Day 26: Heritage Tour
It's Sunday 4 July, and I join a tour for some unique African cultural experiences.
It wouldn't be right to visit Africa and not see a witch doctor. His little den in a sea container was an incredible mess, full of bits of animals. Most prominent on his desk was a pad of lotto forms. When I pointed it out, he said he had twice won R7,000 (about $1,000). So whatever skill he has in potions, it obviously does not extend to reading the future. He may have been speaking in Zulu, because I could only catch every tenth word, one of which was pregnancy. That sounded dangerous, so with much frantic nodding and smiling, we parted happily.
Langa is the first township outside Cape Town where blacks were forcibly removed to during apartheid, and while it is still a poor area, residents often own their own homes, and in some parts, there are restaurants and boarding houses. Groups gather on street corners for church services, smartly dressed in their black suits.
Couldn't resist photographing this young guy playing with a box of cigarettes. Not quite the Malboro Man.
The most common form of shop is sea containers, converted into all types of entrepreneurialism. Our tour host explains that while most of the economic power remains with the whites, such as ownership of land and businesses, the political power rests with the blacks and coloureds, because they are 90% of the population. It is therefore essential that they work together. He says the Rugby World Cup did not capture the 90% in the same way the Football World Cup has because rugby was not their game. However, the recent final of the Super 14 rugby series held in Soweto amazed most of the population: a rugby game in Soweto attended by whites was unprecedented. Now everyone is loving the World Cup together, it has opened most African eyes to the possibility of a brighter future.
It wouldn't be right to visit Africa and not see a witch doctor. His little den in a sea container was an incredible mess, full of bits of animals. Most prominent on his desk was a pad of lotto forms. When I pointed it out, he said he had twice won R7,000 (about $1,000). So whatever skill he has in potions, it obviously does not extend to reading the future. He may have been speaking in Zulu, because I could only catch every tenth word, one of which was pregnancy. That sounded dangerous, so with much frantic nodding and smiling, we parted happily.
Langa is the first township outside Cape Town where blacks were forcibly removed to during apartheid, and while it is still a poor area, residents often own their own homes, and in some parts, there are restaurants and boarding houses. Groups gather on street corners for church services, smartly dressed in their black suits.
Couldn't resist photographing this young guy playing with a box of cigarettes. Not quite the Malboro Man.
The most common form of shop is sea containers, converted into all types of entrepreneurialism. Our tour host explains that while most of the economic power remains with the whites, such as ownership of land and businesses, the political power rests with the blacks and coloureds, because they are 90% of the population. It is therefore essential that they work together. He says the Rugby World Cup did not capture the 90% in the same way the Football World Cup has because rugby was not their game. However, the recent final of the Super 14 rugby series held in Soweto amazed most of the population: a rugby game in Soweto attended by whites was unprecedented. Now everyone is loving the World Cup together, it has opened most African eyes to the possibility of a brighter future.
posted by Graham Hand | 9:43 AM
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