Construction on the pump track, which is situated on the border
between the Langa and Bridgetown/Bonteheuwel areas, started at the end
of March last year.
A pump track is a planned route of asphalt berms and turns that includes a looped series of rollers and berms for bike riders.
Riders enjoy the new pump track. Picture: City of Cape Town
“The track is a hub of activity for a variety of wheeled vehicles,
including bicycles, skateboards, scooters, and more. The R1.7 million
track has been designed in such a way that international pump track
events can be held there,” said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for
Community Services and Health, Councillor Patricia van der Ross.
The ground is layered with a French drainage system, a recycled
milling layer, and finished with a layer of specialised asphalt
surfacing.
Luthando James shows off his skill. Picture: City of Cape Town
This year (2022-23), a ward allocation of R500 000 will be used for
the construction of an entrance pathway, an extension of hard surfacing
around the track, and an avenue of large trees.
The specialist pump track contractor significantly reduced their
costs; large savings resulted from the use of recycled milling material
and the reduced cost of trees supplied by the Newlands Nursery.
“The track is an opportunity for the Recreation and Parks Department
to promote cycling in a safe space within the community and create fun
and exciting experiences, especially for the youth. Road cycling already
exists in Langa, and the pump track will also focus on BMX biking,”
said Councillor Van der Ross.
Other areas that have a pump track include the Princess Vlei Eco Centre.
“Investing in sports and recreation facilities is important as it
exposes young people to healthy activities and different types of sport.
It’s also an investment in the community, as it provides a space for
leisure. In addition, bicycling creates entrepreneurial opportunities
for organisations and small businesses associated with the sport,” added
Councillor Van der Ross.
Rules regarding the use of the track are displayed at the facility, and safety gear is a requirement.
Emmanuel Kostile and Afikile Noholoza intend to make full use of the new pump track in Langa. Picture: City of Cape Town
Fixed bicycle parking is not available at the facility at this
stage, and an assessment regarding this will be done once the track is
operational to determine the need.
The Recreation and Parks Department will purchase a limited number of
bicycles for use on the track and partner with the Langa Bicycle Hub
organisation based at the facility to assist with Learn-To-Cycle
programmes.
CAPE TOWN TO SPEND R320M ON HOSTEL TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME
Photo By HDA
The City of Cape Town on Thursday said that it will be moving forward
with plans to upgrade more hostel units in Langa as part of the next phase of
the hostel transformation programme, which will cost R320-million.
The next phase of the programme, which is set to start in 2020, will see
the construction of an estimated 660 new apartments.
The city’s Mayoral Committee Member for Human
Settlements, Councillor Malusi
Booi said roughly R250-million has been spent on the programme and
thus far 463 new apartments have been built.
“It is early days, although much work has gone into the preparation
for the next phases of the programme already. The majority of the hostels are
situated in Langa,” Booi said.
“The City hopes to have a panel of consultants in place by August
2019 to do planning for all the hostel areas within Cape Town. This panel will
look at Nyanga, Langa, Gugulethu Section 2 and Gugulethu Section 3 and develop
a holistic plan for all of these areas.”
Booi said the city will need all affected parties and stakeholders to
work with it and to act in a manner that is to the benefit of as many
beneficiaries as possible.
“We need to follow a systematic approach as we cannot do all of the
areas at the same time. The City will do everything in its power to ensure that
all processes are completed as soon as possible,” Booi said.
“Good community cooperation will be the most vital ingredient as we
go forward to bring redress to those families who were broken up, torn apart
and stripped of their dignity and humanity by the apartheid government.”
There's an afternoon of wine-tasting among the villas of
Stellenbosch. There's a Harley Davidson tour of Cape Town, including
Camps Bay beach where the models hang out. And there's a two-hour
walking tour of a black township.
I hesitate over fine wines, fast motorbikes and models on beaches, before ticking the box marked 'Township'.
Langa
township is 10 kilometres from the five-star hotels of Victoria and
Alfred Wharf, and a million miles from the stuff that makes Cape Town
one of the world's most beautiful cities. It's flat, a little bigger
than Sydney's Centennial Parklands, and home to 80,000 people (the
population of Launceston). It's bounded by a railway line, a busy
freeway and a garbage transfer station.
Our small group of seven
is greeted in the centre of Langa by resident Chippa Mngangwa. A
friendly, open-faced chap with a ready smile, Chippa thanks us for
visiting and tells us how to greet locals in the Xhosa language
('Mollo'). But his next statement sets me back a little.
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"The people you meet during your holiday in Cape Town – all the
security guards, the waiters, the maids – they live here, in a township.
