August 4, 2012 – District Six Museum Tour – Long Street Party

Today we visited the District Six museum along with the UCT students. Due to my laziness, I stole the explanation from the museum’s website…

“District Six was named the Sixth Municipal District of Cape Town in 1867. Originally established as a mixed community of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, labourers and immigrants, District Six was a vibrant centre with close links to the city and the port. By the beginning of the twentieth century, however, the process of removals and marginalisation had begun.

The first to be 'resettled' were black South Africans, forcibly displaced from the District in 1901. As the more prosperous moved away to the suburbs, the area became a neglected ward of Cape Town.

In 1966 it was declared a white area under the Group Areas Act of 1950, and by 1982, the life of the community was over. 60 000 people were forcibly removed to barren outlying areas aptly known as the Cape Flats, and their houses in District Six were flattened by bulldozers.

The District Six Museum, established in December 1994, works with the memories of these experiences and with the history of forced removals more generally.”

So basically people of all color and class were living together peacefully in a vibrant area…until the devil himself became the leader of South Africa. A system called apartheid was enforced and eventually led to the segregation and extinction of life in District 6.  Sad story right? The tour was even worse.

A victim of District 6 was our tour guide. We stood in one spot for about an hour while he explained two pictures. I wore my uncomfortably stylish sneakers today so I had to take a seat on the floor while he tried hard to put me to sleep. He stopped talking for about 10 seconds, and then told us to take about 10 steps back. He then announced that the tour was over. WHAT?! We didn’t even walk pass the lobby yet. But whatever, I was ready to go explore Cape Town and go shopping. At our own will, we checked out the rest of the museum and took pictures. Then we were off to explore the town!

We went back to the market area that we passed when we first got off the train this morning. It looks like a flea market, except bigger and full of African inspired stuff. I probably went to everybody’s vending stall. I just wanted to buy everything! But I only had enough money to buy a few little things, of which I won’t tell. We made plans with the UCT students to go out to Long Street tonight so we headed back to UWC to get ourselves ready.