Perception is reality

While crime can be quantitatively measured, it is very difficult to gauge the reality of crime because many crimes are not reported. Having lived in London for some many years, I can honestly say that I personally experienced more crime living there, than in my entire life living in SA. If you were to ask me whether SA or the UK had more crime, I would say the UK.

However, that is just my perception. My perception is my reality.

While living in the UK, several tourists died as a result of crime in SA, mostly in Cape Town. In reading through news reports, it became obvious that these foreign white people were in areas that no local white person would ever visit, because we knew they were unsafe. Similarly, we realised that we had come to identify the areas of London that were unsafe. How did we identify these areas? From information gleaned from friends & newspapers, & in some cases from a gut feeling we picked up while visiting those areas. In other words, our perceptions were formed from the information we gathered, and those perceptions became our reality.

This weekend we helped our maid (domestic worker) to move furniture into her new shack in one of Cape Town's very large black suburbs (I use that word quite loosely). There are several of these suburbs around, so I asked her which she thought was safest. She commented that she thought her area was getting safer, because she now felt she could walk around at night without too much risk. However, she said her brother was still so scared of her area that he wouldn't venture there in public transport. Similarly, she said, she was so scared of the area her brother lived in, she wouldn't visit him very often either.

When we offered to help her move, she was taken aback that we would venture into this suburb, because we're white. She asked whether we weren't scared. Until that moment, it hadn't occurred to me to be scared. We were moving during daylight hours. We would be travelling in a beat up old van, not a vehicle likely to be hijacked. We would also be travelling with her and her partner. Yet, after she asked the question, I found myself pondering it frequently. Should I be scared? Was my perception correct? Would we be safe? Or was she still living with the old Apartheid perceptions of her own suburb (i.e. that any white person entering would immediately be attacked)?

As it happened, we were perfectly safe. However, we did attract a large crowd, and complete strangers would wave at me and greet me as I drove past. (Graeme and I were in separate vehicles.) I think it was such a novelty for these black locals to see a whitie around.

The only time I felt a bit nervous was on entering the squatter camp section of this suburb where our maid's shack was. The dirt roads are so narrow you can't turn a car around easily in them. I was aware that if someone did want to hijack us, this would be a good place to do it, because you have to drive slowly as a result of the poor condition of the road, and because the shacks are so close to the road you wouldn't have time to see someone stepping out from between them with a gun. If you did see them, you wouldn't be able to react in any way.

I was struck afresh by the lack of sanitation, the open sewers, the mangy dogs and the children playing in amongst all this. As I'd dewormed the dogs (and us) only that morning (Baggins brought up a lovely 10cm roundworm on the carpet during the previous night), I was very aware of parasites. It struck me, watching these kids playing in the street with the mangy dogs and around the filthy water running openly in the street, that they must all be infected with parasites of one sort or another.

When I was chatting to my maid later about the coming election, she commented that the ANC has done nothing for them (meaning the poor black communities of Cape Town). As COPE is made up of ANC people, she said it's pointless voting for them either, as they'll do nothing differently. As a result, she hasn't registered to vote. (Clearly, she doesn't think any of the other parties are worth voting for either.) I was very surprised to hear her say this. My perception had been that all poor blacks loved the ANC, and I realise now what a ridiculous generalisation and stereotype that is.

Another truth I was confronted with is just how rich G & I are. Our maid has bought a 2nd hand shack on the edge of a squatter camp where she will have no running water and no private toilet. She does have electricity though. Her shack already smells of damp, and the winter rains haven't yet begun. (Granted, that may be because the place is seldom aired properly for security reasons, and not because the place actually leaks.) While I'm thrilled that working for us has enabled her to purchase this shack and move out of her mother's house (where she, her kids, her sister, her sister's kids, her brother and her mother were all living together), I was horrified to see the conditions in which she has moved.

They have 3 rooms - her bedroom, a bedroom for her daughter, and the living room cum kitchen. Her son will be sleeping in the living room. The house is still a shell - bare concrete floors (newly laid though, so hopefully will prevent water leaking in from the ground) and no ceiling (just corrugated sheeting for the roof). She plans to buy carpets and put in a ceiling. Her entire house could fit into my bedroom & Nellie's bedroom, maybe less. Even our 'new' house (which I consider to be as small as I'm prepared to go) is easily triple the size.