Each day they travel to your hotels and restaurants and earn between
250 to 300 Euros [A$400 to $485] a month. They work to survive."
Over
decades of travelling in South Africa I've met lots of security
guards, waiters and maids at hotels and restaurants. I try to make
conversation, though the gulf between us is hard to bridge. And it
suddenly strikes me: I've never got past polite chit-chat because I've
never thought about their lives on a deeper level.
Our two-hour
walk begins at some parklands where the grass and gum trees are wearied
from Cape Town's drought. People with lots of time and nowhere to be
walk with a languid gate. Cars occasionally rumble past, thudding with
bass and driven by young men.
"Sixty per cent of South Africa lives in a township," says Chippa,
"and only 50 per cent of those have jobs. Townships are hunting grounds
for politicians. If you persuade 60 per cent of the population to vote
for you, that will see you into power, perhaps even into the top job.
But when politicians get power, they forget about townships."
Langa
is one of the oldest of Cape Town's 13 townships, started in the 1920s
as a camp for male dockworkers who it was feared would spread plague. It
officially became a township under the Group Areas Act of 1948 – a
pillar of Apartheid that ensured non-white Africans lived away from
their workplaces, away from urban centres and far from white suburbs.
Even today there is only one road in and one road out of Langa, a design
legacy that ensured townships could be locked down.
Chippa talks
as we walk. "Like any community, Langa has social stratification. We
have areas of lower class and we have our own 'Beverley Hills'." We
emerge into 'Beverly Hills', a street with bungalows of pale brick and
kempt gardens. Blocks of medium density units are being built close by,
with two-bedders starting at $30,000.
But around the corner, the urban scenery changes dramatically.
Upon
entering a neighbourhood of shipping containers, clouds of small
children blow up to Chippa. He dispenses high fives and hugs, before
leading us to the door of one of the containers. The steel box is
divided by a flimsy wall to create two 2mx3m dwellings. Four of us
squeeze in: it contains a single mattress, a wooden seat, a fridge and
an electric cooktop (a saucepan of boiling cabbage makes a familiar and
glum smell). Chippa points to each in turn: "Bedroom, lounge, kitchen,"
he says. "This is home to six people. A mother and her five children
live in here."
The mother sits outside while we inspect her
dwelling. She tells me how her five children sleep on a mattress on the
floor. "I have lived here since 2005." she says. "Twelve years."
One of our group puzzles for a moment. "Fourteen years," he says.
She looks up with wide eyes. "Fourteen?!" she breathes, shocked. "Ohhhh, too much."
The
community has several schools but only 10 per cent can afford the fees.
There's also a hospital and fee-paying clinics (many dedicated to
sexual health). And a lot of churches.
As the mother re-occupies
her shipping container, Chippa tells us that women run this community,
driving the economy by selling stuff they make, grow and prepare. We
cross into a rough quarter of shanties made from corrugated iron and
black plastic sheeting. Two women are surrounded by stacks of recycled
building timber which they use to make toxic-smelling fires: one woman
singes all the hair from grinning sheeps' heads while the other uses
plastic Steel-o to scrub the heads squeaky clean. It's a delicacy.
More
remarkable are Langa's 'micro-breweries'. A wonky line of rotten shacks
sit with orange drums outside. These drums are filled with beer
fermented from sorghum, maize powder and water.
We duck into one
of the cramped, dark spaces where an older "mama" silently goes about
her work, tending half a dozen older men squatting on benches. They're
friendly, but slightly stupefied from hours of consuming the 2.5 per
cent brew she serves in 5-litre tins.
"This is called a shebeen,"
says Chippa, now sitting before a five-litre tin of his own. "These were
illegal, and women who couldn't get work as maids stayed in the
townships and made beer."
The tin costs A$4 and is passed around
for us to try. The first taste is of the metal – followed by the sour,
room-temperature beer which smacks of smoke. "These women don't get the
credit they deserve," he says as the dusty wind makes the plastic sheets
crackle. "Selling beer to the community means some are able to send
their kids to school."
I feel perfectly safe in the township, but
Chippa says it's different after dark. "The community is very peaceful
in the daytime. But we go from being the best community by day to the
worst at night."
In 2014 Langa accounted for 55 per cent of
murders in Cape Town. With only one police station, vigilante groups are
left to mete out their own law. "Community justice is much more
feared," says Chippa. "It's more like social control."
If
townships are a modern construct, ancient African traditions survive.
