Durban - The Washing Boy

The Washing Boy by John Hicks January 2015.

In 2009, my family and I had the opportunity to travel to South Africa for two and a half weeks.
We had planned to visit a street child project called Umthombo for the first week in Durban and then drive down to Cape Town from Port Elizabeth for the rest of our time there.

A map of our journey from in South Africa, from Durban to 'PE' to Cape Town.

I will be honest, I went with the attitude that I just needed to get through the first week in order to enjoy the following week and a half.
The first week was arranged by Amos Trust and Chris Rose was leading the tour.  Amos Trust raises awareness in the UK about many issues of injustice around the world and we were here to find out about the abuse of children who lived on the streets of Durban.

In the build up to going, I understood that Durban was a very dangerous place.  You wouldn't go out at night on your own walking around Durban as you were likely to get mugged (and that would be if you were lucky).  I had already heard about how Durban was the car jacking capital of the world especially as I was going to be hiring a car at the end of that week!

So I was fearful of being in Durban and had low expectations.  Actually that week turned out to be the best week of my life and in many ways changed my life in the years afterwards.

I will expand on my experiences in Durban in later blogs (as I will about my experiences in the West Bank) but for the purposes of this blog I want to write about the very first time I ever saw a street child in Durban.

On our first day in Durban, we all met in the hotel reception area and then walked over to Durban's beautiful beach.  It was a peaceful time of day with the sweetness of the warm sea breeze sweeping across us.  The temperature was lovely and cool and we all walked along the promenade with views of the sea and distant ships travelling to Durban's port..
We were all following Chris, I was walking around with 'tourist eyes' but also vigilant of any danger.  I had heard about gangs of street children running around stealing and mugging.  So I was nervous.

We all stopped at an agreed meeting point and about ten feet ahead of us was a dripping tap and there was a little boy probably no older than 10 years of age washing his clothes.  He wasn't bothering anyone, just having a wash.  At that point, my fear of dangerous gangs of street kids went out of my head and I saw the child that was standing there, alone in a dangerous city, just cleaning his clothes.

I was struck by how easy it is to be fearful of the gangs of Durban and see them as dangerous groups of kids , causing havoc, stealing, mugging etc.  In fact , at the time, the city was getting ready for the Football World Cup that was happening the following year.  The city council new that their city was famous for crime and these gangs of street kids and very much saw them as a deterrent for tourists.  The council regularly drove around in vans picking up the street kids and driving them 50 miles from Durban, giving them a kicking when they stopped whilst telling them not to come back.

But in that moment, I saw that child and yes the street kids did do all the things that they were accused of, but they were living on the streets of a dangerous city trying to survive.

That 'Washing Boy' changed my view there and then and left me wanting to know more about the life of a child living on the streets of Durban.