Verse 7: The Romance of Three Kingdoms

Out on the balcony of the volunteer house, you can see three worlds of South Africa borderlined by the main road. Beyond the north side, there's a residential area similar to that of the western world, the houses are properly built with bricks and stone, nicely painted, with a triangular roof that offers much stability and robustness. From my understanding the government subsidized these houses.

On the southern side, across a field, there sits a community of concrete houses. Some have triangular roofs, but most are in the colour of unpainted concrete - that dirty, cold grey. These, too, are government subsidized buildings but have been worn down from weathering and lack of maintenance.

Majority of the one-point-something million residents of Khayelitsha live in the third-world, houses built by metal sheets and wooden boards with community toilets and water facility. It isn't unusual to find these houses built on top of sand and lack proper flooring. Rather, these shacks have flat roofs with heavy junk strategically-laid on top it to keep them from blowing away. Your 4 year-old cousin's drawing of a house is no exaggeration of these houses.

With some money we can turn all the tin shacks into brick houses, but what does that do? What use is there to feed a man a fish?

This is Africa.