A Change of Plans

We arrived at the District Six Museum in Cape Town a short while before closing time, but that was good news on a day when everything did not go exactly as planned.

Our flight was delayed so that by the time we arrived at our hotel where we were welcomed with refreshing fruit juice, it was too late to go on the scheduled drive up Table Mountain and Signal Hill to witness the firing of the noon gun. Which was a good thing, because the weather was misty with drizzling rain and the beautiful view of Cape Town would be obscured.

Fortunately lunch was still on and the Ocean Basket at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront was warm and cosy, the service fast and good and the food – seafood of course – well prepared and very tasty.

During lunch the scheduled trip to Robben Island had to be cancelled due to poor weather conditions, but in typical South African fashion a swop was negotiated: We would go on our Guided Township Tour instead and do the island later.

And that’s how we ended up at District Six Museum. On 11 February 1966, the part of Cape Town called District Six, was declared a so-called White Area. At the time it had a mixed population of several races, such as Cape Malay, Coloured, Black, Asian, and White, all living in harmony with a wide variety of cultures and religions.

As a result of the declaration, thousands of people were removed from District Six and moved to other areas. Almost all the houses were demolished. A few churches and other religious places remained behind. It caused great hardship to the people involved and as one of our group said, “It was pretty bad”.

Our driver and guide of the day, Dan Dunn, a big, friendly chap, was one of the people who had lived there, and he pointed out on the huge map of the area on the floor of the museum, where he had written his name on the street where they used to live.

We then made our way to Gugu Sthebe in Langa, a centre where the Naledi Project is run which teaches jobless people skills in the arts so that they can generate an income for themselves. The centre has some amazing artwork on the outside wall.

But it looked like they were closed for the day. Fortunately Vuyo came out and was kind enough to open the pottery room for us on a Saturday afternoon and give us a quick lecture on how to make beautiful originally designed pottery which is microwave, oven and dishwasher safe. Some of us were keen do to our own thing, but our bubble was burst when we were told that the four firings of the clay and paint took six days. We had to console ourselves with the beautiful sandpaintings on sale and display.

As it was getting a bit late, we returned to the hotel for a welcome rest and on the way drove through a few of the suburbs, or townships as they are called, including Bonteheuwel (“many-coloured hill”) where several people in the town centre were “braai”-ing (barbecue) stacks of meat for sale to passersby.

In these areas the houses are generally small with many backyard mechanics and small “spaza” shops in a container or garage or bedroom, but the one thing which was apparent, was that most of the people walking in the busy street, were happy and relaxed and it made us look forward to tomorrow when hopefully our plans work out.

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