Young men reaching 18 are sent out into the bush for six weeks prior to
ritual circumcision. "The pain of life will be nothing to the pain being
experienced," says Chippa with the wry grin of a man who has been
through it. Dowry is also a big part of matrimony and while bride price
is no longer paid in cows, weddings come with stratospheric costs and
many young couples are saddled with horrendous debt.
At the end of
the tour we repair to Langa's community arts hub, the Guga S'thebe Arts
& Culture Centre. where local artists and artisans are given the
means to produce their work. I buy a colourful hand-painted mug – and
then return to the Cape Town that I know.
I seek out the beautiful
sixth-storey bar in The Silo hotel, a stellar industrial/boho space.
Perched on a barstool upholstered with topaz-coloured leather, I place
my hands on the cold stone bartop and feel slightly spun out.
Barman Pule Selogilwe pours me a chilled Cape Brewing Co. Beer and asks me what I've been doing with my day.
"I've been in a township," I say.
He's taken aback. "A township?" he says. "Which one?"
I tell him and it's like a door opens.
He
tells me the name of his township, it's not so far from Langa. "I've
taken all my white friends there," he says. "They get to sit in a
shebeen, listen to an uncle telling a few stories… Did you visit a
shebeen?"
The conversation quickly becomes one of mutuality and
connection. We talk about the problems of townships, the changes, the
lack of change. Then his shift behind the bar ends. "It's cool you
visited," he says, shaking my hand. "It's important. If you've not been
to a township, you've not been to half of South Africa."
Siviwe Tours offer 2.5 hour tours of Langa with local guides. Costs $55 a person, including transfers from Cape Town.
The
tour of Langa township is offered as part of an 11-day five-star
overland tour of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana, with Scenic. Costs
$11,195 a person. Visit
scenic.com.au/tours/southern-africa-discovery/8229
The
Cape Town area is famous for beaches, wine tours and Table Mountain.
But township tours might also be an interesting side trip for soccer
fans heading to South Africa for the World Cup.
Tourist are seen at a curio shop in the township of Langa situated on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. Nardus Engelbrecht / AP
/ Source: The Associated Press
By Thandisizwe Mgudlwa
The
Cape Town area is famous for beaches, wine tours and Table Mountain,
among other attractions. But on a recent morning, a group of tourists
set out to experience something most visitors never see — the townships
where black and mixed-race South Africans were warehoused under
apartheid.
"We want to show them the other side of Cape
Town with this township tour," said Samantha Mtinini from Camissa Travel
& Marketing. The tours take visitors to homes, schools and markets
in three townships where they meet children, vendors and other
residents.
The tour
does not sugarcoat reality: Mtinini says the townships remain
impoverished and beset by crime. But the company advertises the tours as
a way to create jobs, as well as a way for visitors to experience the
humanity and culture of the people who live there.
The
tours might also make an interesting side trip for soccer fans heading
to South Africa for the World Cup, which kicks off June 11.
First
of three stops on the tour was Langa, a black township where the
visitors were greeted by preschool kids singing a welcome in Xhosa and
English.
Langa is an area of shacks, schools, religious,
sports and recreational and cultural buildings. Traditional healers also
do business here, claiming to be able to cure just about everything,
and to clear evil spirits from homes and create luck for relationships
and business.
"We are born with spirits from ancestors,"
Major Ndaba of the Langa Herbal Chemist shop told the tourists. "People
come to me for all sorts of problems like business success and evil
spirits."
Just outside in the Joe Slovo shack settlement, Christopher Wanyoike awaited customers at his arts and crafts stall.
"My crafts are from all over Africa, from Kenya, Malawi, Zimbabwe,
Tanzania among others," he said. He is among an army of Langa
entrepreneurs, from fruit and vegetable hawkers, to cooks barbecuing
meat al fresco to be served with umqombothi, frothy traditional African
beer for about $2 (14 rand) a liter.
Next the tour moved
to Bonteheuwel. The sprawling colored, or mixed-race, township was
established after the forced removals in 1966 from an area known as
District Six. District Six was a pocket of Cape Town where South
Africans of different races lived together until the city council forced
those who were not white to move far from their jobs and the economic
hive of the city center.
Under
apartheid, South Africans of mixed-race were more privileged than
blacks, part of a divide-and-rule strategy to create tensions that
linger to this day. Bonteheuwel, compared to Langa, boasted more sports
fields and better schools with libraries and business centers.
Then
it was on to Guguletu, another black township. There, tourists saw new
shacks built after apartheid ended in 1994, during an influx of settlers
from rural to urban areas.
Mtinini said that wherever
space is available, people build shacks, including just in front of the
Gugulethu Seven monument, which commemorates seven anti-apartheid
activists killed by the security police in 1987.
