A Big White Van: Township Tours In South Africa
By Blair Kaiser

We came to South Africa from different countries, but we all had things in common. We were eight white, middle-class, educated tourists interested in learning about a culture very far removed from our reality. None of us knew what to expect when we signed up for the Township Tour. This tour would take us from grandiose Dutch-style houses with landscaped gardens to the impoverished shantytowns with little sign of sod. We were in for a lesson in diversity and cooperation, drastic highs and lows, and the disparity and racial divides within communities otherwise considered one.

While driving us through different neighborhoods in Cape Town, our guide Jared shared personal stories of growing up under apartheid, the racism that separated him from other castes and the bias that still exists today. You could hear twinges of resentment in his voice.

Growing up the child of a black mother and an Indian father, he had been stuck somewhere between identities – not quite the lowest on the totem pole, but far from the top. As a reaction to the experiences of his youth, Jared had devoted his adult life to breaking down barriers through education. Jared wanted us to have an honest experience, one that would leave us with a more encompassing idea of Cape Town, rather than a sanitized guidebook itinerary.

The irony was not only in the new, white van that paraded us around, but also in the glass windows that separated “us” from “them.” We could drive as far into the depths of despair as we wanted, but we still had the comfort of air conditioning and the reassurance of safety and security behind the van’s locked doors. As tourists we could never truly grasp the essence of the culture and the hardships that still color its day-to-day reality.

The sun reflected off the mass of tin township roofs and other scrap metal that formed the skeleton of these neighborhoods. Telephone wires were haphazardly strung from leaning poles placed every hundred feet or so. Hundreds of inhabitants shared a single pay phone. Jared told us that most did not have running water or indoor plumbing. Instead, they fetch water from centrally located spigots. Toilets consist of deep holes in the ground with a wooden shack built on top, reminiscent of outhouses in America.

How people were able to discern between individual dwellings was beyond our comprehension since everything seemed to chaotically run together. Even further beyond our comprehension was how two million inhabitants resided within these townships.

Pulling off the highway, our first stop was the post office, a small, nondescript building surrounded by a high, metal fence topped with rings of barbed wire. We didn’t get out of the van; we were instructed it wasn’t a safe area. Stray dogs ran by, and plumes of gaseous emissions from the neighboring industrial plants spotted the horizon.

These plants initially sparked the expansion of squatter camps and, eventually, the townships. The plants built housing for thousands of workmen in dorm-like residences years before and shuttled them to and from work.

There was an eerie air of desolation. There were no trees to provide refuge from the sun, rain, or wind. Local townspeople are vulnerable to natural and governmental elements.

Ten years ago, at this spot, Amy Biehl, a white American, was driving friends home to Guguletu Township when a mob of blacks forced her out of her car. They stoned and stabbed her to death, despite her friends’ pleas for mercy. Amy came to South Africa to help with voter registration before the 1994 elections that marked the end of apartheid.

In a surprising twist, Amy’s parents testified for her killers at her amnesty trail. They felt that Amy was on their side; she was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. One of the accused youths said he realized later that Amy was just trying to help South Africa's blacks, and he regretted having taken her life. The two men who took Amy’s life now run her foundation.

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