This post was written by Karen Hattaway, Founder of Life Beyond The Room and Katie Archibald-Woodward, Travel Designer at Life Beyond the Room.
In 2023, I had the pleasure of visiting Tanzania and the opportunity to start tapping into a magnificent and diverse culture. While the primary focus of my trip was a safari in the Serengeti (highly recommend), I already couldn’t wait to come back to this magical continent for an immersive experience amongst its people. (Although I of course loved being amongst the animals!) Exactly one year later, my wish came true – a business opportunity led me to explore travel experiences for clients in Cape Town, South Africa.
When my colleague Katie and I began reaching out to our networks to get connected to locals in the tourism space, we quickly discovered the polarity between tour guides who were delighted to share with us the life in the townships and those who saw it as an invasive sign of disrespect. Both arguments seemed unboundedly powerful, so Katie and I spent intentional time meditating on the subject. We first asked the question; what is our intention? The answer came easy to us.
We wanted to broaden our perspective, become culturally aware of certain “living conditions,” while at the same time making a positive impact in the lives of those we touched.
As our reasoning sounded quite compelling, we decided to venture into the unknown world of the townships. Katie went to Khayelitsha with a guide who did not live in the township and had close ties with a school. I went into Langa with a local guide who lived within the community. When we joined again for dinner in the evening, we were quite surprised to discover how different our experiences had been.
Langa
At the beginning of the visit, my guide Chipper explained how tourism has impacted the community financially, giving life to new small businesses, supporting local artists, bringing supplies to schools that couldn’t otherwise afford them and humanizing a way of living that adds richness to the culture of Cape Town. Moreover, tourism has helped lessen the stigma of unsafety that townships carry with them. (Please note that because of cultural sensitives and language differences, we still recommend visiting any township in the company of a local.)
Before this experience, I quickly jumped to the conclusion that we should help people get out of townships. And while there is nothing wrong with this cause, I missed this important question, “do you want to move out?”
Chipper’s response was: “People either stay because it’s cheap or because of the heart.” His reason was of course the latter. He has been a professional tour guide for several years and could afford to build a life outside of Langa. However, “these are my people!” he passionately responded. He chooses to stay and bring positive change and hope from within.
After visiting the Langa museum on the youth uprisings from 1974 to 1985 and bringing school supplies to Makone Primary School, we meandered inside the only coffee shop in the community, LT Mobile Bar. On top of being the best espresso I’ve had in South Africa, young owner Luyanda Jodo told me the story of how he was able to pursue his entrepreneurial dream, partially thanks to the help that tourism brought to the community.
While he was working for the Hilton, he wanted to start his own coffee business but had no resources to do so. During his breaks at work, he began selling coffee he made with a hot water carafe and coffee grind at traffic lights. With a background in mixology, his coffee tasted better than it sounds. Or so he told me! One day, his manager saw Luyanda from the window of the hotel and when he came back, he called him in and gifted him an old Italian machine that could make anything from the cappuccino to the Americano. With a little bit of elbow grease, he now had a working machine! All he needed was a space. Thankfully, the gracious art gallery next to his current shop agreed to rent him a small unused room at a bargain. Luyanda is now living his dream passionately sharing his craft and his story with visitors and locals alike.
We also visited a home that housed 38 children who were either homeless or had abusive parents. This home is run solely on the goodness of a woman’s heart and donations from visitors. While we felt compassionate, there was no pity. We were educated on their need for food and put a plan in place to continue contributing.
Tourism also makes a significant impact in supporting the local craftsmanship.
Purchasing a beautiful skirt or colorful beaded stuffed animals straight from the artists goes a long way. Not to mention the delectable African cuisine at Lelapa, Shirley’s restaurant; a great place for relaxation and integration after the guided visit.
All throughout our visit, Chipper wanted to make sure that I interacted with the locals to hear their stories directly from them. I was grateful to be with him because some required translation.
In Langa, there is an area called Beverly Hills with very nice homes belonging to lawyers, doctors, business owners, etc. I asked if there was a separation between them and the rest of the community and he told me quite the opposite. People who live in the lower-income areas look up to those doctors and lawyers as they bring hope to the rest of the township. They are also the advocates for positive change in the community; not by getting people out but by improving the life in.
The reality is that there are more people moving in than people moving out so why not replace:
- Poverty tourism with hope tourism
- Segregation with Integration
- Judgment with compassion
Khayelitsha
When the gate opened to the school property and we pulled into the parking lot, I felt a wave of nostalgia come over me as the façade of Isiphiwo school came into view. My parents had visited here some years ago with a group of retired educators led by a couple whose nonprofit I had designed a website for. Through the website photos and content I had learned about Isiphiwo and wondered if one day I would get to visit. To my amazement, that day had actually arrived and my heart was already filling with unanticipated warmth and connection.
