Our Corner

Our neighborhood isn't like anywhere I have ever lived. We live about two streets away from "Main Road," where all the businesses are. This neighborhood was historically a place for people in the textile and furniture industries, and there is a brewery (a beautiful one, from what we have seen from up the hill, on this side of the tracks) that we haven't visited yet. This was one of the first neighborhoods that started outside of the city center, and is also one of the closest on the east side. It has always been a very working-class neighborhood, which surprisingly had quite a mix of social groups. There are many Muslim convenience and food stores, Christian churches, and the only Greek Orthodox Church in the whole Western Cape. Simply because of the businesses that were established here, it was a mixed-race neighborhood before Apartheid. When the Group Areas Act was put into place, forcing people out of homes and neighborhoods into areas where they were grouped solely based on race, this neighborhood was deemed for "coloureds." An interesting thing about this neighborhood, though, was that many people just refused to leave. After a while the government kind of left it alone a little, although it did force many people out along the way. A long-time community member and priest was talking about how difficult it was at that time, because family friends would lie to one another about their placement within a race. Say you are born to Malaysian parents, and have mostly "coloured" friends because of it. Suddenly, the government tells your family that you are now "honorarily white," and that you are supposed to leave your neighborhood, no longer associating with long-time friends. Even if you want to keep the friendship up, your friends no longer will associate with you. -So many people just didn't tell anyone about their changes of status, and either moved, but continued to come to community events here, as though they hadn't, OR they evaded the government's attempts to move them. It sounds awful.
Anyway, that is a little glimpse into the history of our neighborhood. It is still a mixed place, but now there are other forces at work. It is a very architecturally nice neighborhood, and it is very close to the city, and housing prices in this neighborhood are CHEAP. So, as logic would follow, people like myself and Sebastien are buying homes here. The neighborhood (at least "Upper" Woodstock, located above Main Road) is quickly gentrifying, and this makes people mad (the fact that people are still being kicked out of the homes they live in also makes them mad). At any rate, this is one of the reasons I don't go out at night, except in the car. It isn't unsafe here after dark, necessarily, but it isn't necessarily "safe" either. Pretty much all the businesses on Main Road close after 6:pm anyway, so it isn't like we are clamoring to get down there past work-hours. What I AM itching to do though is go for a walk, after working at a desk all day, or go for a bike ride, or do SOMETHING slightly active. Almost everyone I know here (and I will say this honestly, because race is such a HUGE issue here: they are all white) goes to the gym. Our roommates go to the gym fairly religiously, before 6:am - I know - I ALWAYS wake up as they are leaving. This is one thing that absolutely drives me batty - I LOVE the outdoors, and want to wander, and sometimes even, want to wander by myself. But (alas) I can't see that happening here. Honestly it would be a dumb idea.