Dining with Khayelitsha The townships are a taxi ride and a world away for many Capetonians. But a new project is changing perceptions, inviting urbanites into township homes for a meal. Claire van den Heever joins the guests. Our minibus taxi pulled away from the Central Library as a fair-haired Capetonian in her 50s turned to the young man sitting beside her. “Yintoni igama?” she asked, somewhat self-consciously. His name was Thando, he replied. He was Capetonian too. We travelled down the N2, but instead of continuing past the familiar sprawl of homes on our left, our vehicle slowed and turned down a potholed road, into Khayelitsha. The passengers hailed from a mishmash of places: Plumstead, Bishopscourt, Blouberg, Hamburg. Thando is one of seven ‘Khayelitshans’ who believe that inviting strangers to share a meal can break down stereotypes about the area, and change perspectives completely. Looking at the cluster of passengers that now stood gingerly beside the taxi in Site C, a change of perspective was almost inevitable. Few of us had set foot in Khayelitsha, let alone spent an evening in someone’s home. Thando and his childhood friends settled on a simple but illustrative name for the project that brought us together that Friday night: Dine with Khayelitsha. It was a ‘conversational dinner’, according to the Facebook and Twitter pages through which many of us had signed up, but we knew little more than that. We followed Thando down the narrow passage between a Vibracrete wall and a house, and into a yard to wait for a few latecomers. People lent against the walls, shifting their weight from foot to foot. Soon enough, almost 100 of us had crowded into the space. We were swiftly split into groups and introduced to our hosts for the night. Mine was Sive, one of the founders of Dine with Khayelitsha – or Dine, as everyone called it – and our motley crew of two Germans, a Brit and six South Africans followed him on foot through the centre of the carless streets. Rusty braai drums lined every corner, on which chickens cooked in the smoky dusk. Children ran from house to house, and mothers with babies strapped to their backs stopped to chat to one another. We continued farther into Site C towards its B section, with four teenage girls sauntering a few paces behind us. Sive’s friend Arty was playing marshal at the back, reminding us “Don’t lag behind” every block or so. We reached a beige-coloured house, and entered its living room through a small kitchen. The house was on loan for the evening, Sive explained. “We want the community to be part of the change.” Two young men joined us from nearby homes, and everybody found a seat – at the edge of the overflowing sofas, on an armrest or the floor. We were there to engage on important issues, said Sive in a measured voice, and a few eyes darted around the room. But our host had planned a warm-up activity, too and sure enough, as we took turns catching a ball and saying why we had come there that night, the ice was slowly broken. “The next activity is called A Bowl of Conversations,” he announced, handing out strips of paper and pens, on which we wrote topics for discussion. One by one they were picked out of a colander on a table in the centre of the room. Who was your role model while growing up? Is there hope for South Africa? Then mine: Education. It sparked a stream of responses, none of which I had anticipated. A man of about 40 with an incredibly wide smile suddenly became grave. He honestly couldn’t see much difference between the schooling he’d received under the Bantu Education Act and the education that the country’s poor receive today, he said, disappointed. Sive, almost 20 years his junior, nodded slowly. “There’s such a large gap between our parents and our generation. We can’t escape the fact that they aren’t well-educated,” he began. In Khayelitsha, wanting to study beyond middle school or high school didn’t make you “the clever child”, he explained. “If a family has two kids – one a high school dropout who is working, and the other a student – the one coming home with a pay cheque and groceries is seen as the family’s hope. That kid can help with the family’s needs, rather than creating expenses and being a burden.” At 22, Sive is studying for the Matric maths exam he failed at school. The white South Africans in the room had gone as quiet as the Germans, and we were probably just as ignorant about the lives of Sive and his peers. The conversation turned to bridging cultural divides and, for a while, ideas flowed. Stepping out of one’s comfort zone was essential, we agreed, and initiatives like Dine could go a long way to achieving this. We ate a dinner of minced beef and pap, served with fresh salad, and shared the few cans of beer I’d brought along. “Dine was intended as a platform for people to come together and share a purposeful meal,” Sisa, another co-founder, told me. “We looked at ways to bridge the gap between cities and townships.” But it was the group’s feelings about education in the township that had indirectly led to Dine with Khayelitsha. They were looking for ways to fund HaveFUN, an educational program that provides school children with stationery, homework assistance and, above all, tries to instil a sense of the fun in learning, which was so desperately lacking in their own childhoods. “I never got a chance to just be a free and happy child and grow up peacefully,” said Sive. “We saw Dine as a good platform to assist with HaveFUN.” Between 50 and 60% of guests’ R150 contribution to dinner funds the early childhood development project. Perhaps inspiration breeds inspiration, because there is a lot of idea-sharing between Khayelitsha’s grassroots projects. Sustainable food-growing initiative Ekasi Project Green supplies a growing amount of the vegetables served at Dine’s monthly dinners. The Mindful Food Network – a digital hub for local, sustainable food started by German-born Dennis Molewa – counts Ekasi Project Green and Dine with Khayelitsha as official partners. Dennis also helps with the cooking, along with Ofentse Mathope, head chef and owner at Kubu Cuisine, where seasonal, African ingredients are central. UBuntu Bridge has begun offering informal Xhosa instruction each month. “We’re trying to introduce a language element so that people can be greeted in their own language as we walk through the communities,” says the social enterprise’s founding director, Craig Makhosi Charnock. “Dine with Khayelitsha has huge social cohesion value.” Mpumelelo, another Dine founder, agrees: “When people come to the township, they usually come for charity work or as tourists. We want to change that mindset.” He and Dine’s co-founders are changing perspectives in the community around them too. Sive remains modest: “I’m like any other 22 year-old out there – I just happened to find myself surrounded by great people with great minds who shared the same daily challenges. I saw a need for change in the community and decided to do something about it.” .