Gimme Hope

So, once again my bags are packed. But this time, they're packed for home. And when I say bags, I mean a small amount of clothes, a small amount of assorted tourist tat, and a small mobile library of information, books and handouts from the 60 or so projects I've visited in the last 6 weeks.

Planes: 16,000+ air miles, 8.58 tonnes of carbon (£60 to offset, reforesting Kenya); trains: (I loved the Chicago El) and automobiles: (from taxi drivers with nazi tattoos and nazi sympathies to kind, generous and interesting individuals who showed me their culture, and one who invited me to his home and family, not to mention the 4x4 up the Sani Pass).

8 hotels and guest houses: ranging in quality from "never again" to "i've got to come back here". Countless new culinary delights from the pink lemonade of my first day in Louisville, to the bunny chow of my last day in Durban, and the more countable things who have eaten me: 1 brown recluse spider, 6 mosquitos and the 20kg adder who wanted a kiss more than I did!

I've been to the Soweto home of Nelson Madela and Desmond Tutu but sadly didn't manage to find a plaque commemorating where Lucas Radebe was born. I visited the Phoenix settlement with a handful of Gandhi's and listened to amazing stories of the birth of non violence. I've stood where Churchill stood addressing the crowd as he first became a hero by escaping a Boer prisoner of war camp. I've heard of the amazing legacy of Muhammad Ali, and how his early years of segregation shaped the man and the boxer.

Just as importantly I've met many less famous people equally doing extraordinary things. The 14 year old from iLanga, who is raising his brother and sister, all of whom contracted HIV from their now deceased parents, who spoke to me about how exclusion most often stems from fear. The vicar from Chicago outside whose church flies 77 tshirts to mark the 77 young people of Chicago who were killed due to violence in the last school year. The amazing woman running an arts centre from the Durban harbour, who supports both new artists and new arrivals. The residents of St. James Court in Old Louisville who annually turn one of the most challenged neighbourhoods of the city into the South's answer to the Venice biennale. And the many many people who've taken different steps of this journey with me who have shown me different ways of doing things, and different ways to think about doing things.

Maybe it's because as I write from the back garden of my Johannesburg guest house, and a cockatoo takes on a guard dog for fun, I'm overwhelmed by a feeling of hope. But I think that, unsurprisingly, has been a golden thread throughout all the stories I've heard. When there was despair there was defeat, but where there was hope they have nearly always managed to make something good come of it. Don't get me wrong, the learning is all about how we cultivate and harness that hope: but it seems the essential raw material from which good things could come.

Durb be good to me

I'm sure that the days are going faster now, because I really can't believe today is my last full day in Durban. But what an amazing last day it has been.

I left at 5 this morning, to join in with a mayoral walkabout and blitz to the Mpumalanga township and area. The aim is that the mayor goes out to different areas (unannounced), supported by a multi agency team, and sees for himself how services are working and meets the ordinary citizens of Durban as they start the day. Armed with a variety of informational leaflets the team also aims to target key messages directly to people.

By 6am we've reached the Mpumalanga area, and the first stop is a taxi rank. Don't get the wrong idea: this is not a a short line of pin stripes waiting for hackney carriages. The mini bus taxi is the main form of transport for most of Durban's township commuters. More than 11,000 minibus taxis serve the Durban area alone. My first day there, I watched the curious phenomenon of minibuses beep-beep-beeping, one person hanging out the window, shouting, and pointing at passers by, and some getting in, and some getting out without any seeming logic or pattern: young or old, groups or singles, suits and overalls.

Then I started to see the hand signals: a guy from the bus points a finger straight up, a woman on the pavement snakes her hand in a 'no' reply. The bus which has barely slowed, revs back and up on the road, and another pulls quickly into place behind it, the snaking signal again, and the woman is in and the door clunks shut as it speeds on its way. Of the hundreds of signals, the only one I learned was the finger straight up, it means "going to town". It's a huge regret that I never got to go in one, as it looked like fun. Though I'm sure the novelty would wear off, if you're relying on it for a 45+minute commute on a morning and evening. And I'm only surmising, but having observed a distinct lack of usage of indicators and a liberal interpretation of red lights by many of these taxis, i imagine it also might be a less than relaxing journey.

At the taxis the mayor meets and greets, I give out leaflets with the others, mine is on using safe water storage, using my best Zulu: sawubona (hello) and "phuza emigqomwni ephiphile" (info on safe drums), which was moderately amusing for most as the 'q' is pronounced with a click, but downright astonishing for a few. Reminding me once again how far South Africa must have come in the last few years, but how far there is yet to go.

The next stop is at Hlengisiswe Clinic. Not a hospital, more of a hybrid of GP practice and NHS walk in. Here the mayor was greeted by the Sister in charge, who by 7am had some 200 patients triaged and waiting in the right places. It would be easy to be critical and speak of 200 waiting people in pitying terms, but what I saw was a feat of extraordinary organisation and efficiency. Demand is clearly high - this was just an ordinary Spring Wednesday. But the fact that everyone there was seated comfortably and knew how long roughly they would be waiting and not to mention that the place was spotless, seemed amazing on what scarce resources are available for community health care.

On the road again, we stopped in another clinic which showed the strain a little more than Hlengisiswe, a road side taxi point where the mayor was berated for the 40 minute wait someone was having. But, she reflected, as they mayor listened, if she'd left earlier she would have missed the mayor. Clearly, this mayor knows how to communicate. Then, by 8 o'clock as time was running out for meeting morning commuters we made a final stop at the market which serves as a stop and shop for people on their way home from work.

