There goes the beautiful saying;"What you can perceive, you can receive!"
It is time to do away with the myth that there is only poverty, starvation and deprivation in Mdantsane. A closer look at N.U 7 will just do that.
A while ago I wrote about N.U 5.
Standing on a hill, looking down at the great Grinnaker dam I could imagine how Mdantsane would look like in thirty years, or may be even sooner in a decade or two. Mdantsane -a suburb of East London with tree lined alleys, neat lawns and flowers lining the outside of the walls. Fenced or walled houses with burglar bars shimmering through the curtains. But still painted in bright colors.
N.U 7 allows you to get a vision of that. It's considered a posh place in the township.
If it is difficult for you to follow me on that imaginary journey or if you can not belief just yet in such a positive outlook of Mdantsane's future just look intensely at these pictures for a while.
Houses and street scenes like this you could find in any other suburb of East London.
A friend was arguing with me and she said: "I believe shacks will never
disappear entirely in South Africa. Even if people acquire riches and
get new houses, the ones who will live in shacks will come. This is what we have inherited from the previous government. We can not overcome it".
But I think exactly that will happen. Shacks will disappear entirely one
day. Which brings me back to my opening sentence - what you can
perceive you can receive!
Mdantsane is a place that undergoes permanent transformation.
As a photographer it is exciting for me to document and be part of this transformation with my camera.
I have shown you many pictures of shacks on this blog. And although they are considered as a symbol of great poverty I admire the unmatched artistic creativity of the people who build them. But of course I wish that they should disappear entirely so that each and every South African can live under decent conditions.
It is a necessity that shacks and squatter camps disappear and the symbols of poverty will be replaced with the symbols of a middle class
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