Malawi - On the Other Side of the Railway

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Tucked beneath the hum of constant air traffic and the sprawl of industrial infrastructure, Malawi Camp is easy to miss, yet impossible to forget. Located on a patch of land north of Cape Town International Airport, flanked by Elsies River, this is home to many who have been rooted here for over three decades. There is no grid of streetlights, no guaranteed tap of water, while for many children, school remains a distant prospect rather than a lived routine. Despite this, much persists, relationships, rhythms, and remarkable resourcefulness.

In this place, I met Rasta I-man Raymond, a self-proclaimed tradesman and quiet philosopher whose workshop stands near the settlement’s entrance. Using salvaged wooden pallets and a few hand tools, Raymond builds Wendy House panels, shelves, and stools, pieces that find their way into homes across the community. Each object holds an act of resilience, a small offering of stability in an otherwise precarious environment.

Raymond’s story of quiet resistance, a refusal to be defined by need, is an entry point into a larger narrative. It gestures toward an informal economy alive with dexterity, improvisation, immense care, and collective negotiation. These are qualities often made invisible in mainstream narratives of poverty, marginality, or dysfunction. This is a space where value is made, not given, where presence persists despite urban neglect. 

This series begins in Malawi Camp and moves through a constellation of nearby communities, stretching from Eureka to Athlone, south across the railway from where I grew up. It is a visual mapping of spaces too often rendered invisible, asking what emerges when we attend to the lives of the overlooked.

By focusing on forgotten stories, the reconfiguration of everyday spaces and the rhythm of daily life, these encounters explore how dignity takes form in places where official systems have withdrawn. It is a search for understanding urban life grounded in lived experience and the subtle assertion of value.