In a frighteningly short time – a matter of 49 days in fact – a great number of overseas tourists will be descending on South Africa in order to watch soccer and see the country.  I won’t go into the expected visitor numbers, the infrastructural challenges, the politics of the whole shebang – that’s a wholly different conversation - but what is certain is that at least a few extra people will arrive and will be keen to experience something uniquely African.

The obvious suggestion would be for them to go off and visit a township.  So  …..   the tourist asks at their hotel desk, or enquires of their B&B host, about a township tour…. To find that local people just don’t do township tours.  Tour operators who conduct township tours tell me that less than 2% of their clientele are South Africans. South Africans think that township tours or visits are unsafe, are unsavoury (“I don’t want to go and look at poor people…”) or lacking in interest.  They give them a bad press and don’t recommend them to visitors. I might be sticking out my neck here, but this is unacceptable. If we are expecting petrol station attendants, bank tellers, supermarket cashiers and car guards to welcome tourists and tell them about the wonders of the country, then it is incumbent upon hotel concierges, travel agents and guest house owners to try out one of South Africa’s most unique travel experiences themselves.  It is important to see how the bulk of our population live. Townships contain some of the most vibrant insights into our culture. They are huge, sprawling, multi-cultural crucibles of life. They contain shopping centres, craft markets, million-rand homes, sports arenas, hospitals, parks, music clubs, shebeens, schools and row upon row of identical houses and flats. The streets are always heaving with activity, from kids walking to or from school, local toughs hanging out on street corners, mothers gossiping over their washing, fathers playing dice or card games, news exchanges at shop doors, personal intrigues going on in quiet corners.  The best time to visit a township, in my opinion, is at dusk, when the yellow lights are starting to come on in the houses, the music spills from the spaza shop-windows, the kids are playing cricket or soccer by streetlight, scattering to let your car through, young people are heading home for supper and the smells of cooking waft out onto the street.  In comparison with suburbs, where streets and houses are dark and quiet behind high walls and the whole world shuts at 6pm, the townships are vibrant with light and music and conversation until late. Township food, as well, is nothing to be scoffed at.  My most memorable meal, ever, was eaten while sitting on the lino floor of a shebeen in Ezakheni township in Ladysmith, with a huge turmeric-flavoured steak flopping over the sides of my paper plate, under a heap of stiff pap, smothered in chakalaka and pepped up with tomato relish. Soweto is obviously a must-see, as it contains the homes of both Nelson and Winnie Mandela and many historic sites of interest.  It is a collection of 12 townships, all under the banner of South Western Townships, and ranges from the hoity-toity Diepkloof, the middle-class Jabavu to lower-class White City and a number of different settlements in between. There are many companies that do township tours to Soweto, using taxis, busses, trains or even bicycles.  Martien Jonker has teamed up with a Soweto local to offer bike tours through the world’s most famous township. Get more info at www.sowetocycletours.com Khayelitsha is second to Soweto in population, half an hour from Cape Town city centre.  Nomvuyo’s tours will take you on a township visit, to meet the people of Khayelitsha and do some shopping for clothing or crafts, play pool and drink beer in a shebeen, have tea with locals, or spend a night at Vicky’s B&B (which incidentally started out as a two-bedroomed shack but is now doing so well from tourism that Vicky has built a ten-bedroom complex and built up a tourism business that includes most of her friends and neighbours). Nomvuyo offers special interest tours for doctors wishing to visit clinics, teachers wanting to visit schools, photographers wanting vibrant and colourful pictures.

“A lot of people who come on my tours tell me that at first they think they might be intruding by visiting people in their homes,” says Jenny (Nomvuyo is her Xhosa name, meaning ‘joy’).  “But at the end of the tour they comment on the happiness and warmth of the people, how proud they are of their township and their achievements.  Most people say that the tour was nothing like they were expecting.”  www.nomvuyos-tours.co.za

While it is quite acceptable for overseas tourists to wallow next to swimming pools in hotels, or gently chug around in game drive vehicles, it is just as important for them to see how South Africans live.  And while they’re at it, we may as well see how other South Africans live as well.