Friday, July 25, 2008
During the last part of our Africa trip, we went to Cape Town. On our first day in Cape Town, we experienced shark diving, which I will get back to later. However, on our last day, we took a tour of various sights around Cape Town, including a township tour.
A township refers to urban living areas that previously (under Apartheid) were reserved for non-whites (principally black Africans and Coloureds). The townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities, where also the townships that we visited around Cape Town were located.
Before venturing out to the townships, we visited the District Six Museum. The museum serves as a remembrance to the events of the apartheid era as well as the culture and history of an area called District Six, which is the name of a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town. Approximately 60,000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed during the 1970s by the apartheid regime.
By visiting some of the townships, you really get a feel for the tremendous poverty that still exists in South-Africa. Compared with the extreme wealth enjoyed by the people living in the residential area close to our hotel, it is difficult to comprehend that both can exist in the same country.
Our township visit lasted for approximately 3 hours, during which we mainly drove through small streets in the township and looked at shacks and people. Our guide was babbling in a somewhat understandable English for most of the trip, and was actually able to provide some interesting information. A guide, preferably a black one for safety reasons, is recommended for visits to the townships.
A highlight was a visit to a traditional "medical clinic". With AIDS being a major problem in the townships, let us hope HIV positive individuals visit a real doctor instead of their local con/medical artist. Some colleagues of these village doctors (i.e. witch-doctors) in Tanzania have recently caused a killing spree of albinos, as the witch-doctors say using albino body parts in a potion can make people rich. Sounds like a great theory to me. However, the people in the townships will probably get richer (or at least healthier) much quicker if they instead kill their witch doctors.
A township refers to urban living areas that previously (under Apartheid) were reserved for non-whites (principally black Africans and Coloureds). The townships were usually built on the periphery of towns and cities, where also the townships that we visited around Cape Town were located.
Before venturing out to the townships, we visited the District Six Museum. The museum serves as a remembrance to the events of the apartheid era as well as the culture and history of an area called District Six, which is the name of a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town. Approximately 60,000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed during the 1970s by the apartheid regime.By visiting some of the townships, you really get a feel for the tremendous poverty that still exists in South-Africa. Compared with the extreme wealth enjoyed by the people living in the residential area close to our hotel, it is difficult to comprehend that both can exist in the same country.
Our township visit lasted for approximately 3 hours, during which we mainly drove through small streets in the township and looked at shacks and people. Our guide was babbling in a somewhat understandable English for most of the trip, and was actually able to provide some interesting information. A guide, preferably a black one for safety reasons, is recommended for visits to the townships.
A highlight was a visit to a traditional "medical clinic". With AIDS being a major problem in the townships, let us hope HIV positive individuals visit a real doctor instead of their local con/medical artist. Some colleagues of these village doctors (i.e. witch-doctors) in Tanzania have recently caused a killing spree of albinos, as the witch-doctors say using albino body parts in a potion can make people rich. Sounds like a great theory to me. However, the people in the townships will probably get richer (or at least healthier) much quicker if they instead kill their witch doctors.
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