Nearby,
another monument commemorates Amy Biehl, an American Fulbright scholar
killed in 1993 in Guguletu. Biehl, 26, who was white, was studying how
women were contributing to change in South Africa. Her black assailants
claimed the attack was part of the war on white rule.
Biehl's
attackers were granted amnesty after confessing before South Africa's
Truth and Reconciliation Commission, set up to help the country cope
with the legacy of apartheid.
Two of her attackers
now work for a charity the Biehl family founded that has provided
training in arts, sports and other areas to young South Africans.
Renowned Langa restaurant bags Cape Town Tourism Board award
Buffet-style
eatery owned by 22-year-old Mbasa Siyaka, Mzansi Restaurant has bagged
the Cape Town Tourism Board Development Fund (BDF) award. The local gem
has been visited by Bob Marley’s eldest son, Rohan Marley. Picture:
Supplied
Published Dec 17, 2021
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CAPE
TOWN - Mzansi Restaurant, a vibrant buffet-style eatery owned by
22-year-old Mbasa Siyaka, who is passionate about job creation, has
bagged the Cape Town Tourism Board Development Fund (BDF) award.
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The
annual awards established in 2014 aids small, medium and micro
enterprises (SMMEs) with cash awards, mentoring and other
business-boosting actions to develop their tourism businesses.
With
the devastation of cancelled bookings owing to the Omicron variant and
the red-listing of South Africa by other countries, Mzansi Restaurant
said the award came at the right time.
The eatery, which offers a
mix of Western and traditional African meals, lost all its international
bookings for the festive season, becoming solely dependent on locals
for support.
“With ease of lockdown restrictions,
Mzansi Restaurant was hoping to be at the forefront of the recovery of
Cape Town’s tourist industry. Before Covid-19, we operated about six
days a week, were rated number one on TripAdvisor and employed around 16
people” said Siyaka.
The restaurant was opened at 45 Harlem Ave in 2008 and was the brainchild of the late grandmother of the Siyaka family.
She
convinced her daughter Nomonde and her husband, Vukile, who were
hosting a jazz club at the time, to focus on the bustling market of
international clients coming in and out of Langa.
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Siyaka, who started as a car marshal, took over the reins in 2018 after his mother became chronically ill.
“The
long-term goal is to employ another 16 employees from the area. Through
mentorship also by the CTICC manager, I want to learn more and inspire
other young people. Having been selected as one of the successful
candidates for the Cape Town Tourism BDF programme serves as validation
of the vision that was birthed by my grandmother.
“We wish to
express our sincerest thanks to the Cape Town Tourism Board for not only
providing Mzansi Restaurant with the much-needed support to propel our
growth, but also for the realisation that SMMEs do not just need cash to
grow. We also need an integrated approach that captures a wide but
interdependent array of support,” he said.
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Cape
Town Tourism chief executive officer Enver Duminy said: “As Cape Town
Tourism, we have been working together with other sectors in trying our
best to contain the negative impact of lockdown on the local economy and
saving jobs that we have been steadily growing across Cape Town.”
The
board’s chairperson, Brett Hendricks, said that providing support for
local enterprises during this critical time was crucial.
“Our BDF
initiative is something we hope will inspire other organisations to
invest in supporting small businesses. SMMEs are where South Africa’s
growth comes from, and we cannot rely solely on the government to fund
and support them.”
Langa rising. An inspiring visit to SA’s oldest township.
This is the original version of a story I wrote on LANGA that ran in the June 2019 issue of Khuluma inflight magazine
Take the N2
The N2 out of Cape Town takes you places. To tourist hotspots like
Stellenbosch, Hermanus and Ceres to name a few, synonymous with wine
farms, whale watching and cherry picking. That same highway also leads
to Langa, South Africa’s oldest township, less heralded
but holding its own with historical gravitas, a unique identity and a
vibrant culture. Langa is a crucial part of the Mother City’s DNA.
Welcome to it.
What is a township?
In the original South African apartheid context, townships refer to
underdeveloped and racially segregated areas, reserved for ‘non-whites’.
