District Six Museum -
District Six now
Map from the museum about who used to live where
Bo-Kaap
Today was sunny in the morning but overcast and then raining in the afternoon and was 22 degrees. But this did not affect our day. At 9am we where picked up for a Township tour. We went first to Bo-Kaap, a colored area with really pretty houses – pink, blue, green. Then we went to District Six, this was a colored area, when under apartied the government decided that they wanted to make the area white so they moved everybody out and into the townships and bowled the houses down. Some places have been re-built on it buy they ran out of time (before apartied was over) to re-build on it. Now the land is part of retribution claims. Our tour guide was a colored man who lived in district six then was moved into one of the townships. We also went to the District Six museum, which has memorabilia from the areas that people still had. After that we drove around 3 townships – Langa, Gugulethu and Khaileitsha. These are all black areas. The government have built some low economic houses that are just a wooden shells with plumbing and electricity, but the majority of people will live in shacks, with no plumbing and communal toilets and taps. One wire is attached to some of the nicer ones, which means they have one power outlet. The government has put up floodlights for the night time. We saw the markets that sold – water containers, second had clothing and the meat market. They brought the ship there, killed them, then skinned them and put them on the Brie, all in the same places. You could see the sheep still breathing as they began to skin them. We didn’t get out of the car whilst we where here as the guide said it probably wasn’t safe. There where also ‘businesses’ there, hairdressers, phone shops, bars etc. We drove through some traditionally colored districts before being dropped back at the hotel at 1pm. It was a real eye opening experience. The guide made the statement “ people will do anything if they are hungry”, this really rang out for me whilst we where there, that some of these children/ adults will be hungry and the extreme poverty that exists and the disparity between those people who have and those people who don’t.
The irony is that we went back home and enjoyed lunch at the waterfront and watched NZ beat England in the rugby. We spent the evening relaxing in the hotel and getting another early night, all this sightseeing is exhausting.
District Six now
Map from the museum about who used to live where
Bo-Kaap
Today was sunny in the morning but overcast and then raining in the afternoon and was 22 degrees. But this did not affect our day. At 9am we where picked up for a Township tour. We went first to Bo-Kaap, a colored area with really pretty houses – pink, blue, green. Then we went to District Six, this was a colored area, when under apartied the government decided that they wanted to make the area white so they moved everybody out and into the townships and bowled the houses down. Some places have been re-built on it buy they ran out of time (before apartied was over) to re-build on it. Now the land is part of retribution claims. Our tour guide was a colored man who lived in district six then was moved into one of the townships. We also went to the District Six museum, which has memorabilia from the areas that people still had. After that we drove around 3 townships – Langa, Gugulethu and Khaileitsha. These are all black areas. The government have built some low economic houses that are just a wooden shells with plumbing and electricity, but the majority of people will live in shacks, with no plumbing and communal toilets and taps. One wire is attached to some of the nicer ones, which means they have one power outlet. The government has put up floodlights for the night time. We saw the markets that sold – water containers, second had clothing and the meat market. They brought the ship there, killed them, then skinned them and put them on the Brie, all in the same places. You could see the sheep still breathing as they began to skin them. We didn’t get out of the car whilst we where here as the guide said it probably wasn’t safe. There where also ‘businesses’ there, hairdressers, phone shops, bars etc. We drove through some traditionally colored districts before being dropped back at the hotel at 1pm. It was a real eye opening experience. The guide made the statement “ people will do anything if they are hungry”, this really rang out for me whilst we where there, that some of these children/ adults will be hungry and the extreme poverty that exists and the disparity between those people who have and those people who don’t.
The irony is that we went back home and enjoyed lunch at the waterfront and watched NZ beat England in the rugby. We spent the evening relaxing in the hotel and getting another early night, all this sightseeing is exhausting.
