Troubled times

Last week was been a real reminder of the deep seated problems in the communities around Grabouw and the tensions that exist alongside these. On Monday there were riots and protests around the local high school. Due to the massive population increase in Grabouw (15,000 after apartheid rising to 60,000 in a few years) the school is painfully over-stretched and lacking funding. Children share chairs and there are classes of up to 60. Frustrated locals took to the street to campaign for another school, or improvements to the current one. As so often happens, tensions escalated and police had to be out in force to try and quell the angry protesters - firing gas canisters into the crowd. The tragic outcome was a few extreme members of the community starting a fire in the school, leaving two classrooms burnt out, and smashing most of the windows in the building.

Now, instead of improvements (which are well deserved), the community is left without a school and the children will probably be out of education for a month or more. Talking to some of the local boys, who come to sports in the afternoon as mentors, they explained the anger still surrounding the school and that those trying to attend in the week after the riots were beaten with sticks by local men. They went along this week and there were no teachers, so there have been lots of children milling around the townships in the afternoon with little to do. Its very easy to empathise with people here who are desperate for changes in not just education but basic standard of life in general. However the violence is difficult to condone and understand when it saw people injured and stripped the children in the community of the few provisions the government has made for them.

It also meant the townships were far too dangerous to venture into and sports was cancelled on Monday. The sessions in the days following were noticeably  quiet - luckily things have quietened down this week, but the children are still out of school and there seems to be no hope of a quick solution for them.