As things stand today, only a small minority of township inhabitants
hold down contractual jobs with annual incomes hovering around the
R30,000 mark (about US$2100) and the unemployment rate continues to
rise. In spite of decades of dispossession, indignity and daily
challenges though, there are many parts of it Langa that are in the
throes of rejuvenation and as an outsider, witnessing the transformation
and the upbeat atmosphere first-hand is an absolute revelation.
iKhaya le Langa, 2 minutes from the Bhunga Avenue turn off
The Langa Quarter
It all begins 100 metres from Exit 12 on the N2, at a bright orange
wall (above) that announces you’ve arrived in the Langa Quarter. One of
the most exciting projects to take root in the suburb, the Langa Quarter
constitutes a small slice of the township – 13 streets to be precise-
that has been quietly evolving over the past ten years and has recently
been proactively zoned for hospitality and tourism. Anyone visiting the
Quarter is immediately struck by the visible difference, the result of a
‘cleaner, greener, safer’ campaign. The Quarter community
realised long ago that the only way to promote tourism to the sector and
attract and secure ongoing partnerships and investment was if the area
looked good and felt secure. In a remarkably short space of time, the
zone has become a place of sustainable enterprise and is hailed as yet
another valued asset in the Western Cape’s travel and tourism offering.
Tony Elvin
Who is behind the Langa Quarter?
The driving force behind the thriving precinct is Tony Elvin
(pictured above), a British businessman of Jamaican descent with a
passion for empowering young people and injecting hope into previously
disenfranchised communities. An optimist and serial change maker, he
began working on the Quarter project in 2010 and launched it in December
2017. His track record is solid, having pursued social enterprise
projects (SEP’s) around the world for two decades. The most well-known
of these was Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Foundation through which he
established a string of eateries in London, Amsterdam, Melbourne and
Cornwall to up skill aspirant chefs and generate employment for
graduates. Although this is what initially brought him to South Africa,
it’s not what has kept him here. His defining moment presented itself in
2009 while he was mentoring a group of young men at his ‘swanky
offices’, as he puts it, in Heritage Square. They introduced him to
Langa and the rest, as they say, is history. “I did my research,” he explained, ”got
to know the area, understand its history, culture and its people. That
took me five years and once I had a handle on it, I moved from my gated
estate in Hout Bay into Langa and I haven’t looked back.”
iKhaya le Langa, the heart of the Langa Quarter
Ikhaya Le Langa, the nucleus of the Langa Quarter
iKhaya Le Langa (above), meaning the ‘house of the sun’
in isiXhosa, is the nucleus of the Quarter, located on the corner of
Ndabeni and Rubusana streets. It has successfully cemented itself as a
multifunctional business incubator, providing the lifeline between the
precinct, the travel industry and residents. Housed within the building,
a repurposed primary school, are offices, an Airbnb booking desk, the
Sun Diner, a gallery and a retail space selling locally produced craft.
iKhaya Le Langa operates an Inter-community Tourism Agency branded
‘Visit Langa’ that promotes dignified exchanges between locals and
tourists and ‘that does tourism in a township’ as opposed to ‘township tourism’, often viewed by locals as a derogatory term likened to ‘poverty tourism.’ The
centre also provides educational and entrepreneurial workshops,
hospitality industry training, art classes for children and adults, and
the Ambassador Skills Development programme geared towards the
unemployed of all ages who are given a chance to learn job readiness and
get a leg up on the work ladder.
Local entrepreneur Asekho Mjojeli (above, far left) has been with iKhaya le Langa since 2013 and is the face of Young, Gifted and Black (YG&B)
the coffee shop that operates daily from a bright lumo green container,
the go-to spot for locals. The talented 26 year old makes a mean
cappuccino and is training others to do the same as he spreads the
gospel of the good brew.
Artist, tour guide and mentor
Tozamile Mpanu (above, in his art studio at iKhaya Le Langa), 35,
joined the iKhaya Le Langa fold in 2017, attracted by the buzz and keen
to throw his weight behind the tourism side of things. An African art
specialist and the centre’s artist-in-residence, he is one of the
iKhaya’s accredited tour guides who regularly conducts walkabouts and
more recently, cycle tours through the Quarter and other interesting
parts of the township. Clearly passionate about the place, he relishes
sharing his knowledge of the many buildings, prominent streets and
memorials that preserve the townships incredible backstory.
Harlem Avenue – steeped in history
Harlem Avenue (above) is one of the most interesting thoroughfares in
the Quarter and is where the pilot program began in 2009. At one end is
a row of small houses- some marked with commemorative plaques- that
once belonged to South African icons who made their mark in politics,
music, medicine, professional sport and academia. There are 28 heroes
honoured here, like the Struggle activist Chris Hani, musician Victor
Ntoni, cricketer Thami Tsolekile, and Hamilton Naki, lab assistant to
the late Chris Barnard, the cardiac surgeon who performed the world’s
first heart transplant. Farther down are the ruins of the Special
Quarters, ridiculously undersized rooms once built to house migrant
workers, and as you continue along there’s a jazz club and shebeen (informal
bar) called Fanie’s Place, and Mzansi, a popular restaurant for
tourists. Washington Street, one of the main arteries that runs through
Langa, leads past a number of significant places.
