Calabash Tours’ Paul Miedema is a trained sociologist and was just about to get into developmental work in 1996 when a year-long backpacking trip with his wife Thandi completely changed his perceptions.
‘In Morocco and Turkey, we were especially struck by the fact that you could stay and eat in people’s homes, and by how important small family-run concerns were, bringing in money at a grassroots level.’
Everyone’s History
On returning to their home town of Port Elizabeth, it became starkly apparent that all the tours offered to visitors were very Eurocentric. They only told part of the story of Nelson Mandela Bay.
‘We were frustrated at what was being offered, but at the same time excited about living within a transforming society. We wanted to create a history tour that covered everyone’s history.’
That was in 1997. By 1999, the Calabash Trust was created to channel the generous donations visitors made to the communities they saw. That money has underwritten seven projects, most focusing on education, feeding and youth development in the Nelson Mandela Bay’s poorest areas.
Calabash Tours was the first township tourism operator in the country to be awarded membership to the Fair Trade in Tourism South Africa label. We booked passage for a day on a Calabash tour.
A Day With Nelson
The first thing you notice about Nelson Sebezela, the Calabash Man, is that it’s clear who his all-time hero is.
‘Nelson! Rolihlahla! Mandela!’ he cheers, fist clenched and waving out of the minibus window. He does this a dozen times, and then launches on a Xhosa For Dummies & Daytrippers course, with an exhibition of Xhosa clicks that reduces everyone to giggles.
We come to the bargain capital of Port Elizabeth, a bustling suburb called Korsten, where you can buy anything from fresh fruit to textiles with, possibly, a few ‘grey goods’ somewhere along the margins of this society.
‘Build It Yourself’ Township
‘This is where my parents lived before the authorities booted them out in 1955’, says Nelson without a glimmer of rancour. ‘They were moved to KwaZakhele, which means “build it yourself”. And that they had to do – when they arrived there was nothing but rows of toilets.’
We drive further past the abandoned salt pans of Missionvale, where the San and Khoi people once worked under the protection of missionaries in the 19th century. They’re gone, and so is the salt – there are just a number of strange ponds reflecting the sky in geometric shapes.
We hear from Nelson about the pensioners who get R720 a month and are often considered the major breadwinners in the family. We find ourselves in the middle-class township of KwaGxaki, where Nelson talks of goats and street committees.
Goats and Ghosts
‘Around here, when you move into a new area, it’s traditional to have a big party, invite all your neighbours and slaughter a goat. They’ll quiz you about where you’ve come from, what you do, who your family is and what made you give up your last place.’
Three ghosts stride across a gully in the distance, and we stop the bus for a closer look. This is tricky, because the guys in our camera sights are young initiates (abaKwetha) who must not be spoken to during this particular time in their lives. But they’re magnificently covered in white clay, and already have that young buck bearing that signifies the end of boyhood. They proudly pose for us in silence, after Nelson has carried out sensitive negotiations.
‘Chickens, Plucked or Live’
Through the townships, small mini-flocks of wary-eyed sheep wander, with no minders in sight.
We pass through the morning markets of KwaZakhele, where women vendors are cooking up a roadside storm. Among the ‘Chickens, Plucked Or Live’ is far stranger fare.
The cheerful Nelson Sebezela is also the serious student. His passion is environmental law and he’s in his third year at Vista University.
The tour continues to the Ramaphosa Squatter Camp, where we visit one of the Calabash projects, the Ramaphosa Nutrition Project that helps to feed hungry children. We also meet the artist Shepherd Xhego at the Ikhaya Arts & Crafts Centre, and come away with a half-metre-tall wire jazzman after a short haggle. And then we buy some Coca Cola for Bilious Michael, the Bad Bunny Chow victim.
Red Location
The trip winds up with a drive through Red Location, the oldest (and, arguably, still the poorest) township in South Africa. More than a century ago, it served as a barracks for British soldiers in the Anglo-Boer War.
Highlight of this route is the Red Location Museum of the People’s Struggle in New Brighton. The award-winning (design) museum sits on the site of the first act of defiance against the apartheid government, ‘when non-white railway workers refused to show their “passes” to enter railway property,’ said judges for the Royal Institute of British Architects’ inaugural Lubetkin Prize.
Links: