Dale Says

Bob Aden was one of the happiest people I’ve ever met. He seemed content with his life, and he always seemed in a good mood. I worked for Bob while I was in high school, helping stock shelves and carry out groceries, and he set a terrific example for me. He was content with his life, and he took joy in seeing and helping people.

Bob was always working — putting milk in the dairy case, or checking out groceries, or taking food to a sick customer. He usually whistled while he worked, and he always took time to visit with customers.

Bob lived to 90, and he shared his life with Leah, the daughter of a minister. He knew what he was getting into when he married her, and he knew he would have to toe the line, which he did. He led a good life; very involved in his church and his family. He also had time for a beer, and for a little fun.

Bob’s family will miss him, but they know that he’s happy, as he always was.

Thanks, Bob, for showing us how to enjoy life!

George was the uncle who stayed home and helped his father take care of the farm. That must have been a great relief to his father, who because of George could run the farm without hiring someone to help. It was one of the many good things George did with his life.

After high school, George served his country in the Marines during the Korean War. He looked very handsome in his Marine uniform, and I’m sure his military years were among the most adventurous of his life.

Following his discharge from the Marines George moved in with his mother and father. He didn’t marry for many years, and as kids we thought he would always be single. As the only unmarried son (and living on the farm) George’s job was to watch us kids when we visited our grandparents. That meant keeping track of us when we were in the basement playing pool, and making sure we didn’t pilfer Grandpa’s beers. George was good at watching us, too, and he was always patient with us — soft spoken and gentle, but firm enough to make us do what he wanted us to.

George let us help him with the farm chores, and we loved that. He let us help get the cows in and milk them. And I have a vague memory of sitting in his lap and steering the pick-up when driving into town.

George eventually did get married, to a lovely widow with three kids, whose husband was killed in a farming accident. Janice was the best thing that happened to George, because she completed him. He was no longer the batchelor brother, the childless sibling, and he had a family and someone to share his life. They had a son together, and George loved all four of their children equally.

Janice was very ill a few years ago, and that took a lot out of George. He did everything for her, in an incredibly loving way. During her long illness, he became even more soft spoken and he grew thin and pale. And I suspect that’s when his Altzheimer’s started.

It was ironic that about the time Janice recovered George got sick. I remember the first time I noticed it — Janice led him gently by the hand and helped him sit in his favorite chair. She kept him at home as long as she could, but eventually he couldn’t live there anymore. The first time I visited him in the nursing home he cried when we left. Altzheimer’s is a cruel disease, and it broke my heart to see my childhood hero a broken and sad man.

George is better off now, because he doesn’t have to suffer anymore. And his family is better off, too, although they will miss George for the rest of their lives. George is not a man you get over quickly. George’s family, like the rest of us who knew him, have many wonderful memories of a kind and gentle man.

Peace be with you, George

Janie has always hedged her bets, and her new line of business shows that she hasn’t lost her touch.

When we first met her she played the stock market, and she always had some deal going that was one step ahead of the rest of us. If the market was going up, Janie would hedge her bets and take money out of the market. If it was going down, Janie always had a stock that she bought that would go up.

In those days, Janie was a rising young executive at Bank of America. She got involved in a mess in their Nevada operation and wound up being sent back to San Francisco, and she retired shortly thereafter. When she started to find herself in her bathrobe at mid-day, she signed up with and started selling Amway. It was kind of cute for awhile — Janie’s new business — but then she started on us, one at at time, to buy and then to sell the stuff, and it became less tolerable. One friend was blunt enough to tell her, “Not only no, Janie, but hell no, and don’t ever bring it up again…” But the rest of us bought a few things and then stopped buying, and it was no longer cute.

Janie went to a lot of Amway meetings and conferences, and she would come home and tape inspirational phrases to her refrigerator. The last time I looked, Janie still had boxes of Amway products in her garage.

Janie’s next venture was to buy her own small business, managing properties for property owners in Scottsdale, Arizona, where she also sold Amway and became devout in an Evangelical Christian church. She tried to convert us to her new religion, because she feared we wouldn’t be able to join her in her heaven if we didn’t. During the 12 years she ran her property-management company we seldom saw her, as she worked seven days a week, and she was on the phone with owners and renters virtually around the clock.

Janie sold her business when God told her to, and we thought she would kick back and spend her new-found time with her friends and family, but we didn’t hear from her for quite awhile.

The first I knew of an impending Rapture or of Janie’s belief in one was when she came to stay with us a year or so ago. On the last morning of a several-day stay she gave us a book that predicted the impending end of the world (due to a world-wide financial meltdown and ensuing riots), and she told us about the Rapture and how she had prepared for the end of the world and the Rapture by buying and storing freeze-dried food and de-cholorinating her swimming pool (for drinking water). She seemed rather excited about it, and said she looked forward to the Rapture.

I’m sure she is somewhat disappointed it hasn’t happened.

The next we heard from Janie was when she moved from Arizona to Oregon. She was driving north through Oregon when God told her (in a loud voice) to stop and move there. She did, and then she went back to Scottsdale and had a couple of medical procedures. Apparently that’s where she ran into her new business.

Janie has announced that she now sells freeze-dried food through a start-up company called Thrive Life. It’s a pyramid business that relies on distributers to buy a lot and to sign up sellers under them.

That’s just like Janie — again hedging her bets. If the end of the world and Rapture do come, she will be well-stocked with freeze-dried food and she will have direct links to more. And if the end doesn’t come, Janie can support herself by selling freeze-dried food products to the rest of us.

The next time you go exploring in San Francisco you might want to spend a minute at the Alice Marble Tennis Courts – on top of Russian Hill. It’s easy to find, because it’s less than a block from the top of Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world. The tennis courts provide breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz.

The tennis courts are named after a lady who lived an amazing life, and who serves as an inspiration to those who follow her. She overcame adversity and lived to be one of the greatest tennis players of her time.

Alice Marble lived through the Great Depression and World War II, and she became an icon for survival and equality.

Marble was born on September 28, 1913, in the northern California town of Beckwourth. Her family moved to San Francisco’s Sunset District when Alice was five. Her father died within the year, and Alice’s mother was left to raise five children alone.

As a girl, Marble was very interested in sports, especially baseball. She and her brother attended SF Seals games, going early “so we could play catch in the bleachers before the game.” Thinking Marble was a boy, a player one day asked her to play catch with him. “I kept expecting someone to tell me to leave,” Marble wrote. “Instead, my hero, Lefty O’Doul, asked me to shag flies for him. Joe DiMaggio, beside me in center field, yelled encouragement.” Before long, local newspapers printed stories about the new “Seals mascot,” and a San Francisco Examiner sportswriter dubbed Marble the “Little Queen of Swat.”

When Alice was thirteen, her brother gave her a tennis racket saying, “You can’t keep hanging around the ballpark, and hitting balls through people’s windows . . . and acting like a boy.” At first, Marble was devastated to lose her time with the Seals, but she learned to love tennis – and to play it well. She began practicing and playing matches in Golden Gate Park.

She excelled at sports, earning seven varsity letters in track, softball, soccer, and basketball while attending Polytechnic High School. However, two traumatic events devastated her as a child in San Francisco: while roller skating she witnessed a friend getting crushed under the wheels of a streetcar, and she was raped as she left Golden Gate Park after playing tennis.

Alice rebounded from those tragedies and she went on.

After school, Alice became a professional tennis player, and she was noted for her aggressive play on the court. However, after defeating an opponent, she would go back to the locker room and chat – discussing the match as a friend and confidant. In 1934 Marble collapsed during a match at the French Championships. Doctors diagnosed her with pleurisy and tuberculosis, and she took an extended rest.

Again, Alice rebounded.

She came back, and won Women’s Singles titles (1936, 1938–40); Women’s Doubles titles (1937–40); and Mixed Doubles (1936, 1938, 1939, 1940). At Wimbledon, Marble won a Singles title (1939); Women’s Doubles (1938–39); and Mixed Doubles (1937, 1938, and (1939). She was named the Associated Press Athlete of the Year in 1939 and 1940.

That’s a remarkable story already. But the more remarkable aspect of Alice Marble’s life took place off the tennis court.

During World War II, Marble was married to Joe Crowley, a pilot, who was killed in action over Germany. Only days before his death, Alice miscarried their child following a car accident. That was too much for Alice, and she attempted to kill herself. Fortunately, she was not successful. She recuperated and, in 1945, she agreed to spy for U.S. intelligence. Her mission involved renewing contact with a former lover, a Swiss banker, and she obtained Nazi financial information from him. The operation ended when a Nazi agent shot her in the back, but she was extracted and recovered.

Again, Alice bounced back, and she greatly contributed to the desegregation of American tennis by writing an editorial in support of Althea Gibson for the July 1, 1950, issue of American Lawn Tennis magazine.

In 1964, Marble was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. She then settled in Palm Desert, California, where she taught tennis until her death. Marble died in 1990 at a hospital in Palm Springs, California.

Alice Marble’s story of resilience is inspiring. She teaches us to never give up, and to fight for what we believe. It’s a story for the ages.

Cycling in New Zealand is one of the great pleasures in life! It’s a beautiful country filled with friendly people and gorgeous scenery, and seeing it on a bicycle is the best way to go.

Our bicycle tour was of the Otago Rail Trail, on the south island of New Zealand. The tour was fully supported by Adventure South, a New Zealand tour company. They supplied a guide, support bus, bike trailer, bikes, accommodation, and two meals per day. Our equipment included hybrid bikes with bags on the handlebars and rear, helmets, cyclometers, and water bottles. It was excellent equipment and completely appropriate for the conditions.

Louise Shilito, our guide, is
experienced, capable, helpful, and friendly. She kept us moving at a steady, comfortable pace throughout the trip
and treated us with a wonderful mix of patience and respect. She is hard- working and does it all – from hoisting our bikes on and off the trailer to pointing out flora and fauna and steering us to the best sights, restaurants, and night spots. One of her most delightful attributes (and there are many) is knowledge of where the best coffee is brewed along the route.

Louise is an excellent cyclist and she rode with us whenever she could, taking turns with us, carrying the conversation and pointing out highlights. Although she did innumerable large and small things for us that week perhaps the best was helping us fight a headwind the last day. She drove the support bus to the end of the trail, cycled out, and rode back to the finish line with each of us, encouraging us to the end. For that, she has our eternal gratitude!

At Odds with the World

“We’re still at odds with the world …We employ two typewriters, some 3×5 card files, a stack of pencils and pens, and some carbon forms … Even the building we work in was built by us. Nail by nail, board by board, all by ourselves. Call us stubborn, antiques, dinosaurs. All compliments to us.”

“A Quarter of a Century,” Saturn Press, 2011

You can feel the difference when you hold one of their greeting cards in your hands. It has deep, rich colors; a lush texture; and impressions from the printing press. It feels like a human made it, and it has value.

That’s what Jane and Jim at Saturn Press hope you will feel; it’s what they are trying to achieve.

For more than a quarter of a century they have engaged their craft, designing and printing more than a million high-quality greeting cards each year, without the conveniences and trappings of modern technology. Their methods are old-fashioned and environmentally-friendly. They are quirky, and to some extent at odds with the world. They are unique.

Tranquil Setting

Saturn Press is located on Swan’s Island, a small, sparsely-populated isle a few miles off the coast of Maine. It’s a beautiful and tranquil setting. It’s also remote. The only way to get there is a 30-minute ferry ride from Bass Harbor on the mainland. The isolation affects every aspect of life, and for a business like Saturn Press, it means everything has to be brought to the island by ferry and taken out that way, too.

Their building is off the beaten path, nestled in a grove of trees, surrounded by a neatly-manicured garden with beds of ferns and irises. An array of windows on both floors of the two-story building bathes the interior in natural light, which makes it feel bright and cheerful.

Jane greets you at the door and offers a tour of the 5,000 square-foot building, which consists of a small display area where cards can be purchased, an office, a press room, and a small shipping area. Upstairs, Jane commands a design room, where next year’s holiday cards are in various stages of production.

Saturn Press was founded in 1986 by Jane Goodrich and James vanPernis (they refer to themselves as Grandma and Grandpa Letterpress). For the first few years they

designed and printed their cards in Jane’s garage; then in 1996 they moved to the Arts and Crafts style building they designed and built.

Jane is the design, marketing, and customer service departments, and Jim makes up maintenance and production. They are artists and craftspeople and they are fulfilled, but they are also modest. When asked if he is proud of what he does, Jim simply replied, “It suits me.”

There are no computers. Instead, they operate their business with telephones, two typewriters (one a manual typewriter from the 1940s), and a fax machine. That’s part of their quirkiness, and when you think about it, it’s remarkable.

Simply Beautiful Greeting Cards

Jane creates the cards by searching through her collection of “ephemera,” or images that were once used in ads or greeting cards. When she finds a suitable image, she creates her own version of it by hand; first sketching an outline and then adding color and a message. .

The cards are beautiful and they evoke a simpler time. The images are striking, yet unpretentious, and the messages are straight forward.

“If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun,” a card proclaims, quoting Katharine Hepburn. The image shows a woman sitting on a beach in a sleeveless blouse, sun hat, and long skirt, enjoying the sunshine.

Jane designs a catalog to display the cards and groups them in categories like “well said,” “the wisdom of women,” and “animal parade.” The cards are sold in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and Japan. Orders are generated through the catalog, at trade shows, and by a handful of contract sales people.

Orders are filled by hand, often packed into re-cycled boxes or envelops, and hauled out to the post office, where they are delivered by ferry to the mainland, where they are distributed and sold. Their largest customers are the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Whole Foods Supermarkets in the U.S., and upscale greeting card stores.

Printed with Skill and Patience

Saturn Press’s greeting cards are printed on four antique printing presses. Their first press was built in Chicago in 1932. Jim and Jane bought it in 1985 (for $800) and moved it in a rental truck (and ferry) to Swan’s Island. It still runs today, powered by its original eighty-year-old electric motor. Jim says the only care it requires is a few drops of oil and some tender loving care. It is joined by three other antique printing presses that Jim and Jane acquired over the years, and today the four presses stand side-by-side in the small printing room at Saturn Press. In their day, all four presses (Heidelberg and Miehle) were the finest of their kind.

When Jim receives a card proof from Jane, he selects and sets the type by hand and lines it up in a frame. He has accumulated a good-sized collection of lead type over the years from printers, who basically discarded it, and even from a monastery in Illinois.

He mixes printing ink by hand, stirring together colors until the blend is exactly the right shade.

Then he starts printing by loading card stock on one of the antique presses and starting the press. A metal arm picks up a sheet of paper and places it on the printing bed, where it is pressed by the inked type. The arm moves it aside and puts another in its place. On it goes, one card at a time, and the room is filled with the rhythm of mechanical clacks and thumps.

The process is repeated and each card passes through the printing press as many times as there are colors on it, so Jim often prints the cards several times. It’s a slow, tedious process that requires an infinite amount of patience.

Didn’t Mean to be Green

Their business is environmentally-friendly, although they say they “didn’t mean to be green.” Isolation and hardship forced them to adopt efficient methods a long time ago, and it’s now a natural part of the way they do business.

* They don’t discard equipment, so there’s no scrap or electronic waste. Their antique printing presses don’t use chemicals, and they go through less than one gallon of cleaning solvents per year.

* The electricity rates on Swan’s Island are high, so Jane and Jim minimize their electricity usage. They don’t have air conditioning, for example, or computers, and their building was designed to allow natural light. As a result, they use approximately the same amount of electricity as an average American home.

* Their paper is recycled and made to order for them, so there is little waste to discard.

* Garbage pick-up is not available and they “hate making the trip to the town dump,” so they have winnowed their total garbage output to two garbage cans, once a month. That’s less than the average home!

Being “green” has helped them contain their costs, and it also makes their business more predictable. An example: In 1999 their largest customer (Barnes and Noble) sent them an affidavit to sign and return stating there would be no problems filling orders associated with Y2K. Saturn Press was the only vendor to sign and return the form. No computers, no problems.

Adding to the World

It’s refreshing to know that an old-fashioned and environmentally-friendly business can still exist in today’s high-pressure, instant-communication world. Saturn Press is one that has survived for more than a quarter century, and the owners, who refer to themselves as Grandma and Grandpa Letterpress, are determined and somewhat eccentric artists who use ingenuity, craftsmanship, and old-fashioned technology to produce beautiful, high-quality greeting cards in a “green” manner.

Jim and Jane like to say they are at odds with the world. Maybe they are. But they also add to the world by creating beautiful images and words that help people share their sentiments with each other. And it seems to me that in many ways their methods of doing things make a whole lot of sense.

Sam was asleep when he first felt pressure on the side of his tent. He was exhausted from the day’s 20-mile hike and was sleeping soundly. At first he thought it was his dog trying to get in the tent, but as he awoke he remembered his dog hadn’t joined him on the hike. He shook himself awake and looked around. The moon cast a silhouette against the tent and outlined in the shadow was the profile of a bear!

Sam gathered his wits and lay perfectly still, hoping the bear would go away. But it continued to paw at the tent, trying to see what was inside. It swiped at the tent wall and hit Sam in the face, giving him a bloody nose.

Sam remembered having heard or read that one way to discourage bears was to play dead, so he curled into a fetal position and lay perfectly still. The bear continued to swipe at the tent, and the claws of one paw tore through the side of the tent and into Sam’s sleeping bag, leaving bloody scratch marks on Sam’s back. The bear poked its head through the tent and tried to get a grip on Sam’s neck with its jaw.