Memorials and mouments
Like Guga Sthebe (above), marked by a bright yellow exterior, is
another crucial resource centre with a focus on Arts & Culture. On
the same route, dotted along the pavements, are colourful mosaic
plinths, each with a different theme and a written explanation related
to township history.
Reminders of the Struggle
At the Washington Circle, opposite the taxi rank, is the
cylindrically shaped memorial (above) that was installed in 2010 in
honour of those who lost their lives in the violent anti-Pass Law
protests that took place in 1960, the same day as the brutal Sharpeville
Massacre in Johannesburg. It’s a sobering reminder of the suffering
that the majority of South Africans endured before Nelson Mandela came
to power.
Homestays and Airbnb
Surrounding ikhaya le Langa 18 homes that make up the 40 bed Langa
Quarter Homestay Hotel (LQHH) cluster, run by female hosts who rent out
their houses to tourists and curate immersive experiences that make a
refreshing change from cookie-cutter type tours. Personal stories are
shared in an intimate setting and unpack the backstories to life during
the Apartheid era, township heritage and introduce aspects of family
culture and traditional cuisine. All of this fits tightly into the
global traveller trend towards ‘going and doing’, whereby tourists increasingly opt for conscious, sustainable travel experiences that provide deeper meaning.
Brian Chesky and the Airbnb endorsement
In 2017, nine Langa Quarter Homestay Hotel entrepreneurs were also introduced to Airbnb,
a huge boost on many levels, and a vote of confidence in the Langa
Quarter and the quest to make individuals financially independent. Brian Chesky, the co-Founder and CEO of Airbnb, flew in to personally endorse the group and welcome them to the booking platform.
Everyone benefits through local Enterprise
Other residents also reap the rewards of the staycations by
partnering with LQHH to supply services such as laundry, food and beauty
treatments such as hair braiding and manicures. Elvin himself leads an
Airbnb Experience that includes performances by locals that includes a
traditional meal at one of the Langa Quarter restaurants, and a service
at one of the area’s oldest churches. Although it’s mostly
internationals booking tours and spending quality time in the Quarter,
Tony is bullish about the long term prospects and believes it’s only a
matter of time before Mother City slickers follow suit and spend more
time in the area.
Tozamile at the mural he painted on Bitterhout Street that won him the 2019 ULTRA street art and graffiti competition
Events in Langa
Many are already drawn to Langa through different events such as Open
Streets, Rocktober at Maragana Park and Black Cellar Club’s BLACC Fest
X, the premium wine and spirits festival that took place for the first
time in 2018 and pulled a savvy crowd of connoisseurs from Langa and
surrounds. ULTRA – Uplifting Langa Through Reachable Art – is an annual
street art and graffiti competition that attracts dozens of artists who
emblazon seventeen panels along the 134 metre vibracrete wall that runs
down Bitterhout Street, one of the roads that border iKhaya Le Langa.
This year the winning piece was done by Tozamile (pictured above), a
pulsating rendition of life in Langa.
Abdullah Tan holds a plate of amagwinya (vetkoek) at Ayanda Spaza shop
Langa deserves attention and no visit to the Mother City is
complete without it. Take the Bhunga Avenue off-ramp and see for
yourself. The suburb of the sun is waiting.
For info about walking and cycle tours that start at iKhaya Le Langa,
Airbnb bookings and more, visit www.ikhayalelanga.co.za /
bookings@visitlanga.co.za.
For assistance in curating your Cape Town trip, contact alessia@luxecapetown.africa
Our Langa Township Tour in Cape Town explored a side
of the city few visitors see. But is slum tourism an indulgence for
tourists or does it serve a greater purpose?
At only 1.5 kilometres square, Langa is one of the smallest townships
in the city. Ten years ago it was home to 50,000 people, but like many
townships, it has grown rapidly as job opportunities in the city draw
workers and families from the surrounding countryside. There are now
about 80,000 people in Langa and the township is struggling to cope.
In recent years, entrepreneurial souls – knowing wealthy westerners
are engaged by their poverty – have introduced tours to townships such
as Langa. While there a many great things to do in Cape Town, we were drawn to exploring this other side to the city, but were unsure if it was the right thing to do.
Should we be inspecting other people’s poverty and misfortune? Are we helping this township or making their situation worse?
Booking your trip via the links on this page (or on our book page) will earn us a small commission, at no extra cost to you. Thanks for your support – Paul & Mark.
