Township Tour

            In my previous blog post about the campus protests, I mentioned townships. Essentially, they are ghettos of Cape Town where residents live, in primarily overly occupied shacks. On March 6^th, I did my first tour of Langa. Led by a local, the tour consisted of walking through their shacks and meeting locals. One old woman who I spoke with invited me into her approximately 6x6ft bedroom. There were three twin beds squished into it, with no space for anything else, and all their belongings on shelves above their beds. She explained to me that she shares her bed with two other people, three people share the second bed, and four people in the last bed. Ten people share that tiny room together.

            Interestingly though, that is not what the tour is about. They do not open up their homes to gain pity from the more well off, but to provide insight into their culture. The men who I spoke with beamed with such pride about their lives growing up in Langa, centered and focused around family. They do not view a difference between culture and religion, or even daily life and religion, it is all so thoroughly intertwined. They shared with us some of their traditional customs.

An entire part of their territory is gated off and when a boy turns sixteen, he goes to the other side of the land for about five weeks. The family invests all of their money into an elaborate celebration for him, filled with sacrificing animals and drinking alcohol. The boy is then circumcised, without any anesthesia or medication, and spends the next months engaging in secret tasks. They could not share with us the details of his time on the other side because they view it as sacred ritual. Once he returns, he is considered a man and must acquire all new belongings, clothing, and even a new bed. He is then ready to marry, but he can wait if he wants; it is common for men to wait until their 30’s to marry. Girls in Langa also have a ritual at age sixteen but since our tour guides were men, they were unaware of them because only women can know. Customs like this, though they seem so outrageous to us, show how important of a role history plays in the life of South Africans. In many cases, even if a healthier or safer option is now available in modern day life, they remain true to and stick to the traditions of their ancestors.

            Touring Langa proved to be a pertinent part of my experience in South Africa because the townships compose a significant percentage of the national population. They receive substantial financial pension from the government yet still acquire such minimal possessions for themselves. Their simple, yet of course restricting, lifestyles can be viewed as depressing, but are truly just inspiring.