best...
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In the morning, we woke as a full team. Curtis, Anthony Raisson (a former South African and business consultant who invented
Breath Assure amongst other things), and Ed "Shish-ka-bob" Park, had arrived in the night. Shish is the chapter leader of
the GA group in Reno and a 14 year veteran. Even at 14 years of patrolling, he was the junior member of our group.
We all headed off to a meeting, after enjoying an "English Breakfast" in the dining car, to meet with the local representative
of the International Organization for Migration. His name was Marcella. His job is to track and expose human traffickers.
South Africa, and Capetown in particular, are world leaders in this trade. Young girls and boys are kidnapped or duped with
false promises of riches into the world of sexual slavery. This tale is becoming all to familiar across the world.
These children are gang-raped into submission and then kept in a house somewhere in the city where they service a clientele
comprised mostly of sex-tourists from Japan and Germany, and of foreign fishermen on a stop-over. The children are not paid
and may have sex with 16 men in a day. They are taken at any age, but Capetown tends to start with kids between the ages of
9 and 11. Some of them come from places as far away as India and Thailand, and others right from the townships (another euphemism
for the shanty towns) in Capetown.
The kids are moved from country to country as they get older, as each country has preferences. A girl may end up as a
sexual slave in four countries for two years apiece until she is finally discarded. Most will not survive that long.
The IOM specializes in exposing these houses of horror and collecting evidence to prosecute the slave traders. They also
will provide anything under the sun for the victims of these inhuman barbarians. Marcella has funds to provide months of respite
time in a safe place, with unlimited counseling and medical services. They will also send the victim home, if that is their
choice, or find them permanent living situations in safer countries such as Canada. This is necessary as some victims may
never return home due to cultural stigmas about rape.
Marcella is doing work that every human on earth should be doing. He is also doing it alone. He has only himself and
two social workers to cover the southern region of Africa.
We learned from him that groups of these kids turn to horrendous methods of money-making at times. Some are purposefully
infected with HIV in order to receive the government subsidy of 750 rand (approx. $77) per month. Others go to the Israeli
organ dealing syndicates where they will be paid for their internal organs. One thing we learned is that nearly every country
across the globe seems to have a specialty in this horrifying underworld, whether it be organs, kidnappings, snuff films or
another crime against humanity. We also learned that South Africa is a haven for these people. The reason for this will be
elaborated on later.
We all left angry, but educated. It was a deeper exploration of a topic we had all been hearing about.
From the IOM headquarters, we went on a drive through the city and then on into the countryside where we met a few animals.
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| Here's a fellow who wasn't particularly pleased with us. |
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| A view of a shanty town as we drove by. |
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| Another view of the shanty town. |
The journey through the city was fascinating because of the tremendous diversity in neighborhoods. It is common
to transition from opulence to destitution in the space of just a few miles. Many of the neighborhoods are segregated to an
extreme level. There are three primary racial groups in South Africa: White, Colored, and Black. Coloreds are a large group
of people who are lighter skinned due to there being white or Indian ancestors in their family lines. They were treated better
than blacks in the time of Apartheid, and still retain a better standard in general from that of the blacks.
The workforce has been integrated with equal representation from the three major groups. We saw high level people of
each race farily equally. But the blacks tend to have it worse than the coloreds who tend to have less than the whites.
For example, the shanty towns are populated almost exclusively by South African blacks. Blacks from other countries can not
live in those areas, because they would be killed.
The city has many scenes that would be familar to us, and just as many that would be alien.
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| You don't really save that much after you add the shipping costs to the US. |
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| L. Ron Hubbard, alive and well in SA. |
Key among the sites that were beyond our imagination were the shanty towns. Though we were only able to
view them from the police van thusfar, they had a dramatic impact. We saw thousands upon thousands of fragile looking shacks,
constructed of scavenged wood and corrugated steel, standing abreast of one another. The shacks averaged about 7' by 7'. There
was a distance of only a few feet on any side between one shack and the next. Though such structures exist throuout the world
in places like Brazil and India, it was still a shock to see the actual living conditions these unlucky people maintained.
Charl, who we had given the code name of "Five-O", talked to us about the role the shanty towns served and
the tremendous history of violence connected with them. The people who lived there, as I stated earlier, are South African
blacks. They pay no money to stay there. Many of them do not work in any official capacity. Others maintain typical day-jobs
at restaurants and stores throughout Capetown. No one knows how many people live in the townships, as the only census is that
of registered voters. In one area, for example, there were 80,000 registered voters though the population was estimated at
125,000.
This lack of information is a key facilitator for the vast numbers of disappearances. The shacks themselves,
as flimsy as they are, provide no security from home invaders or marauding rapists. The only thing that provides the residents
of the townships with a modicum of security is the close knit community that they develop. Outsiders are not appreciated.
In fact Five-O told us in no uncertain terms, that we would need to wear bullet-proof vests if we were to enter. Neither he
nor his supervisors were happy with our desire to visit these places at first. Most of the South Africans we met had never
set foot in one. It just wasn't done, and for good reason. I will go into these subjects in more detail as I describe our
incursions into several of the shanty towns.
Our trip through the city would take us to the extreme limits of Capetown. Five-O, attempting to find some
african animals for us, drove us out into a rural countryside that was still within the city limits. We stopped at a roadside
zoo called "The Lion Park". We weren't terribly excited about seeing animals in a backyard zoo, but we chanced it nonetheless.