END OF APARTHEID AND NEW RIGHTS FOR BLACK CITIZENS
We park outside a shop on the edge
of Langa, just off junction 12 of the N2. Being the only white people,
our guide spots us quickly and rushes up to welcome us warmly. His name
is Nathi and he is keen to begin this Langa Township Tour; to show us
his town, his friends and his family.
Walking down a narrow dusty alleyway, we enter a
small shack and are introduced to Shadrack, or ‘Shooter’ to his friends.
But he also goes by the name MacGyver, thanks to his ingenuity in
building every inch of his wooden and sheet metal home which we are
sitting in now. The shack is small but homely and pristinely clean.
There are pictures all over the walls, not only of his family but also
the people who have visited him over the years. An empty bottle of
Johnny Walker Gold Label stands on a shelf. His face, of an
indeterminate age, is lit up by a broken blender he has converted into a
lamp, as he regales us with the story of his life and his township.
Shooter was a police officer during apartheid, a system of
institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa from
1948 to 1994. This institutionalised racial segregation legalised state
oppression of black and coloured peoples by a white minority. As a black
officer, he was not permitted to arrest white criminals, and was
subordinate to white officers, even of lower rank. He was not only
distrusted by white colleagues, but also by black citizens, for whom the
police were the physical embodiment of an oppressive government and its
unjust laws. He left the force, in 1993 just as the apartheid era laws
were coming to an end.
We ask him what has changed most in
the township in his lifetime. He doesn’t describe houses going up, or
infrastructure being built. He doesn’t talk about development or
integration. Instead, he basks in his rights. “Twenty-five years ago, I
got my legal rights. The right to go where I want, when I want. The
right not to be stopped for no reason. The right not to be arrested for
forgetting ID papers. I became a free man. This is what has changed the
most, and it is everything”.
He explains, that as democracy came to black
citizens in South Africa, the government ceased to be his enemy. It got
out of the way of him building his own future. And the police force
became the police service. It went from using force to subjugate the
townships to providing a service to support their citizens in their
quest for a better life.
THE WORKERS OF CAPE TOWN BUILD THEIR LIVES
And building better lives is exactly what the people of Langa are
doing. Every morning they get up and head into the city to be restaurant
servers, office and factory workers, drivers and builders. They head
into the suburbs to be gardeners, cooks and cleaners. Cape Town is built
and run on the back of the people of Langa and townships like it.
Yet many also
earn their living in the township itself. Two women, with the street as
their office, are brewing beer in large plastic barrels in a cramped,
smoky alley between self-built tin sheds. Their brew is bubbling away.
It is only 1.5 to 2% alcohol, but if you drink enough, Nathi explains
with a grin, it works just the same. Round the corner, a small factory
with two kilns produces hand-painted ceramics that are shipped to
European and American Universities.
Three women, clad completely in black, stand in a pile of broken
charred wood and building offcuts. Their faces, illuminated by light
brown fire resistant paint, loom out of the darkness. They are selling
firewood and sheep’s heads. Sheep’s heads are a delicacy here and served
to the older generation as a sign of respect. Cheeks, eye sockets, and
tongue are the choicest parts. But sheep are few and demand is high, so
they ship the heads in from New Zealand.
Next on our Langa Township Tour, we
cross a car washing business. They can clean a couple of hundred cars
in a day, and in three days can make more than workers heading into
town. It’s a profitable business. Nathi says he has tried to explain to
them the value of saving, of putting money aside each week, for a rainy
day. But his words of advice do not always find a receptive ear.
He is saving though. He has a girlfriend and in order to get married,
he must present a dowry to his future wife’s family. Eight to twelve
cows is customary. But just like sheep, there are few cows in the city,
so money has taken its place. A cow is 5,000 Rand, so marriage costs
about 50,000 Rand (US $3,500). A significant outlay on a low daily wage.
But some have made a success of their freedoms,
worked hard and saved. Nathi takes us up to the ‘Beverley Hills’ of
Langa. Locals that have made it and want to remain in Langa’s tight
community of friends and family live here. Houses made of concrete, with
running water and electricity. This is where locals dreams have come
true.
EXTREME POVERTY & GOVERNMENT HELP
But for everyone that lives in
Beverley Hills there are hundreds living in poverty. We round another
bend on our Langa Township Tour and are faced with 6 shipping
containers. Sunk into the dirt in a small plot of unclaimed land. Each
shipping container houses two families, often up to 12 people.
Conditions are cramped and dark. There is barely room for each person to
sleep. In winter they are cold and in summer baking. The stuffy air
often forces people out of their homes and onto the street.
