April 2024 BOOKED Trips: Cape Town, South Africa Recap
OUR FEATURED BOOK:INTRUDERS BY MOHALE MASHIGO
Our BOOKED Trips Cape Town, South Africa experience was held April 18-25, 2024. We explored Cape Town, South Africa through the lens of the book “Intruders,” a speculative fiction short story collection written by South African writer, singer, and songwriter Mohale Mashigo. Prior to the trip our travelers received signed copies of the book from the Book Lounge, an independent book store in Cape Town, South Africa.
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The collection centers around ordinary people thrust into extraordinary situations by events beyond their control. It is a book for and about what Mohale Mashigo calls “the weird, the wonderful … and us, who never see ourselves in the stars but die in seas searching for them.” Using a speculative lens to consider the future of Africa in a time of impending crisis, Mashigo illuminates the reverberating effects of marginalization in South African society while writing characters that refuse to be sidelined, dismissed, or ignored.
As a precursor to the collection Mashigo states, “I believe Africans, living in Africa, need something entirely different from Afrofuturism…our needs, when it comes to imagining futures, or even reimagining a fantasy present, are different from elsewhere on the globe; we actually live on this continent, as opposed to using it as a costume or a stage to play out our ideas. We need a project that predicts (it is fiction after all) Africa’s future ‘post-colonialism’; this will be divergent for each county on the continent because colonialism (and apartheid) affected us in unique (but sometimes similar) ways. In South Africa, for instance, there needs to exist a place in our imaginations that is the opposite of our present reality where a small minority owns most of the land and lives better lives than the rest.”
This reimagining of a South Africa where the majority Black population is centered, respected, and thriving is a part of the project our group of travelers embarked on together. We explored Black and women-owned businesses throughout Cape Town and the nearby winelands learning about the food, history, and culture of the city from boundary-breaking local artists, creatives, and entrepreneurs.
In the short story collection those who have been forgotten or discarded fight back against erasure and imagine themselves into the future. This book and our trip are an effort to center those marginalized voices. The story Ghost Strain N’s focus on color and cuisine inform our Bo-Kaap photowalk and cooking class. The story’s reference to the history of wine laborers will guide our visit to Klein Goederust. The story Palermo’s focus on forgotten history will be embedded throughout the trip, particularly in our Black history city tour.
Check out interview with Mohale Mashigo for more information about our featured author.
Day 1: Opening Dinner & Book Discussion with Mohale Mashigo
After being picked up from the airport each of our travelers was taken to our 4-star, boutique hotel in the heart of Cape Town. On each of our trips our travelers have a private, single room to rest and recharge. No sharing rooms required!
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Each BOOKED Trips experience starts with an opening dinner and book discussion for travelers to meet, connect, and discuss our featured read over a meal of local cuisine. Our travelers met at SIBA Restaurant, a 5-star dining experience in the heart of Cape Town led by Siba Mtongana, a multi award-winning celebrity chef, mother, and author.
The seasonal set menu is driven by Siba’s stories from her childhood in South Africa to her international travels around the world. As one of the few Black women chefs in the city, Siba’s restaurant was the perfect launch point to begin our journey. After dinner we were joined by Mohale Mashigo for a facilitated discussion and open Q&A in our private dining area. A recap and clips from our experience can be found here.
Day 2: A Taste of South Africa
“Ghost Strain N”, a short story in the collection” Intruders” by Mohale Mashigo follows two best friends, Steven and Koketso, who are navigating an apocalyptic drug epidemic. Steven “has the taste buds of a culinary genius when it came it improvising and matching flavours” and added colour to Koketso ‘s world. Steven becomes infected with Ghost Strain N and the story follows them as Koketso fights to save his best friend from being disposed of despite his addiction. The story is a metaphor for addiction and shows a tenderness Black boys and men who struggle with addiction are rarely afforded. The story beautifully highlights how far we’ll go for those we love and shows that no one is disposable.
To honor Steven’s culinary prowess we took a 3-course Cape Malay cooking class with one of the lead cooks at Faeza’s Home Kitchen in Bo-Kaap, one of the most colorful areas in Cape Town.
Cape Malays, are a Muslim community in South Africa. They are the descendants of enslaved and free Muslims from different parts of the world, specifically Indonesia (at that time known as the Dutch East Indies) and other Asian countries, who lived at the Cape in South Africa during Dutch and British rule.
The enslaved that arrived at the Cape of Good Hope as early as 1658 brought recipes and spices (like cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, cloves and chili) with them indigenous from the countries they hailed from. In this way they kept their history and traditions alive through colonization.
After lunch we’ll enjoy a 1-hour photo walk through Bo-Kaap with a professional photographer and local guide.
Later in the afternoon we’ll experience panoramic views of the city from our private cable car as we journey to the top of Table Mountain.
We’ll end our night with a Braai, or South African BBQ, at Curiocity Green Point, which is a part of a network of African design hostels and hotels created by Johannesburg native Bheki Dube when he was only 21 years old. After a welcome address from Bheki, we were serenaded by Char Monedi, a singer and songwriter from the Gauteng Province of South Africa .
Day 3: A Journey Through the City with Cape Town’s Entrepreneurs
Cape Town is considered the most racially segregated city in South Africa, stemming back to the apartheid era. As noted in Mohale Mashigo’s book Intruders, Black South Africans are treated as outsiders in their own country and are systematically kept from opportunities for economic and landownership. At BOOKED Tripswe aimed to learn the Black history of the city and to support the Black owned businesses beating the odds.
