Township Tour

I set off on a tour of Cape Town's townships today. It was slated for the entire afternoon, and luckily, there were only a few people on the tour. The only thing I really knew about the townships around Cape Town were that they were similar to the Barrios of Rio, and supposedly not a place to be venturing out into by yourself.

The tour started out going through one particular village, which is where the tour guide was originally from. He ran through the history, the effects of Apartheid, and what to expect to see. First off we started at a community centre, then moving on to 'dorms', a house, and on to the small shacks that people tend to construct and live in. At first I thought it was going to be another one of those "typical ______ homes" tours, just insert whatever country you're in at the time in the blank. If you've been to Mexico or Dominican Republic or Fiji, you know what I mean, having done the village tours. Turns out it was pretty good, if you had questions, you could talk to people, look around, and other than having to pass by the standard arts and crafts 'for sale' table when you left, it was okay. The dorms in the past had up to 16 families living in one dorm, with only 16 beds in three rooms, and one small sitting area. The size wouldn't have been as large as most people's garages. However, they have changed that, not packing so many people into so many places. The houses were typically what people moved into after spending time in the dorms and applying for a house. Not much bigger, but more livable. Finally, the shacks, most of which had no electricity, were also horribly cramped and unstable. The only way people managed to get electricity was to climb the pole and run a wire down. All the land and buildings except the shacks were owned by the municipality, who charged small amounts of rent to live there. Shacks are what they want to get rid of, getting people into buildings, but shacks are where most people live, and they are everywhere. Cape Town's township population is estimated to be in the millions.

Next we went and tried some locally brewed beer, which was made from dried corn and some form of milk. They said the alcohol percentage was somewhere in the 2 1/2 to 3 % range, but can get as high as 90% depending on the fermentation and brewing process. The government outlawed it a long time ago, with several incidents of people going blind, but they still make it in township shanty bars today. Turns out it was not half bad. A little warm, and you could definitely taste the milk, but it was decent. It was served in this bucket, and was passed around communally for everyone to have a slurp. When in Rome...

After that, we toured around several other streets, looking at the shacks people had erected. It is crazy to drive around for 20+ minutes at a time, and just be surrounded by nothing but theses shacks, make out of wood, plastic, tin and iron. A pretty unreal sight.

Finally we stopped at a B&B, which actually operates inside the townships. It was simple, but nice, and the owner said it did quite well, which I can believe. When we stopped, it was currently all booked up.

According to our guide, unemployment in the townships runs high, about 40%, so most turn into entrepreneurs, starting B&B's (12 in total in the townships), small hair places, fruit stands, etc.

An interesting tour. Tomorrow, it's diving with the sharks.