Instead we had a third option and that was to support a local community, to support a township HOHO (Hop On Hop Off) is working with this local community to help bring awareness to these townships by offering guided walking tours (extra cost which goes straight back to the community). So, we put our hands up, the only ones on the entire bus, to take a stroll through the Imizamo Yethu Township with our guide Kenny. One lady, Linda did join us after she saw that we were going to do this, her friends on the bus were not going to stroll into this community of 25,000, living mostly in corrugated steel walled houses (I use the term house very loosely here). This is the township that the famed Bob Geldoff visited and aided in rebuilding. Bono has also out a lot of cash into this initiative along with others. This is rough Township, you do not walk into here on your own, people were friendly enough but I think this was because we were with Kenny. Most of these steel homes are separated into three rooms, two small bedrooms and a living / kitchen area. This is for a family of six, oh the washroom is up the street some 100 meters, four toilets servicing 20 families, yikes...
The Township is home to about 65 bars (I use this term also very loosely), a bar consists of a steel building, housing a pool table, a small sitting area and a counter with the booze behind it. So this is were the men go, the woman on the other hand go to one of the 65 salons, on site here - again I use this term very loosely. We had a very interesting hour here with Kenny, he is very active in the community trying to rebuild schools and recreation facilities for the youth. Nice guy with a great heart, but I see a very difficult political situation here, not only from within the community but also from the externals of the governing party here in Cape Town and also in the country of South Africa. BTW - the work the Irish, Germans and Australians have done here is great, many homes now have three small bedrooms and there own flush toilet and bathtub, I say many but not that many. In 2005, the Irish came in with 700 construction workers and over a period of 12 days built 100 of these three bedroom houses. So there is some progress, but I am sure as you can see by the pictures, there is a ways to go yet. This is all on one hand on the other we were met with inquisitive children all very happy to have their picture taken. Life goes on here and we felt very fortunate to experience this today as when we first arrived in Cape Town and saw all the Townships with the shacks and the stories of make sure you never set foot in one especially after dark, to be able to actually visit one was pretty amazing, so we do thanks the people from HOHO and community workers like Kenny to open these doors to give the outside world a glimpse of life here. How many Townships are here in South Africa, there are 115 of which we visited Township number 73.
Kenny did a great job as he made sure that the end of his tour ended not only at the bus pick up spot but also at the exact time a bus came in.
We finished the loop back at the waterfront and tried some authentic South African food for lunch. I had the Springbok Shank (kind of looks like a Gazelle), Jan had Karoo Lamb Bredie. Very nice, mine was like a sweet meat, not gamey but cannot really compare it to anything I had before, I was thinking Kangaroo but no kangaroo does have a gamey taste to it and no it did not taste like crocodile either so this is a stand alone and yes I would recommend it. Jan's lamb was spicy and also very good, apparently this recipe for hers was handed down from generation to generation.
A quick afternoon nap and we were back on the Night Tour on the HOHO, a bit of a wash though as when we got to Signal Hill for the sunset it began to rain, so back in the bus and back down we came. No rain at the V&A Waterfront though as they were setting up for a concert. Apparently today is Earth Day and of the 168 submitted cities around the world a panel from the WWF (World Wildlife Funded for Nature) selected Cape Town as the city of the year 2014. So after all the speeches and presentation we had a wonderful hour plus of music from the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, what a great end to an amazing day with this music under the stars as all the lights were turned off between 8:30 and 9:30 to mark Earth Day hour.
Tomorrow is our free day...
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