At that point, Sam realized he was in serious trouble. He was in a vulnerable position, with his back and neck exposed to the bear. He remembered his dog playing with stuffed animals, grabbing them by the neck and shaking them back and forth to “immobilize” them; Sam pictured the bear doing that to him and realized he had to do something. He gathered all his courage, leapt to his feet, made himself appear as large as possible, and screamed at the bear. “Go away!” he shouted, over and over, “Go away!”

The bear, caught unaware, was startled; it hadn’t expected a response. It grunted, backed away from the tent, and ran about 20 yards away into the trees beside the trail.

Sam remembers being astonished at how quick and strong the bear was; it jumped off his tent, ran 20 yards, and was in the trees looking at him by the time Sam got up to unzip his tent and look out.

Once outside his tent, Sam got his first good look at the bear. From the color and size, he estimated it was a medium-sized black bear, around 250 pounds, possibly a teenager. After a little shuffling near the trees, the bear made another run at Sam, running toward him on all fours. Sam considered trying to escape, but decided against it; he knew that bears are fast, are excellent at tracking their prey, and can climb trees. There was no where to go! So he did the only thing left to him – he shouted at the bear again. “Go away!” he yelled. “Get out of here!” Over and over he screamed at the bear, as loud as he could.

The bear, startled at this raucous creature, retreated into the trees.
Sam took inventory of his condition. He was bleeding from the nose and back, but in the dark he couldn’t tell how badly. His tent was torn and partially down. His sleeping bag was ripped where the bear had clawed through to get at him. And he was alone in the dark. He looked at his watch. It was 4:15 a.m., which meant the sun wouldn’t be up for another hour, and it wasn’t safe for him to hike in the dark. So he sat down, took out his tape recorder, switched it on, and began talking. He described the attack and said goodbye to his mother and friends, just in case. He was nervous that the bear (or its mother) might come back and finish him off.

Finally, daylight broke, and Sam gathered his things and headed down the trail, toward where he was to meet his mother, who was bringing supplies. He walked very quickly, trying to put as much distance between him and the bear as possible. As he saw his mother’s car come into view he finally relaxed, for the first time in hours. He was going to make it!

His mother gave Sam a huge hug when he arrived at her car and asked him how his hike had gone. “Great!” he replied, “Except I was attacked by a bear!”

“Yeah, right,” his mother said.

“No, really!” Sam told her, and he showed her his torn shirt and the scratch marks on his back.

Sam and his mother found a Park Ranger and told him about the bear. He told Sam he had done everything exactly right, and that he had been lucky. He would let everyone know there was a bear coming into camps, and put out an alert.

Note: In July of 2008, 16-year-old Sam McClure became the youngest person to solo thru-hike the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT), completing the 165-mile journey around Lake Tahoe in ten days. Sam, a curly-headed blond teenager from Menlo Park, California, trained hard for the hike and persevered through several obstacles that included hiking off course, developing severe foot blisters, and sleepless nights caused by an inadequate tent and insect bites. The TRT is an ordeal for anyone and the route, which encompasses the mountain ridges of the Lake Tahoe Basin and crosses six counties and two states, has special challenges for a teenage boy hiking it by himself

Duke grew up in Wisconsin and started skiing when he was six years old. After two years at college in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, he joined the Army and was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division from Colorado.

The 10th Mountain Division is a light infantry division of the United States Army that started out as an experiment to train skiers and climbers to fight in the most difficult, mountainous terrain in Europe. Some of the men who joined the division were skiers already, while others had never seen a ski in their lives.

Their training at Camp Hale, Colorado included skiing, snowshoeing and rock climbing. They also learned cold-weather survival tactics, such as keeping warm by building snow caves. The men lived in the mountains for weeks, working in altitudes of up to 13,500 feet, in five to six feet of snow and in temperatures that dropped to 20 degrees below zero at night.

In June 1944, the Division transferred to Camp Swift, Texas, for additional training until the division was deployed to Italy in January 1945. In Italy, the 10th Mountain Division served in combat for only four months, but had one of the conflict’s highest casualty rates.

By mid-January of 1945, the 14,000 men of the 10th Mountain Division had quietly and secretly moved into small villages surrounding these ridges in the northern Apennines area. There was a lot of work to be done in order to conquer the Germans located atop the ridges, and the 10th began planning possible routes up Riva Ridge.