I suppose one of the positive things to come out of this trip is a realignment of my perceptions about my relative wealth. The entire day I kept thinking about her little boy, who is now 5, living in that dank home, amidst the dirt. I can foresee him, and the rest of them, getting seriously ill this winter. I can also foresee him becoming infected with parasites, assuming (possibly falsely) that he isn't already. I kept comparing him to Nellie, and thinking about how I would feel about Nellie in those conditions. I can't afford to give them enough money to buy a proper house (i.e. one with brick walls, a tiled roof, and proper sanitation), or to move out of the squatter camp. Never the less, I feel desperate for them, and I worry for them in the coming winter. Will they be okay? Will the winter rains wash them away? Will they all get bronchitis or pneumonia from the damp in their shack? Will there be a fire (as there always are in winter in the squatter camps) that will burn down their shack and leave them with nothing? Will they be attacked one night (as she fears) and have all their valuables stolen?

I guess I always knew this was the way she was living, yet because I was not faced with the cold, hard truth, I could conveniently ignore it. Now, my perception has changed, and with it, my reality. No longer can I fool myself into being a bystander. Now, I have to be an active participant in helping this woman and her family survive, because if I fail to help, I am actively participating in enabling her poverty to continue.

Her experience of crime is different to mine. While I feel perfectly safe in my house, alone, with all the doors and windows open, and often with the security gates open too, I know that I only feel safe because my perception is that I am safe. This is because the house has never been burgled since the perimeter walls were raised, and because even the guards from the security company won't jump our front fence to check on the house if the alarm goes off. My perception is that if they won't, then criminals are unlikely to try. Her perception is completely different. When she's on her own, the slightest noise makes her anxious, and she has to go and check it out. I know this, because she's told me so. Her perception is based on her experiences in her own home in the squatter camp.

In our new house, I know I will feel less safe, because I know that house has been burgled 3 times in the time we've owned it. I know that means I will probably feel more anxious being at home on my own. I'm hoping that by beefing up the security on the weak points of the property (following the renovations, there will be a few new vulnerable spots), I can allay those potential fears, but my perception is that the houses in that area are more vulnerable to crime, and like it or not, that will be my reality.

But is any of this reality? What is reality? Reality is that you can live in the most crime-ridden area and be safe because of God's protection. Reality is also that you may live in the safest of areas, and still experience crime. Reality is that people who don't want children, or who aren't fit to have children, pop them out like microwave popcorn. Reality is that the people who are desperate for kids never have them. Reality is that good stuff happens to good and bad people alike - and that bad stuff happens to good and bad people alike.

So how do I respond? How do I live in this world in such a way that my perceptions are based on eternal truths? Christians are constantly berated for living in a dream world, a world in which it's supposedly obvious that Jesus was a fraud or a hoaxers, or even a mythical being. The events of Easter are vilified. Every way you turn, Christianity has apparently been debunked. Perception is reality.

And yet... the reality is that not only is there a God, but that he came to earth as a baby, that he died on a cross and that he rose to life again. This should change my perceptions of the world, the reality in which I live. Does it? This Easter has been the least Easter-like I've had a in a long time. Our new church isn't a traditional one, so there are no Holy Week services. Friday's service was not the traditional Stations of the Cross. Rather, it was a celebration of the work Jesus accomplished on the cross.

The Easter service itself was a disappointment in many respects. Although they made good use of media, to me it felt like an anti-climax. I guess that I'm so used to having the build-up throughout Holy Week that I was expecting more. (Of course, nearly passing out during the service did rather put a damper on the whole thing!) Having said that, it was still a moving service and it still impacted on my life. This weekend, despite all its faults, has definitely left its mark on me. What remains to be seen is whether that mark is enough to change not just my perceptions, but my reality. Will I be more open to the Spirit? Will I read my Bible with more fervour? Will I pray 'constantly'? Will I allow the reality of God to permeate my reality more deeply? Time will tell, I guess.