A woman is outside, perched on a low small stool,
washing clothes in a bucket. Another is making her way to the toilet
block a couple of hundred metres away, where 100 people share 5 toilets.
But while these shipping containers are incredibly basic they are still
home. Inside they are spotlessly clean. The ubiquitous satellite dish,
bolted onto the shipping container, provides entertainment for the
family and the outside is decorated with cool modern graffiti.
Shooter’s shack is also on unclaimed land, down a dark narrow
alleyway, surrounded by more than a hundred other tightly packed
buildings of wood and scrap metal. With three tiny rooms, his is the
largest in the area. But he too has no running water and has to share
his neighbour’s electricity.
Shooter, and many others were
forced to move to their temporary self-built homes when the government
decided to upgrade their government accommodation. But that temporary
move was in 2007. Eleven years later Shooter, and many like him, are
still waiting to return.
I ask him how much longer he will have to wait. He shrugs. I ask him
if he finds it frustrating. “Yes, of course”, he replies, “but Rome was
not built in a day. I have my rights, I am a free man. I can be patient
and in the meantime I will build my own life.”
But as a tourist on a Langa Township Tour, it’s
not the intangible improvement in rights that strikes you. It is the
destitute poverty and squalor that lingers in parts of the township.
There is obvious pride in Langa, yet hundreds live in temporary shacks
and shipping containers with no running water and few facilities. It
feels less like the government has got out of the way to allow people to
build their lives, and more like it has abandoned them to their own
devices. Exploring parts of Langa, it appears Rome is not getting built
at all.
SLUM TOURISM & POVERTY PORN
Wandering the streets on our Langa Township Tour with Nathi, there is
one awkward moment. A drunken man walks up to us, slurring words in his
local Xhosa language. It’s unclear what he is saying, but it looks like
he wants money. Nathi tells us to ignore him, but the drunk man is
persistent.
It’s at this point that we first appreciate what tourism means to
Langa, and to Nathi. He’s very quick to intervene, stepping between us
and the drunk man, to ensure we don’t feel intimidated. He gets the help
of 3 local women, who appearing from nowhere, whisk our drunk friend
away.
Nathi explains that Langa’s
tight-knit community can exert powerful peer pressure. Drugs and
violence are not common here. But drinking alcohol is legal and more
socially acceptable. In a township with not much else to do, drinking
cheap beer is a favourite social past time.
But the encounter with the drunk man forces us to
ask ourselves: should we be on a township tour in Cape Town in the
first place? Are we welcome or are we simply indulging our curiosity?
Are we making things better or worse? But Nathi thinks tourists help.
For years people in Langa associated the white man with police and
oppression. Tourism has changed that. They see a different white man.
One that engages with them, is curious to discover about their lives in a
peaceful and polite manner. And one that leaves a tip.
THE VALUE OF A LANGA TOWNSHIP TOUR IN CAPE TOWN
As a tourist, taking a township tour in Cape Town, it is hard to see
how much the rights of the people here have changed from 25 years ago.
But walking around the houses and through the slums of sheet metal, past
the library, the police station, the arts centre and the shipping
containers, it is easy to see the good and the bad. People trying to
make their lives better and communities trying to build a better future.
But while no doubt things are improving, you are still struck by the
poverty and squalor of much of the living conditions.
As a tourist, if you spend 5 days in Cape Town and
just sip cocktails on the front at Camps Bay, eat in the restaurants of
the V&A harbour and taste wine in the vineyards of Constantia then
you have barely seen Cape Town at all. For many of the workers who have
built this amazing city, live in areas that you never venture and in
conditions you never see.
A township tour in Cape Town opened our eyes to
how the vast majority of its citizens actually live; taught us to think
more deeply how politics can affect people’s lives; and hopefully helped
build better trust between the black and white communities of this
city.
BOOK YOUR LANGA TOUR
This half-day Langa Township Tour includes
District 6, Langa and Gugulethu. Pick up can be arranged from the city
centre or Atlantic seaboard hotels including Camps Bay. The tour lasts 3
hours.
HOW TO HELP
If you are interested in helping some of the poorest people in the world live better lives, we highly recommend you explore GiveWell.
GiveWell assesses which charities are the most effective at improving
people’s lives for every US$ (£ or EUR) donated. Travelling the world
regularly inspires us to help those that are less well off than
ourselves and we donate to GiveWell recommended charities every year.
WHERE NEXT?
As one of our
favourite places to visit for winter sun, great hiking and incredible
wildlife opportunities, we’ve been to South Africa several times. Here’s
some more reading you might find useful.
