I carry you in my heart

Ellen and I went to Cato Crest with the University of Kwazulu-Natal nursing students today. Cato Crest is an "informal settlement," basically a shanty town. The government designates squatter areas as informal settlements and then builds a few "starter homes." These homes are one roomed cement structures with no electricity, but they do have running water. Who knows how clean that water is though. The homes are called starter homes, because the people who are given them are supposed to be able to build onto them, but with the land eroding all around them, the extremely tight space, and no money to build, this certainly doesn't happen. These one room homes hold often 10 people. This is a set up for rampant disease.
The people who did not qualify for a government starter home build shacks out of anything they can. They often use tin walls and roofs or ply wood scraps. Some roofs were patched with sheets of cloth held down by stones. These home were about 8x8 feet.
To qualify for a government house, the family had to have lived there before '94. Within that group, those with disabilities or those with children were given higher priority.
In order to get electricity, people here run the power lines into their homes illegally. This starts a lot of fires, but it may be their only option.
Children here just roamed. No one was watching after them. As soon as they could walk, they were on their own. This contributes to the problem with child raping. There's a myth that having sex with a virgin will cure HIV/AIDS, so young children are raped. The age of virgins is getting younger and younger, so younger children are being raped, some as young as 9 months old. Sickening.
The people here were so beautiful though. Inside and out. Seriously striking. The smiles of the children were so genuine. I fell in love with these people instantly. I wish I could have worked in one of the clinics that serves the different informal settlements. This is the Africa my heart longs to serve.