Bo Kaap — A Visitors Perspective

Bo Kaap’s loc­a­tion, just above Cape Town’s busy CBD, may be expli­citly stated in its name (bo mean­ing ‘above’ in Afrikaans), but that’s just about the only thing obvi­ous or bor­ing about this quarter of cul­ture in Cape Town. Tucked into the slopes of Signal Hill, the area is steeped in a rich history.

Many of Bo Kaap’s inhab­it­ants are des­cen­ded from the slaves brought to the Cape by the Dutch in the 1700s, hail­ing from India, Malaysia, Africa, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. The people mak­ing up this rich mix­ture of cul­tures were uni­ver­sally, though incor­rectly, labelled ‘Cape Malay’, as was their flour­ish­ing archi­tec­ture and cuisine.

Today Bo Kaap is home to just over 6000 people, 90% of which are Muslim (a res­ult of the area’s clas­si­fic­a­tion as a Muslim Residential area dur­ing the country’s apartheid regime). This seem­ingly homo­gen­ous demo­graphic makes for an incred­ibly robust cul­tural exper­i­ence for any­body vis­it­ing the lively suburb ...

It’s well worth a wander around the romantic cobble-stoned streets to take in the archi­tec­ture of the Bo Kaap, much of which dates back to late 1700s. Though influ­enced by British and Dutch styles, the mostly semi-detached houses have a char­ac­ter of their own thanks to their brightly painted walls whose col­ours range between any­thing from lime green to rose pink.

Probably the most dis­tin­guish­ing col­lect­ive fea­ture of each house is the front ‘stoep’, elev­ated from the street and usu­ally sur­roun­ded by a rail­ing and fur­nished with a ‘bankie’ or bench, upon which one can ima­gine fam­il­ies and friends social­ising in the cool of the evening.

The old­est such dwell­ing is found at 71 Wale Street. Reportedly dat­ing back to the 1760s, the build­ing was con­ver­ted into the Bo Kaap Museum in 1978, and is fur­nished as a 19^th cen­tury Muslim dwell­ing. It doc­u­ments the his­tory of the ‘Cape Malays’, and the con­tri­bu­tion of these skilled crafts­men and schol­ars to the his­tory of the Cape as a whole. The yel­low­wood floors and ceil­ings were restored to rein­force the old Cape Dutch feel, as were the teak win­dow frames, doors and shut­ters. One of the rooms is fur­nished as a bridal cham­ber (http://www.iziko.org.za/bokaap/).

Of course, in a pre­dom­in­antly Muslim neigh­bour­hood that dates back hun­dreds of years, you’re going to run across a few mosques. One par­tic­u­larly worth pay­ing your respects to is the Auwal Mosque in Dorp Street, South Africa’s very first, estab­lished in 1798. A Shafee mosque, gov­erned by the doc­trines of Indonesian Muslims, this build­ing is the reason why 90% of the com­munity are Shafee Muslims.

One should also visit the Karamats — shrines that are the burial sites of Muslim saints, of which there are three in BoKaap itself, and two just behind it on Signal Hill. The Tana Baru, the three sites in BoKaap proper, have been there since 1840, and are there­fore a site not only of holy, but also of his­tor­ical, interest.

Cape Malay cuisine is very pop­u­lar in the Cape, with its aro­matic meld­ing together of spices, herbs, veget­ables and fruit. If you fancy you’re some­thing of a curry cook your­self, then don’t leave without stop­ping in at Atlas Trading, where you’ll find every spice you’ve ever heard of – and many that you haven’t.

And if you’re around at that time of year, the annual ‘Coon’ or Minstral car­ni­val on January 2 – ‘tweede nuwe jaar – is an all-singing, all-dancing, vibrantly col­our­ful parade not to be missed. The cel­eb­ra­tion ori­gin­ally marked the one day off work per year gran­ted to the Muslim slaves.

Useful Links
For addi­tional des­tin­a­tion inform­a­tion please see:
Bo Kaap Attractions
Bo Kaap Accommodation
Cape Town Accommodation