Posts tagged Township

africa tours

andulela.com // Pull up a pew! It’s time to experience praise and worship township-style, as your local guides in Langa, Cape Town, or Kayamandi, Stellenbosch, take you into the very heart of the community: the church. This tour throws you right into the deep end of township life — and surprise, surprise — the water’s warm! Across the world, churches have always been an integral part of the life of poorer communities, serving a role that goes well beyond the purely spiritual. In the local townships, this truth has played out in a unique and profoundly South African way. After 1960, when the Apartheid regime banned political gatherings, it was from the pulpits that the oppressed voiced their rage, and it fell to the church leaders to rally the community under the banner of the one institution that the ruling party could not conceivably ban. Today, the churches continue to play an indispensable and variegated role in the cultural and social life of township communities. As a result of the broad range of needs to which they answer, services are somewhat different from those you might be used to. Casual, charismatic, and peppered with jubilant interjections from the congregation, they are as much a platform for community debate and discussion as they are occasions of worship. The welcoming attitude of the churchgoers and the rousing gospel music of the choirs are sure to lift the dourest of spirits, and will leave you with a whole new understanding of what it means to …