According to their culture, a healer can only become one if his grandfather passes it on to him. This type of healing is especially popular in spiritual and emotional situations when western medicine cannot help. This type of healer does not go to school and receive training in the conventional way, but uses herbal, animal, and spiritual devices to fix any problems the people that come in are having. Our final stop was at a traditional African healer. Even though to me her way of life seems tragic, it was almost as if she knew no other way and was completely contented.Ī local boy plays in the street with his soccer ball The only thing that made me feel a little better was how happy she seemed in spite of it all. I cannot even fathom what kind of life that would be like. It was absolutely heartbreaking to see that. A woman that lived there explained that in her family alone there are five children, and they share that tiny room with two other families.
![township definition township definition](https://images.slideplayer.com/47/11761738/slides/slide_4.jpg)
The room was about half the size of mine at home and had three twin sized beds on the sides. Next we saw a bedroom where three families lived. They would have to get up extremely early in the morning so the fathers of the families could eat at the table before work. He explained that since there is not room for the kids in the bedrooms they were required to sleep on the floor and table. A man came and talked to us about it because he had actually grown up in that hostel himself. It consisted of a sink, concrete floors, and a table. We entered one of the oldest (and most poor) hostels and got to see the main area. Not to mention the fact that there were 4-6 rooms on each floor in one of these buildings so ALL the families shared the bathroom and main area. We are talking three families per room and the rooms are smaller than the dorm rooms at Iowa. Today, however, entire families can live in them. At that time only men could stay in the houses while they worked in the city. They were initially set up for migrant workers in the days of the apartheid. They are large and have many small rooms that house people. These buildings are all over in the townships. I had the opportunity to try it, and lets just say one sip was plenty for me! The jug can be shared amongst a lot of people, and is simply just passed around and drunk right out of the can. Once we got to a small shack-like house that looked like every other he explained that a huge jug of their “beer” is made by the women and costs 20 rand (which is less than 2 US dollars). On our walk there old boxcars were everywhere, and the local man explained to us how it makes for good homes for some families. Second, we headed into the middle of the township and walked into a traditional African beerhouse. By the end of their training, the hope is that they can go out and become entrepreneurs by selling their products to people and companies. It is a place where their work can be sold to people and tourists such as myself.
TOWNSHIP DEFINITION HOW TO
In this building people of the township receive training on how to make crafts, such as pottery, paintings, etc, in order to someday earn money for themselves. Some of the wares sold at the Guga S'Thebe marketįor Langa at least, however, there has been a long history of creativity and arts so when the apartheid ended people of the township constructed the idea to build this center to help move their people forward and pull them out of poverty. They just do not have skills to compete in the job market for reasons such as lack of education, no English training, etc. A large factor adding into why unemployment is so staggering in these areas is simply because the people are nearly unemployable. Over half the people in townships are unemployed, creating major issues concerning the social and economic dynamics of these areas. This is a rather new building, completely thought up and run by the people of Langa. We first started off at the craft center named Guga S’Thebe. During my visit we checked out five main things that help summarize what life in a township really is: a traditional African beerhouse, a craft market, the “smiley” station, a hostel, and a traditional healer. Because of the economic situation most are in around that area, moving out of the township now is very difficult.
![township definition township definition](http://ingenweb.org/inkosciusko/land/section.gif)
A township by definition usually refers to the underdeveloped urban living areas that, from the late 19th century until the end of Apartheid, were reserved for non-whites.