We started at Seven Colours Eatery, a Black woman owned restaurant run by Chef Nolu Dube-Cele committed to sharing her passion for South African food and culture. She personally led us through the story of her food and offered us a multi course delicious, nutritious, and rainbow soul food experience.
Seven Colours also highlights other Black woman-owned businesses by offering beverages by local companies such as Her Wine Collection, Lady Bloom Gin, and more.
After lunch we headed to AFRIKOA, and African woman co-founded chocolate shop for a bean to bar chocolate tasting. AFRIKOA aims to eradicate unfair labor practices throughout the cocoa supply chain and end the persistent cycle of poverty of farmers through direct trade which results in the farmers being paid fairly and directly for their product.
We spent the rest of the day on Black history walking tour where we learned about over 300 years of history from colonization of the indigenous San and Khoe Khoe tribes through apartheid.
The Dutch slave trade at the Cape colony began in 1658 with the vast majority of enslaved people in the Cape coming from Madagascar, the Indian subcontinent and South-East Asia. When they arrived in the port of Cape Town they were given new names to strip them of any connection to their previous ‘free’ identity and the places where they came from.
In 1657 Doman, a Khoisan leader, was sent to Batavia to learn to become an interpreter for the Dutch. But having witnessed first hand the capacity of the Dutch to reduce indigenous people to positions of servitude, he became a staunch opponent of European colonisation. Our tour highlighted the struggle & triumph of BlPOC communities.
Day 4: A Winemaker’s Journey
We visited Klein Goederust and meet the winemaker Rodney. The whole team ensured we had a PHENOMENAL experience. The moment you walk into the space you are welcomed home. The level of service and attention are unparalleled and every wine was delicious. Definitely stay for the spitfire lamb lunch on the weekends.
After saving for 15 years and waiting 8 years for their offer to be accepted, the Siguqa family acquired Klein Goederust winery in 2019 and began their own winemaking journey inspired by the family matriarch Nomaroma Siguqa, a lifelong Cape wine farm labourer.
In the story “Ghost Strain N” in the book collection, a new strain of disease hit “farm workers on Wine farms where Ghosts ripped the throats out of people and ate them. Koketso thought a lot about the different strains and what drove Ghosts to attack certain body parts and not others. He finally decided that Strain W made Ghosts rip out the oesophagus from people because they had wine poured down their throats instead of being compensated and invested in by those who profited from their labour.” – Intruders by Mohale Mashigo
In a 80% Black country it’s still near impossible for Black entrepreneurs to ascend to the level of ownership. “White South Africans make up about 8 percent of the population, yet own 79 percent of privately held farmland, according to an analysis by Johann Kirsten, the director of the Bureau for Economic Research in South Africa. The disparity is even wider in the wine industry. Black people own only about 2.5 percent of the country’s vineyard acreage, according to a report by Vinpro, an industry trade group.”
Klein Goederust broke barriers by breaking into spaces that were previously exclusively white, aligning with our trip read “Intruders” by Mohale Mashigo.
Days 5 and 6: Full Day Cape Peninsula Experience
After a free day the group experienced a photo-worthy (even if foggy) day in Cape Peninsula, known for its ocean and mountain beauty. We traversed Chapman’s Peak Drive, arguably one of the most scenic coastal drives in the world. We visited some of Cape Town’s best beaches including Clifton beach,Camps Bay, and Muizenberg beach. We caught cliffside views of the ocean as we walked along through Cape Coast on our way to southernmost tip of South Africa at Cape Point.
We visited Boulders beach, famous for being home to a colony of 3,000 African penguins and enjoyed an included lunch of fish and chips at Fran’s restaurant, a woman of color-owned restaurant in Simon’s town. In the 1960s, Simon’s Town was proclaimed a White Group Area and over the next few years black people, many of whom had family ties dating back to the early settlement of the area, were forced to move out. With this history it was important for us to support a business that’s reclaiming this space to tie to the themes of our featured book “Intruders” by Mohale Mashigo.
In Kalk Bay travelers had free time to explore some of the local book stores before a sunset lunch at Zen Zero and returning back to our hotel.
Day 7: Champagne Sunset Cruise & Closing Dinner
Our travelers enjoyed a free morning and afternoon to do any last minute independent exploration of Cape Town. We all met back up for a champagne sunset cruise on the V&A Waterfront where we got to let loose and celebrate our week together.
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When we surveyed our travelers on their favorite part of the trip multiple people mentioned our closing dinner at Gold Restaurant. GOLD was started by Cindy Muller, a Black woman who decided she wanted to showcase Africa to visitors in a sophisticated and unique way. She wanted to do away with the stereotypical image of Africa being a poor and hungry continent by showcasing the cuisine, art, and music of various countries on the continent.
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Our group did the private spice experience which explores the history of spices throughout the world, taking diners on a story telling adventure through the eyes of GOLD’s staff from around Africa. We got to smell, taste, grind, and identify spices as we got a history lesson on the spice route and how they combined to create our 14-dish meal.
The menu is inspired by the home countries of the women who work there including South Africa, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zambia where the head chef Mavis finds her roots. We got the chance to go behind the scenes in the kitchen to meet the women who make our meals possible. We participated in a hands-on spice blending experience and took home our own masala spice blend.
There was SO much delicious food (including the cardamom ice cream that is still being talked about) so we were happy to learn that instead of throwing out what’s left unused at the end of the night, GOLD donated all our excess food to The Haven Shelter in Napier Street Cape Town. If you’re ever in Cape Town, South Africa GOLD restaurant is a must visit experience.
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