How many people live in masiphumelele

Perhaps the main problem within Masiphumelele is a lack of hope; so many are unemployed or infected with HIV and do not have the hope of a better life. Consequently, some people are content to rely on handouts and lack the ambition to improve their living conditions.

As a result, there are many orphaned children and many who have to support families on their own. There are other problems such as alcoholism and domestic violence, which are common in many households. Xenophobia is still a problem within the township, with many upset at the perceived subsequent lack of jobs and money as those from other countries arrive. The scarce police presence is almost ineffectual, and due to vast overcrowding in schools, education for many is either poor or non-existent.

It is expensive to get a proper education and finding work is hard, so it is difficult finding a way out of poverty and many lack the mindset needed to do so. In an attempt to alleviate these issues, there are many charitable organisations such as Living Hope working within Masiphumelele, and conditions are slowly improving.

Under Apartheid laws these families were repeatedly chased away by force. Later they were told that this area was for black people only to work, but they had to live in the poorly set up township of Khayelitsha, more than 30 kilometers away.

Especially those people who had found some work in the Fish Hoek area tried again and again to move back to their former homes.

In the early about people built their shacks and simple homes and started to set up their own community. Until there was not even an own building for a school or a clinic. Surfing is a popular pastime. There are approximately people living there, many in small tin shacks. Fires are common in winter, which sweep through the shacks, sometimes displacing residents by the hundreds. Across a narrow wetlands, the community of Lake Michelle is surrounded by an electrified fence and accessed through a guardhouse.

Current prices on real estate sites put their value at several million rands. On the day I flew overhead, several people paddleboarded in the choppy lake waters.