Opinion: The struggle between community pride and urban decay in Khayelitsha

Is Khayelitsha a jungle or a dumping site?

You will often hear people say: “Khayelitsha is not a jungle.”

They don’t stop there - they add: “Khayelitsha is not a dumping site.” And yet, the irony is hard to ignore -  almost every week, we read about bodies dumped in Khayelitsha.

It makes me wonder, what exactly is a jungle, and what is a dumping site?

A drive through the largest township in the Cape Metro shocks and amazes in equal measure. Khayelitsha is loved by many outsiders - that is a fact. If you doubt it, drive in around 4pm and see for yourself. From Mew Way to Baden Powell and Spine Road, traffic crawls until after eight in the evening. Everyone is going into Khayelitsha.

Why? Because the township is alive with energy. There are countless entertainment spots, and a growing number of entrepreneurs and creatives - all thriving here. Yet, somehow, we are still told Khayelitsha is not a dumping site. Maybe English fails me when I try to make sense of that.

But the dumping does not end with people. The streets are filthy. Open spaces are packed with zinc huisies - yes, I prefer the Afrikaans word, because it captures the rawness better than “informal houses.”

Were these settlements not dumped there, in areas where proper homes could have been built? Some of those spaces even have tarred roads, proof that development was once planned but never realized. Instead, people were dumped there.

Recently, I took a long drive from Site C to Enkanini. The stench of running sewage filled the air. Dirt and dead dogs lined the streets. Raw waste flowed freely. Potholes all over the roads. It felt like a scene from a movie - except this was real life.

In Zwezwe, I spoke with a man about the state of the area.

“The problem,” he said, “is a lack of leadership.” I could not agree more, though I didn’t ask what kind of leadership he meant.

I don’t want to talk politics - that’s not my territory. But beyond political leadership, there’s something deeper we’ve lost: our humanity. We’ve lost respect for ourselves, for our environment, for our health. And perhaps, that too, is a failure of leadership.

I know we cannot fix sewer pipes ourselves. But we can choose not to throw rags and plastics into drains. Yes, the municipality must clean the streets - but we also have a duty not to turn every open space into a dumping ground. The burning of roads is not helping any of us.

As for the killings -  what can one say? It’s beyond comprehension now. But in any place where a few are wealthy and the majority are poor, conflict will rise. The poor, frustrated, and desperate will disrupt the peace of everyone. Meanwhile, the wealthy ascend Mount Kilimanjaro alone, leaving the rest behind. And those left behind, trying to climb too, resort to break-ins, hijackings, extortion, and theft.

There’s an old Xhosa saying: “Intaka ayakhi ngoboya benye” - a bird does not pluck another’s feathers to build its nest.

But in our townships today, that wisdom has been forgotten. Kule mihla, yakha ngoboya benye - these days, we do pluck each other’s feathers.

And so I am still left wondering: is Khayelitsha a jungle, or a dumping site? I haven’t checked the dictionary to find the answer. All I know is that Khayelitsha is my home.