After talking with the traders, and handing out leaflets, the mayor called us into a circle to say thanks, and to talk about the next 'walkabout and blitz'. A man with mental health problems constantly interrupts and we can't hear over his chatter. There are maybe 10 or so staff, a bodyguard and a police officer in the circle, but none of us quite know what to do. With the precision of a Judo master and the art of a politician, no doubt aware there are cameras rolling. The mayor firmly shakes the guy's hand with his right, and guides him away with his left. I smiled: you can see why this mayor got where he has.

And then it was over. Or so I thought. we waved goodbye to the mayoral car, and a colleague from the participation team smiles and says "breakfast". I'm thinking, "I've got an apple in my bag, but why not." 6 of us pile in one car and drive up the hill. We're stopped by the police, and we are either nice to them by offering some spare t-shirts and a few bottles of water, or bribery is very cheap in these parts. I really couldn't tell you as it was all in Zulu, and there was no mention of water drums.

We get to the top of the hill, I throw my 20 rand in alongside everyone else (about £1.50) and take pictures of the view. The next thing I know, we have bought huge steaks, rented a chopping board and knife, and we're cooking on a briaar (basically, purpose built communal bbq). Now steak at 9am, might not be everyone's idea of heaven, and there was a small part of me wondering where the food hygiene certificates were posted, but this was the finest tasting steak I have ever had in my life. The spice coating, the fire grill, the open air and the early start proved a delicious recipe. Smelling of barbeque, I went happily to my next meeting.

Linda Mbonambi is a neighbourhood manager of the INK area: Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu (INK) area is about 30 km north of the city centre, home to more that half million residents, and is a mix of formal and informal housing. It is the second largest agglomeration of poor neighbourhoods in all of South Africa with many areas experiencing high levels of unemployment, social dislocation, poverty, over crowding and crime, all exacerbated by inadequate infrastructure for the size of population. In 2001 INK was identified as one of seven areas nation-wide of critical importance: predicting that if the new South Africa couldn't turn these areas around there would be significant social breakdown. So began a ten year programme (recently completed) to develop co-operative governance, effective multi agency working and empowerment of residents to become key agents in improving quality of life.

They recognised early on that mobilising the "human capacity" of the three areas would be essential and so with the help of the EU, INK developed a highly participatory approach to engage communities. He talked about how they promoted the spirit of 'vukuzenzele": get up and do it for yourself. Open Space technology was a key tool in developing community fora and getting to the root of many problems. Art of Hosting techniques were shared widely and helped to incubate a number of highly impactive projects early on. 10 years on, Linda said these techniques are now "just the way we do things around here... the circle is the only way most people would hold a meeting now, it's just a natural way of making everyone see the problems, and that we're all in it together."

I left Linda with a profound respect for his work. He left me with a quote from Ben Okri, by saying the skill is to "make visible, the invisible". If you build a bridge, you can see it, test it out for strength and have a good guess at how much it will take. When you build bridges with people and communities, you have to do other things to check out how strong it is. You don't want to find out that there's a weakness by watching the bridge collapse.

My next stop was DUT, Durban University of Technology, where I'd met with Crispin Hempson from the International Centre for Non Violence (ICON) the day before. Also Dr Lavern Samuels, Head of International Relations. Both are fascinating and engaging about their fields, and I will post the blog I've started about both of those meetings in due course.

The reason I was back again today was Dr Samuels has managed to get me a meeting with Ela Gandhi. It would be easy to think that the most remarkable thing about this woman is that she is the eldest granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, but that would be underestimating her by a country mile. She is currently chancellor of Durban University of Technology and Vice Chair of ICON, president of the World Council of Religions for Peace and oversees a monthly newspaper. She served in the first Government of the new South Africa from 1994-2004 and spent 9 years under house arrest during the apartheid era for her political and social activism. And proving to be an immensely warm person too, she agreed to meet with me and let me tag along with a visit from family from India.

We all travelled out together to the Phoenix Settlement. Founded by Gandhi-ji in 1904, the 100 acre settlement was build from scratch and was where Mrs Gandhi was born and brought up. I felt hugely privileged to hear them talk of their memories of growing up there: looking for a favourite mango tree, as well as reflecting on their evening prayer ritual: which included Hindu, Christian, Parsee and Muslim prayers in many languages. I should have felt like an intruder, but somehow the Gandhis made both myself and our driver Eric completely included in the experience, occasionally competing to tell us stories from childhood, or wise words passed down from the struggles. Both of Ela Gandhi's parents were active in the non violence movement and advocates of equal rights and there was talk of how to commemorate their contribution too.

In 1985, during rioting across the Inanda area, the Settlement was so badly damaged that it brought to an end the Gandhi family living there. After the riots the land surrounding the Settlement was taken over by 8000 informal settlers who called the area Bhambayi, Today's population is estimated at 20000. The area also suffered from massive internal conflict in the years towards the end of apartheid and the beginning of the new South Africa, with many battles, skirmishes and assassinations between the ANC and the Zulu-dominated InKatha Freedom Party (IFP) (I'd watched the film of the true story of the photographers who covered this struggle, The Bang Bang Club, only the week before, and that brought the area and its history even further into relief.) Mrs Gandhi with Phoenix Settlement Trust has brought a wide stakeholder base together to preserve the historic settlement and provide a learning centre for those wishing to learn more about the birthplace of Satyagraha. The original Gandhi house, built by hand by the Phoenix settlers has been restored and the slightly larger family home that the later family lived in is also open to the public. The displays are very well curated, with a minimalist but deeply artistic touch. This is not a multimedia-bells-and-whistles Gandhi theme park: but rather a contemplative, reflective expose of both the achievements and personal sacrifices of the birth and life of the movement for non violence. Of the many many moments of revalation in this research project, it was one of the most moving.