It's really hard to give an impression of what the townships look like, because they stretch on and on. Not exactly the sort of places you'd wander about with a camera, either, at least not with a fair bit of strong company (for that matter, we were strongly advised never to walk alone even in central Cape Town). The townships house vast numbers of people, many who have come from elsewhere in Africa in the hope of having a better chance in life. Mile after mile of tin and wooden shacks with only the barest essentials: water standpipes in the streets, no electricity in most cases, often squashed up against major roads, as here: a picture snapped from our transport on the route in and out of the township to the orphanage and school; actually this bit looks unusually quiet and spacious, and you can't see that the shanties are both sides of the road, and go back row upon row for hundreds of yards.
Education is the best way out of the townships, and the school has already sent past pupils to secondary schools: in the evenings, little groups of them would meander back down past where we were in very smart uniforms and loaded with books. Hopefully some of the children in my previous picture will get that far, too....
