Colours of hope. (Ear To The Ground).

Despite the problems, many of the people whom we visited were hopeful about SA's future, and the more we talked about it together, the more I saw this too.

I noticed the way people said hello to each other on the street, the way there were people sitting everywhere, just chatting. The way four-year-old children walked around on the roadside, something you would never see in the UK. The way neighbours would come and join a man washing his car. Nothing seems to be done alone.

And the women were so beautiful and colourful. Women carrying things on their heads--boxes, piles of wood, bags of oranges or even just a coke bottle filled with water. Women carrying babies on their backs, strapped to them with a towel or a piece of coloured fabric. Women wearing blankets on top of skirts, with an apron on top of that.

We visited a family who lived in a rondavel in the countryside. They lived in such simple conditions; floor made of dried cow muck, a straw mat to sleep on, seven or eight people in a small round room. Everyone knew everyone in the village, and helped each other. There was such a sense of community.

Karin Peters, aged 16, in South Africa