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Apartheid brought changes to Cape Town as District 6 was declared a white area and coloured residents were forced to move

By Kathleen Chapman

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- The Austrian tourist wore oversized sunglasses, a fanny pack, chunky gold jewelry and dress pumps. Exclaiming over the scenery, she snapped photos with machine-gun speed as her tour guide waited for her to get back on the minibus.

The woman didn't capture a typical postcard panorama. She was photographing Cape Town's Langa township, where butchers shoo flies from sheep heads, starving dogs sprawl listlessly in the road and children dig for treasure in piles of trash.

According to Cape Town Tourism Director Sheryl Ozinsky, township tours have steadily increased in popularity since South Africa's first all-race elections in 1994. She estimates that 5 to 10 percent of international visitors tour these neighborhoods while in Cape Town.

Travel books are beginning to reflect the trend: Fodor's guide to South Africa lists contact information for One City Tours, one of at least eight Cape Town companies specializing in township and cultural tourism.

And last month, the city announced plans to make Lookout Hill, a giant sand dune in the Khayelitsha township, South Africa's first national tourist site in a township. This development coincides with the national tourism bureau's push to market township tours as a vital part of the South African experience.

"People who visit these days want to see Mandela's country," says Thope Lekau, whose Khayelitsha home is a stop on many tours. "And townships are the heart of Mandela's people."

Tourists visiting Cape Town are seeking more than a scenic port town, as cultural tour companies climb in numbers

"Township tourism reflects the miracle of this country's transformation more than the traditional white areas," Ozinsky says. "It's about where we've come from and what challenges face us. Lots of tourists just want a fantasy experience, but many, many more want the reality."

Township residents say tourism has been a mixed blessing -- some see it as an intrusion, while others are benefiting from the financial and cultural exchanges the tours offer. For all, the new industry is driving another wedge in the walls built by decades of apartheid, which created hundreds of black and coloured townships inaccessible to whites and severely limited interaction among races.

On the downside, tour guides say too many companies run safari-style drive-throughs, where tourists snap photos and gawk at the surrounding poverty from behind the windows of an air-conditioned bus.

Allison Masters, director of Africultural Tours, says she saw one guide stop his bus in Guguletu township and allow tourists to throw money at the people below. Eldrid Petersen, a guide for Grassroutes Tours, was embarrassed by two guests who demanded that local children dance for their cameras.

Many township residents are still alarmed by visitors in their neighborhood, most of whom are white. After seeing a group of tourists get off the bus at Lekau's house, her neighbor rushed over, assuming Lekau was in trouble.

"Whenever we saw white faces before," Lekau explains, "it was always the police."

Michelle Govran, who works with Satour, the national tourism office, to develop tourism in the townships, says the tours have had some "negative impact. There has been invasion of privacy, people barging into homes. That has been horrible for the community."

But guides insist the tours are not an attempt to make a voyeuristic theme park out of poverty, saying they brief tourists on acceptable behavior and offer them an opportunity to interact with residents.

Africultural Tours, for example, allows tourists to meet locals in township taverns, jazz clubs and restaurants, and encourages them to support local artists and community projects.

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At Nozukile Educare Center in Khayelitsha, preschoolers no higher than tourists' knees line up to sing the national anthem and "Baa Baa Black Sheep" for visitors.

But they are not simply putting on a show, their teacher says; that would be insulting. The tourists must sing back. So, on one recent Cape Rainbow Tour, German and Swiss tourists struggled through "Frere Jacques" for the curious children.

Tourists also can spend a night in a township. After asking her guests what amenities they expect in a bed-and-breakfast -- Do they mind if their accommodations do not include running water? Are they willing to sleep on the floor? Would they share a two-room shack with 10 other people? -- Masters matches them with two dozen Khayelitsha families who have opened their homes to tourists.

Guides say such cultural exchanges can benefit township residents, many of whom will never leave Cape Town.

"They are being exposed to the world through these tourists," says Grassroutes director Enver Mally.

Says Lekau: "Some days, I have two buses full of people. There's no room to sit down, so I have people in my kitchen and everywhere, just talking about everything. They've come from Germany, Ireland, Florida, Michigan, Denver, Denmark. Because of apartheid, we never had the opportunity to share our cultures before."

Daytrippers director Steven Thomas, who began giving township tours in 1993 after tourists asked about squatter camps they saw on their way to the Cape winelands, says the exchanges also open the eyes of the visitors.

"A lot of people don't want to be confronted with how other people live; they want to eat their McDonald's and wash their Ferarris and get on with it," he says. "But we think it's important to make them feel uncomfortable, to take them there and make them see it."

Dumisani Mangcu, a Daytrippers guide who estimates 90 percent of white South Africans have not spent time in a township, says whites could benefit from a tour of their own country. Indeed, several South African corporations, including the weapons manufacturer Denel, have sent their white executives on township tours.

Many tourists, says Grassroutes guide Petersen, "break down sobbing. They say they are sorry for being white."

Adds Thomas: "People with money will whine about wilted lettuce, fights with boyfriends. Basically what these tours do is help them get a life."

The tours also helps township residents earn a living in a place where jobs are scarce. In some of Cape Town's townships, only 30 percent of the residents are formally employed.

Govran, of Satours, helps teach residents in Langa to become official guides and open businesses that cater to tourists.

Lekau is one of her students, and she hopes to convert her home near Lookout Hill into a bed-and-breakfast. Lekau already prepares traditional African dishes for international guests.

She encourages others in the community to become involved in the industry: "I tell people, 'There are no jobs out there, so let's be creative and take advantage of the tourists. Let's think as entrepreneurs.'"

Local craftspeople already rely on trade with tourists. Daytrippers Tours stop at a store where women sell woven rugs and postcards made from recycled newspapers.

"They've seen that their skills can literally keep food on the table," Daytrippers' Thomas says.

Tours also have generated unexpected rewards for the townships.

After visiting a one-room schoolhouse in Langa, tourists from Liverpool, England, shipped the teachers and their 100 students a large air freight container packed with desks, chairs, books and other classroom supplies. After removing the contents, teachers converted the empty container into an office. Two Howard University students who visited recently gave the school nearly $500.

When a large group of Japanese tourists visited the townships this February, they brought sewing machines, bicycles and school supplies to distribute. And last Thursday, a family from England donated $5,000 to a "war on hunger" project after touring a township soup kitchen.

Thomas says he is heartened by the rapid change he sees in his guests' perception of the townships.

"When they enter the townships they are afraid of everyone; they expect angry black people living in a war zone," he says. "But they see there is no gunfire, no hellfire."

After a few hours, he says, they are making pen pals and chatting about soccer with township residents.

"It's a win-win situation," says Grassroutes' Mally. "Although I sometimes wonder how the tourists at the waterfront would feel if people from the townships all came down to stare at them."

Kathleen Chapman is a senior in Emory University's journalism program and is interning with the Cape Times newspaper in Cape Town.