Good Hope Farms

On our drive to Kalkfontein last week, I asked Dickie (our driver of the LEAP van - he takes us here and there), what "fontein" means, as I keep seeing it in parts of town and street names.  It took some discussion between he and the other driver, but they finally decided it means "farms" in Africanese.  The literal translation of Kalkfontein is Good Hope Farms.

Let that sit in the front of your thoughts as you view these photos -









What is left of the original farm ..

The exterior of Joyce's house.  Have I talked about Joyce yet?  Joyce is a community activist, choosing to live in this "informal settlement" which is what the shack houses are called.  More on her later ...  This is the street where she lives, and the open doorway is the entrance to her home.

The front window of her home.  When I first saw this window, I had to throw out all of my preconceived notions about shack housing.  Real glass, windows that open and close, and check out the curtains she has.  Dolphins.

A close up is below ..

Of course, I instantly made a connection with Joyce about her love of oceans and water (after all, I AM Wavesmom) ....

This is Jamie (our tall White Fellow), and Joyce inside of her house.  Joyce is a breast cancer survivor.  She is still undergoing chemotherapy treatments (thus the hat because she has no hair).

This is the main room of the house.  As you can see, there is electricity (which I had said at one point that there was not in these sorts of houses, my error.)  The wiring is pretty sketchy, but there is enough power to run the TV (which you see behind Jamie), and a couple of lamps.  The house is heated with a propane??  keroscene?? heater.  It is small, could fit in the circle that your legs make when you sit on the ground, but warms the room nicely.  Funny, that I had to go to a shack house in an informal settlement in order to become warm.  There is tremendous irony there ....

The street corner ....

The light may be wrong to show how white these white shirts are.

Every house has an address.  Most houses have at least one dog.

The side yard of a house near where Joyce stays..

While the houses do have electricity, they do not have running water.  The water spigot that serves the street Joyce lives on, plus maybe six other streets is to the left of the porta-potties (the blue buildings that we all recognize.)  The government maintains these bathrooms, they are the only ones here. None of the shacks has a bathroom.

From Joyce's house, this is a 3 - 4 minute walk.  Bring your own supplies.