Hout Bay fishing and other Cape Town, South Africa Local Custom Tips

The fishermen in Hout Bay go out EARLY in the morning (a LONG time before the average perosn is awake...) to bring in a good catch. A really nice thing to do is be there at the harbour when they come back in again to sell their catch :)

Just a tip? Boat A might be selling a large snoek for R30... the next boat will come in, selling their snoek for R25 and the next for R20... each one marks the other down. Al the fish is pretty much the same in quality and size... so shop around! Go home and cook it in the oven or, even better, have a snoek braai! Mmmm :)

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Website: www.houtbay.com
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Coloureds are a unique grouping of people that are of a mixed origin. They constitute more than 3 million, or approximately 8,7% of the total population of South Africa. This group of people, with their own unique culture and customs and speaking mainly a unique dialect of Afrikaans (a 'sing-along type of accent), resides mostly in the Western Cape.

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The Malay quarter, on the slopes of Signal Hill, in an old residential area of Cape Town, abounds with the typical, 18th century, flat-roofed Malay houses, many of them recently renovated. This area is famously called 'Bo-Kaap'... which in Afrikaans means 'Above the Cape'.

The Muslim Malay community is deeply religious and they keep to themselves as much as possible, not wanting 'bad' outside influences to come into their community. This unfirtunately does mean an imposed type of segragation from the local communities.

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Xhosa men are allowed to have more than one wife. The girls all HAVE to be virgins or else they bring much disgrace on her family. Her father receives a 'labola', a type of payment for her, usually in the form of cattle. If she is not a virgin, he will also get far less labola than were she one. The father also pays a dowry to the inlaws for his daughter for her keep.

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Xhosas are traditionally ancestral worshippers, placing high regard upon their ancestors. Nowadays there is a mix between an acknowledgement of God and ancestor.

The whole concept of death and burial has complex beliefs and rituals, and a funeral may last for days - believe you me, I know all about it... I had staff gone for days on compassionate leave. With AIDS being at crisis point now, most funerals are somehow AIDS related.

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The Xhosa language has clicking sounds throughout it. Hard to do with ones tongue (yes, I have tried! haha), it is a hollow sound.

When I had my handmade paper manufacturing business in the Cape, many of my employees were Xhosa, and we would spend many a day trying to teach other how to speak the others' language :) Needless to say, their English was ALOT better than my 'clicking' Xhosa!

Fond memories indeed...

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Xhosas are often called the 'Red Blanket People'. Their traditional colours are ochre (an orangey yellow colour) and red. An orangey red, not a fire engine red. This colour seeps into every aspect of their lives, their clothing, housing and decoration. It is often made up of an earthy clay.

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Homesteads have always traditionally been circular in format, with screened off kitchen areas outside the circular sleeping area. The hut is made of a frame of poles and shrubbery and boughs from trees in the shape of a bee hive.

They built these huts in a semi circle, and in the middle was their prized cattle. They made their homesteads like this for safety. Their maize was also safely stored away, in shallow pits beneath the cattle enclosure!

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People in Africa are generally more physical with one another. They do not have the same concept of a need for personal space as westerners do. This physical closeness has some positives, one being mum carrying baby on her back with a blanket tucked securely beneath the baby and tied around mums waist. This is a cultural thing too of course, as prams are not available as they are in the west. I personally like this for a baby. Baby feels mums heartbeat and its more comforting, even if your pram (buggy) happens to be a cool 4x4 haha

Another aspect of their community is friendship. They are very community-orientated, people are readily accepted into their homes to share meals with them (albeit them being meagre anyway), and friends are easily made. They help each other a lot and work well in a community.

Selfishness is not a word that seems to fit into their clicking vocabulary :)

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Initiation still takes place amongst the Xhosa people. Girls sometimes get circumcised too (which is largely frowned upon!), but boys are mainly circumcised. There has been an outcry for this practice to stop as there have been accidents and things have gone wrong, scalpels aren?t sterilized so infection sets in etc. But it does still go on, but mostly in the rural areas.

The boys are taken away from their village and go and live in the bush together for a few days. They partake in traditional bush dances, one being the 'Amakwetha', paint their bodies with a white clay substance and wear headdresses.

www.siyabona.com has some lovely detail about exactly what happens at one of these gatherings. Definitely worth a read!

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