I stayed downtown at the Tsogo Sun Waterfront and had the pleasure to meet and dine with executive chef and MasterChef South Africa judge Benny Masekwameng.īenny knows townships well. Cape Town is safe but tourists need to be alert, not alarmed, when walking the streets. The clouds descended to cover the mountain and the seas rose to be too rough for our boat to head out to Robben Island.
They are proud to be from Langa.’’Ĭape Town is perhaps best known for Table Mountain National Park and Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was jailed), although I didn’t get to see either during my three-night stay. “This is where people choose to live because it is their home. “Not everyone who lives here is poor,’’ says our guide. And then the contradiction drives past in the shape of a shiny new Mercedes-Benz that rolls down the road and the driver gets out and walks into one of the small homes. It is best that you visit with local guides.īy our standards, this part of South Africa is poorer than poor. It is home to more than 52,000 people – and 99.1 per cent of them are Black Africans. Over the years, the township has survived its share of violence, its share of rebellion, and more than its share of retribution. Just dirt inside and out.Įstablished in 1927, Langa was designated for Black Africans even before Apartheid. Washing hangs heavily from clothes lines that are strung from one house to the next.
There’s a smattering of brick homes, but there are more homes that are made from sheets of corrugated iron that lean to the left or to the right. For most of us it is a confronting sight – a world of contradiction.
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