So what do you think about slum tourism?

In Khayelitsha, an informal township on the Cape Flats in Cape Town I had met with a grey haired lady who was endeavouring to start a restaurant business in her home. I had arrived with a local township tours operator in a VW combi, we had been to District Six Museum, I had seen where people had been resettled from when District Six was cleared between 1966 and 1982. This is not ancient history.  I had read and been told about the all-night  vigils held in the church, which now houses the museum, for those who had been arrested and who were being interrogated in the police station opposite. I had sat and talked with the entrepreneur about her aspirations in the new South Africa for her business and what it means for her and her community.

As she came out to see me off, a 50+ seat tour coach came by and stopped with dozens  of cameras shooting down at us from the widows above us. They were looking down on us, from behind a glass screen they were shooting photographs. I was so affronted I forgot to take one back