Bo Kaap

During our stay in Cape Town, Evert and I off course had to pay a visit to the neighborhood “Bo Kaap”, famous for its bright & colorful houses. A couple of days earlier, we had our first attempt but when we got out of the car, somehow we didn’t feel safe so we decided to leave… I was pretty disappointed because I wanted to photograph these cute houses really bad! Luckily, later that week we had some extra time left and we drove back to Bo Kaap. It turned out we never got to the right streets so this time our visit was nice and safe. We walked around in the neighborhood for a while and I couldn’t stop taking pictures! Every home has its own fresh colour and the details are so simple but inspiring…

Bo Kaap is a multi cultural muslim area where the residents are descendants of former slaves. These slaves from South East Asia were brought to Cape Town by the Dutch VOC in the 18th century. During that time it was not allowed for the slaves to wear colorful clothing. When the abolition of slavery came, naturally it was celebrated by bringing colour into the neighborhood in the most outspoken way you can imagine! For the current homeowners it’s still a tradition to give their houses a fresh layer of paint after the yearly Ramadan. No wonder these houses all looked so well taken care of! Despite that this place is very touristy, I’m very happy that we got to see it! Actually it wasn’t even that busy when we were there so there were no tourists blocking my view 😉

Photography: Marij Hessel