If you ever go on a proper Township Tour the guide will probably take you to one of the local schools or creches that their company supports. One of the tours I went on a little while ago took us to a community project that started as a feeding scheme for small children and developed into a day care and pre-school. Although the tour company gives the project a percentage of the fee that tourists pay for the tour, visitors…
The Khoisan people were the original inhabitants of much of southern Africa. Having had a relatively lighter skin color than most black Africans, evidence shows that they lived in the area long before the Black people moving down the east and west coasts of Africa arrived in the south or European colonization. The Khoisan people are divided into two cultures. The hunter gatherer San (commonly known as Bushmen) and the pastoral Khoi (sometimes known as Hottentots). The San was found…
In the spirit of tomorrow being Halloween, I decided to do a horror picture tonight. But not a conventional horror pic, something different. In the townships they sell most goods from the side of the road. In this case chickens are sold "life or plucked". I thought it to be an interesting photo to have the life chicken in the front with the plucked ones in the back. As I took the pic the chicken looked back at the plucked…
Red Location is one of the oldest settled Black Townships of Port Elizabeth. It derives its name from a series of corrugated iron barrack buildings, which are rusted a deep red colour. Building materials for these sheds stem from the First South African War (1899-1902) structures - the Boer concentration camp at Uitenhage as well as the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at De Aar.Visitors to the Red Location Museum are not treated as consumers but active participants. The conventions of representing…
On my recent trip accompanying the Chinese Travel Services delegation around Cape Town and more importantly the Port Elizabeth area, one of our overnight stops was Kwantu Private Game Reserve. Kwantu is one of the only game reserves in our area that offers visitors a traditional dance performance as part of the stay at the reserve. The dance group comes from a nearby town and it is great to see the reserve owners supporting such a group. Here the group…
What is a smiley? In this case its not the friendly little neighbour boy peeking over the wall or the little round smiley face you draw or comment with on some forums. It is a township delicacy. The head of a sheep provides for some sought after meat for tired and hungry workers going home after a long day's work. These images I got at Njoli Square in the heart of Port Elizabeth's townships. Here traders sell everything from traditional…
Tonight we had our annual kerk basaar (church fate). It normally is a big occation with everybody streaming. Most popular are the pancakes. People stand in long lines to get what I call church pancakes. Not like the one's I make at home. No, each one is perfect. The men have been braaiing (barbecueing) since early afternoon and hamburger patties, sosaties (kibabs) and boerewors (farm style sausage) are sizzling over the coals. The cakes have been baked, the pudding made…
This past weekend I was at the Getaway Show. It is South Africa's premier travel and outdoor consumer show and held anually in Johannesburg. As expected the Western Cape also had an exhibit at the show and they brought along a four man Cape Coon (Kaapse Klopse) band to make traditional Cape music. The Cape Coons are as traditional to the Cape as Table Mountain is.I got the following off Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaapse_Klopse) just to explain what the Cape Coons are:The…