It’s a cheerful and colorful building, bright white and blue, so fitting for a school and yet quite uncommon back home. We were met by administrators bustling about their offices but paused to offer kind smiles. We walked through the entry hall and entered into a huge indoor gym. Now I felt I could have been at any school in the United States. I gazed around and noticed the months of the year were painted along the four walls and each was paired with an inspirational world. January: Commitment. For a moment my mind paused to consider, “What am I currently choosing to commit to?” It was a nice exercise.
It also struck another cord, just the day before I had visited St. George’s Cathedral and hanging on the wall of the Dean’s office was a print of Basil February, the first colored member from the MK (the uMkhonto we Sizwe meaning “Spear of the Nation” in Xhosa, Zulu and Ndebele, the paramilitary branch of the African National Congress founded by Nelson Mandela) to lose his life during the struggle for liberation. The Dean explained to me that many enslaved people were named according to the month in which they were sold into slavery, a practice known as Cape Slave Naming. I considered how much Cape Town had changed in 30 years since apartheid had officially been abolished in 1994, and how much could still change to be a more equitable and thriving community for all.
And Isiphiwo was an example of just that. It is in a township, a racially segregated area designated for non-whites. With the Population Registration act of 1950 separate townships were created for the three non-white race groups: black, colored, and Indian. Khayelitha was established in 1983 for people designated as black. While apartheid has ended segregation and inequity remain. And so does resiliency.
The school’s halls and classrooms are buzzing with joyous energy. The kids are excited to have visitors and for an excuse to pause from class activities. They are engrossed in the dynamic social life that comes with this age, evidenced by their shrieks of delight, semi-playful fist fights, and arm in arm bonding I noticed during their recess time. So many elements of the school reminded me of many other schools I had visited in the United States, and I wondered at the fluidity and connection of that. I didn’t know what to expect of a school in a township, and I was happy to find that it felt like a lively, engaging environment.
A unique element to Isiphiwo is that it has had a long-standing relationship with Rotary International. This relationship has brought devoted educators and community leaders to its doors for decades. One of those was Biffy, my guide for the day, a white woman who learned Xhosa, motivated by her deep interest in the black community and the schools Rotary was partnered with. Her bond with the school is evidenced by a mural painted in her honor on one of the new buildings reading “Mama Bee” with an adorable smiling bee next to her name. The partnership with Rotary has also supported the creation of a computer lab, art room filled with crafting materials and a piano, and an almost completed set of classrooms, which would help reduce class sizes from the 50s in some to 30s.
What caught my attention the most were the garden spaces. Every day the students receive a cooked lunch that includes at least one vegetable from the school garden. I happened to be there just as lunch was about to be served, so I chatted with the cooks and looked at what was on the menu. Their cart held four large containers of food: one with cooked cabbage, another with carrots, a pot of fish stew, and another pot with rice. It all looked so nourishing and delicious I wanted to try them myself. They were a far cry from the Hot Pockets and iceberg lettuce drenched in ranch dressing served on a styrofoam tray at my elementary school. It made me begin to imagine and dream what our schools could be like back home. I have seen a few school gardens cropping up here and there and that’s encouraging. I really had to give it to the cooks, not only were they cooking this healthy, fresh food for 1,300 kids a day, but they were also precariously carting it around the uneven campus to each classroom where the students then ate at their desks. Fortunately, I learned this would soon be changing and the kids would be leaving the classrooms to get their food from the kitchen and eat in the newly built covered dining area outside. The cooks would get a break, the students would get fresh air and the teachers would have some kid-free time!
Lastly, the flower gardens. Dappling the blacktop near the vegetable garden were a collection of raised beds filled with brightly colored flowers and bushes. They were cheerful to the eye and spirit. What also cheered my heart just as much, or more, were how they were built. Biffy pointed out they were constructed with eco bricks. Eco bricks are made by cutting off the bottom of 2 liter soda bottles and stuffing them with used plastic. You then stack them and seal them with cement, and voila, you have a walled in flower bed, or a lined sidewalk, etc. It was such an innovative way to repurpose this material that plagues our world and it reminded me that with our imaginations we are able to transform anything into something positive. We still need to reduce our reliance on plastics and recycle what we can, which Isiphiwo was also doing with their multiple recycling containers for various materials, but the reality is plastic continues to exist and we can all take a look at our own lives and consider, what can I repurpose? What are the eco bricks awaiting to be discovered in our own environments? What flowerbeds do we have yet to make What beauty we have yet to create in our world? What inspiration do we have yet to shine by our ways of showing up in the world?
I left the school feeling inspired and encouraged and deeply grateful. And also with the wonder of, what futures awaited these children and the communities they would influence by their sheer presence?
“Poverty tourism” disconnects us, “hope tourism” connects us.
We always find what we’re seeking.
If what we’re seeking is hope, love, and freedom, we will find these experiences no matter where we go.
The choice is ours.