Duke recalled this time and he told about a near-fatal experience. His jacket was torn, and he was sent to a friendly German woman to have it mended. She said that it was a big job but that she would do it. She suggested that he go in and lie down on her bed. He lay down for about half an hour. When he heard combat boots he got under the bed. It was a German searching squad. They recognized the American jacket. They came in and searched the bedroom but didn’t look under the bed. He waited. She came in with the jacket and told him to get out fast. “It was a real tight situation,” Duke remembers, but he escaped. “Or I wouldn’t be here right now talking to you,” he said.

On Feb. 18, 1945, the 10th Mountain Division took Riva Ridge — to prevent the Germans from being able to survey U.S. positions below — in a nighttime operation. Riva Ridge consisted of 2,000 vertical feet of rock and it was a sheer face covered in snow and ice, towering over the American soldiers in the valley below. At night, the Germans did not bother with guard patrols, because the conditions were so difficult that they did not believe any American unit could climb the ridge — day or night.

But the Germans were wrong, and the soldiers of the 10th climbed, silently, to the top and secured Riva Ridge with minimal casualties.

But then, the 10th Mountain Division was asked to overtake Mount Belvedere. That proved to be much more difficult, and the American soldiers ended up victorious, but not without a price: Nearly 1,000 of the 13,000 soldiers in the division died.

Duke recalled many of these missions, skiing in groups and using three kinds of snowshoes. The Ski Patrol wore both white uniforms and dark ones, depending on the surroundings. One time, on a mission working their way toward the enemy wearing Bearpaw snowshoes, one of his men got stuck and couldn’t move. Duke moved to the head of the line where the man was, and told him to fall on his back and then turn his snowshoes. Then Duke said, “Let’s get the hell out of here before we get shot!”

After Italy, Duke was sent to the European theater as a member of the Ski Patrol. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge, for which he received a Purple Heart. He was justifiably proud of his service in the Army and his service to his country.

The hand-written poster in his house defines his philosophy:

“We didn’t inherit the world from our parents — we are borrowing it from our children.”

He is driven by an unshakable hope for a better future and believes that great things can be achieved when his diverse community works together. There are indications the efforts are paying off, but a great deal remains to be done.

His name is Afrika Moni and he guided us through the township of Imizamo Yethu, near Cape Town. He is a determined young man with a soft voice and a calm way of dealing with people. His goal of finding a better life for his community motivates him, and he has dedicated himself to helping achieve his dream.

Townships are South Africa’s slums. There are dozens of them throughout the country and they collectively house millions of people. Some folks moved to the townships when their neighborhoods were deemed “white only,” others came from rural areas of South Africa looking for work; still others are refugees from neighboring African countries.

This township is a few miles south of Cape Town, near the coastal city of Hout Bay. Here the contrast between wealth and poverty is striking.

Residents of Hout Bay are typically white and affluent and they live in some of the nicest houses in the country.

But across the street in Imizamo Yethu 20,000 people live in rows of shacks that sprawl on the hillsides. Their presence is resented by their wealthy neighbors and many are unemployed.
Imizamo Yethu began in the 1980s when thousands of South Africans moved to Cape Town looking for work and found a shortage of public housing. Some built shacks in the bushes, which was resented by the residents of Hout Bay.

In 1989 the local government developed a piece of land for settlement, which became the township. The city provided basic services such as streets, water, electricity and sewage, and residents were allowed to build temporary shelters. They named the settlement Imizamo Yethu (which in the local Xhosa language means “our combined effort”).

Now, 20 years later, the township has a church, a YMCA and community center, and a few small businesses. A police station has been built in Hout Bay to keep peace.

Homes are small; a few are brick and concrete, but most are scrap wood and tin. Some houses have running water; the rest share communal water facets. Most houses are supplied with limited electricity which must be supplemented by the residents.

Over the past few years there have been some improvements. Volunteers, including a group from Ireland, have built a few brick homes, and the South Africa government is putting up a few more. But most residents still live in shacks.

An elderly woman in a tin shack pleaded with us to help her get a better home.

“When the rains come, the water runs clear down to the floor,” she told us. “And I can hardly stand the noise on the roof.” She applied for a brick home, but has heard nothing.

The children of the township are dressed, though most are barefoot. They attend school in a nearby town and Afrika hopes they will stay in school because education is the best way out of the township.

Life in Imizamo Yethu is bleak, but there is hope.

We saw signs of hope in the faces of the children and in the voices of the people as they walked home in the evenings. Many were singing — they had made it through another day, and they had hope for tomorrow.

Afrika also has hope. He and others in the community hope to find a solution that will provide everyone decent living conditions.