Here are some pictures from my stay in the Gugulethu township:

This one is of me and Reverend Edwin Louw, who was one of two reverends acting as community leaders at JL Zwane (the community center we were based out of). He was awesome.
This is a picture of the JL Zwane Community center, which began several years ago as a collection of converted cargo containers. It has grown into an amazing community center and church, which is very progressive and present in the community.
Below is a picture of the some of the more wealthy houses in the township. Some of the township contains very nice houses, while other areas consist of sprawling collections of shacks.
This is a picture of one of the classes with whom we tutored. The Rainbow After School program at JL Zwane helps supplement the education of children attending local schools. Some of the local schools are underfunded and have poor teachers, so the program picks up where public educations leaves off to keep local kids afloat in the educational system.
This is one of the areas we visited during a tour of Gugulethu. It was a particularly poor area, inhabited by many people living in poverty. You can see how many of the buildings are in disrepair, and garbage is strewn about. It was pretty stinky.This is one woman who was living in the buildings pictured above. She lived in one room with 5 children, which may or may not be hers. The living conditions were not so nice.
This is Priscilla, who is a wonderful woman helped out by JL Zwane. She cares for anywhere between 11 and 14 children depending on the day. The only relation is one granddaughter; the rest of the kids were abandoned by their parents. On Thursday, June 5 we helped her out by bringing toys for her kids and preparing a meal for them. She had a beautiful smile, but you can just tell that she is exhausted. Obviously, she left quite an impact on me. I think our group will be organizing some money to help renovate her house. She cares for all of the children in a very small 4-room house. It is pretty unbelievable, and her perseverance is incredible.
This is a picture of my host mother and her son Paul. They were very nice to us, and I can't express enough my appreciation for their hospitality. We had some really great conversations about township life. I felt very much at home with them after just 3 nights. They also had a very scary dog named Jackie.
This picture shows the kids at the Tembalethu School. It is a unique school that cares for kids with a variety of disabilities, and we spent an afternoon there doing activities with the kids and helping out with some of the upkeep. It was a lot of fun.
These pictures show just a few of the things we saw in Gugulethu. It's hard to give a really good picture of what was going on. On the one hand, there was a lot of poverty out in the open. As I said above, there were some massive, sprawling villages of shacks made out of scavenged metal and wood. The people living in these places often suffer from poverty, hunger, and sickness. It is a tough, culturally entangled situation that has proven difficult to remedy. On the other hand, there was a huge sense of community that I hadn't ever experienced. The people look out for each other, and they know their many of their neighbors intimately. It's a place of strange contradictions, and I am still working to wrap my head around my experience in Gugulethu.