Langa

Today we went on a fieldtrip to Langa, one of the townships in the area. Langa is the oldest Township in Cape Townn, and also one of the smallest, at a population of about 250,000. The largest township in Cape Town and second largest in South Africa is Khayelitsha(first is Soweto in Gauteng), with a population of over 1.3 million.

Townships were formed during apartheid to separate Black Africans from Coloureds and Whites. Housing was built by the government but homes were not built quickly enough and the result was thousands of informal settlements, or houses built out of scrap and wood by people.

In Langa, as in other townships, the level of housing and economic prosperity differs among its inhabitants. Some of the houses we saw housed professionals such as doctors and lawyers, in homes that could cost over R300,000. On the other end of the spectrum were the informal settlements, small shacks often built out of metal and cardboard where people did not even have running water. In between these were small homes, some sleeping up to ten people (about three families) to a single room, with three or four rooms in a house.

During our tour we visited all types of houses, led by a guide from Langa. Our Xhosa teacher, Nkosinathi, also went with us, as he had lived in Langa for 15 years before becoming a student and then a teacher at UWC. In our tour we visited a pre-school where children gave a little singing and dancing performance for us, which was wonderful. Their dancing was unbelievable, but I can confidently say that small children of any culture are for the most party very tone deaf, and very loud when they sing. We also got to eat a traditional Xhosa meal (tripe, "live" chicken, curry, lamb, etc). AND we got the opportunity to practice our Xhosa speaking skills with people, which was also a great experience.

I took pictures and hopefully they'll be posted up for you guys sometime this week.

Salani Kakuhle (stay well)