The tragic aspect of Cape Town's beauty is that much of the urban landscape was taken by force under the aparthied laws beginning in 1948. Over four decades, hundreds of thousands of people were brutally moved out of the city and "resettled" in townships.
I spent an afternoon visiting Langa Township about 20 minutes outside of Cape Town. Now housing over 250,000 people, Langa has 60% unemployment and a serious issue with the spread of HIV/AIDS.
What struck me as most tragic is the sense of dependency that the township people have -- on their goverment and on foriegn aid. Without the tradition of small family businesses and entrepreneurship that I saw in India, South Africa's poor seem to face a daunting task in striving for a culture of self-sufficiency.
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