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| This is my friend Mr. Ostrich. |
At the Lion Park we met a lion, an Ostrich, several goats, geese and a group of tortoises. The lion roared
a bunch of times and that was something to hear up close. It was a low reverberating grumble that probably carried for miles.
None of us had ever heard anything like it. It was impressive. I met an Ostrich and after many feints and jabs from him, I
finally managed to take hold of his long neck, gently. He didn't seem to mind once I had hold of him. I later learned that
the only way to stop a charging Ostrich is to grab their neck. Apparently it mesmerizes them or something. About this time
I saw Bull having a conversation with a group of goats. I watched from a distance, not wanting to interrupt. Later I
asked him:
"Were you talking to those goats?"
"Yep," He answered.
"What the hell were you saying?"
"Those goats kept bugging me for food. It was pissing me off, so I told them to go over and eat some
of the geese."
"Eat the geese?" I asked.
"Yep. The big one kept looking over at them everytime I said it too."
No goats took his advice while we were there.
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| Me and my buddy. |
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| Bull makes a new friend. |
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| Crowbar, the Ostrich Whisperer. |
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As we left the park to head for our first visit to the neighborhood of Atlantis, Curtis relayed a story
about his fun day with a horse. He and three angels were taken bareback riding by a gentleman some years back. They were all
going along at a nice trot, enjoying the scenery, when this fellow set his horse off into a gallop. Of course all the other
horses, including the one Curtis was riding, took off after him. They were tearing along the contryside like bats out of hell,
the angels were bouncing around on their horses as they were all inexperienced. Then they came to a dry river bed which all
the horses sailed over. Except Curtis's. That horse came to a dead stop right at the lip of the bank. Curtis, not being a
horse, didn't stop. He flew right off the back of the horse, made a nice arc through the air and faceplanted in the river
bed. His horse decided that the river bed didn't look that bad after all and walked by Curtis and after the others. They noticed
that the horse was missing something and all rushed back to find it. They came upon Curtis trying to stand up and stumbling
all over the place. "Woah, woah," he was saying. It might have been a good idea to use that word a bit earlier I think.
Of course the angels, concerned for the health of their leader, all fell off their horses laughing.
Anthony Raisson, who we had dubbed "Captain Kirk", pointed out that one could get a ride an ostrich in South
Africa.
"Yeah, let's go ostrich riding!", said Curtis, feigning excitement.
Atlantis is an area containing several kinds of housing. We visited a colored area where each family had
a small house. There were kids everywhere and they all came running out to meet us. We had stopped at a police station there,
but decided to walk out into the neighborhood. We met many people and talked to them about the problems there. Most parents
didn't make it home until six or so, and the kids were all out of school by three. Most of them had no supervision during
those hours and drug dealers bought them gifts and tried to recruit them as runners or as future clientele. Gangs are a big
problem here and the citizens don't feel that they can stand up to them. The police presence is nearly non-existent outside
of the blocks immediately surrounding the station.
The kids were well acquainted with certain aspects of our culture. Namely, hip-hop, rock and roll, and wrestling.
Bull and I were immediately renamed after popular wrestlers and the kids kept lining up to feel our muscles. We stayed with
them for quite a while and gave them some Guardian Angels pins. By the end of our time there, the kids were asking us to autograph
their hands and shirts. The adults were hopeful that we would return and help them clean up their neighborhood. Tut showed
us all how to connect with strangers as he had the whole street smiling a few minutes after we walked over.
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| Thomas "Tut" Hunt and one of the children of Atlantis. |
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| Bull and Curtis "Rock" Sliwa on the line. |
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| Bull's new posse. |
The last event of the day was to be a drive through on of the shanty towns. We of course immediately requested
to walk through instead. There was some discussion and many worried looks, but the police agreed, though they insisted on
escorting us. Later, they would end up being very impressed at how we acted and how the people responded to us.
We first visited a township named Joe Slovo, which a week prior had burned to the ground. We would see the
start of the fire later in the week at the police CCTV center. The majority of the people who lived there were moved into
huge circus tents until new housing could be arranged. Hundreds of people were living in these tents. Families lived side
by side within, with no privacy whatsoever. There were feeding times and cages one had to line up in, just like you would
find in a prison. I read an account of one of the resident's of Joe Slovo who spoke about the conditions there.
People were not allowed to have sex in the tents, but they did anyway. The authorities took the step of
leaving the lights on at all hours to prevent this. Dinner was served at 5pm and at 8pm. If you missed these times you could
not get food. Children were sent through the lines over and over, and babies would be passed around from woman to woman, as
babies allowed an extra portion to be given out. Both allowed extra food to be obtained. This is necessary as the meal we
saw was a medium sized styrofoam bowl filled with some sort of bean dish. Certainly not enough to sate the appetite of an
adult. The food did not smell good, but people got as much of it as they could.
The fire was started by a parafin stove, which is a small kerosene device. They are tremendously unsafe,
but the residents continue to use them illegally to cook their own food. The stoves are confiscated when they are found. I
wondered whether providing fire extinguishers might make more sense than taking away people's ability to cook. Still the consequences
were horrendous when even one shack catches fire. Miraculously only one life was lost in the blaze. Sadly it was an infant
that perished.
The people of Joe Slovo did not trust the police and would not respond to their questions. They viewed us
separately, however, and we were able to meet many of them and talk to them about their lives.
We went from there up the road a piece to Langa. Honestly, I didn't know what to think when I was there.
I had never seen human beings living like this. I was disgusted and embarrassed. I will let the pictures speak for themselves
and let you know our reactions in the next day's entry.
Pictures of Joe Slovo and Langa
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