Thanks to VoiceMap, you can take a very informed and personal walk with Shareen Habib through the atmospheric and historic Bo-Kaap.
Shereen Habib was born in 1952 in a house at the top of Bo-Kaap, Cape Town’s “Malay Quarter”. The predominantly Muslim neighbourhood’s population is mostly descended from convicts, political exiles and slaves from the former Dutch East Indies.
Shereen’s family has lived in Bo-Kaap for almost a century. During apartheid’s darkest days when most non-white people were banished to designated neighbourhoods and townships on the outskirts of the city, including Shereen and her husband, her parents remained in the house on the hill.
She returned to Bo-Kaap after a decade with her husband in a formerly “coloured” area. It was home, she says. “After so much anger and so much death and so much shooting down, with my children witnessing it all, we were traumatised. I wanted to get back to where I knew best – where there was love and laughter – and so I came back here. And that’s when I knew that this is where I wanted to start telling my story.”
And that’s exactly what she’s been doing for the last two decades. Shereen invites people to see the neighbourhood where she grew up, through her eyes, either by joining one of her guided tours, or exploring at their own pace with VoiceMap’s Bo-Kaap walking tour.
Claire van den Heever visited Shereen in her home to ask her a few questions – click here to read this interview.
“The older you grow the more important it becomes when people acknowledge you as still a part of what is happening around you. And the connection is still there, so you don’t feel lonely. And that’s nice about Bo-Kaap: it has its sisterly and brotherly love that’s still around. I hope that never dies.”
Discover Shereen’s Bo-Kaap with VoiceMap
NEWS FLASH!!!
Join VoiceMap for a stroll along the promenade at sunset, listening to Maritime Meander by surfer, sailor, acclaimed travel writer and Mouille Point resident Justin Fox.
You’ll need headphones, VoiceMap — installed on your iPhone or Android device — and Justin’s walk, which you can purchase in app or at voicemap.me for R24,99. We’ll start out at the Grand and end just past Three Anchor Bay, at some oversized, infamous sunglasses.
WHERE & WHEN: Grand Cafe & Beach Bar Capetown, Hall Road, Granger Bay, Cape Town, 8001 Cape Town. 25 March at 18:00
INFO: fb
