Port Elizabeth township tours

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Township tour feeding scheme in Port Elizabeth.

© Chris Marais

On a midweek Port Elizabeth township tour you'll find places like Zwide, KwaZakhele and Korsten humming with activity. A troop of streetwise goats look left and right before crossing. A few mothers stand gossiping at a tap collecting water while their children play.

Further along on your township tour, you'll find a market. On sale, everything from fruit and clothes to beaded cell phone holders and doilies. Under an awning, a hairdresser shaves all the hair off his customer's head - they call it the chiskop look.

There's nothing quite like Port Elizabeth township tours - they are so full of life.

Then you'll come to the Ramaphosa informal settlement, a maze of close-set shanty houses. The poverty is unavoidable. But in the very centre is a joyous pre-school and nutrition scheme, funded by a trust set up by the tour company that is hosting you. Here volunteers chat while they cut up vegetables and prepare nutritious porridge for hungry youngsters.

Your guide on this township tour knows everyone around here. This is where he grew up, and he easily guides you through the experience, candidly answering all questions. Later you find that the tour company has given him a share in the business.  

Last stop is a primary school. The children, all shiny-faced, array themselves in a group and sing the most delightful hymns. You cannot help notice that there are no bookshelves, no posters and no reference books.

Maybe this is something you'd like to help them with, and you talk to your guide. Whether you do or not, you know that your mere presence here today on this township tour in the Eastern Cape has helped uplift a community with a fascinating history, and has immeasurably deepened your experience of South Africa.