On a warm Thursday afternoon, at the Wanderers cricket grounds in Johannesburg, he looks like a high school fan seeking autographs.
Look again; this is Temba Bavuma, a history-maker with a quick eye and a broad bat. The 5.47-foot tall cricketer was the first black South African to score a century in a test match.
Where he made history is part of his story. The century came at one of the most pristine cricket grounds in the world, watched by some of the richest people in Africa at Newlands in Cape Town. Bavuma looked like he was born there; he wasn’t. He was born just 10 kilometers away, in the impoverished Langa township. Two worlds that could hardly be further apart.
On the walls of Langa, the heroes of the streets are celebrated in paintings. Bavuma is up there among the likes of South African music icon Brenda Fassie, sporting heroes Thabo Mngomeni and Thami Tsolekile.
“Inspiring the kids is important because they need to see that there is a brighter future outside the streets of Kwa-Langa,” says Bavuma.
The 26-year-old batsman says in achieving his maiden test century in January, there was no greater feeling than being recognized  by the youth in his township and the young children running up to him, seeking batting advice.
“Life has changed quite significantly since my milestone at Newlands. I spent a couple of days back home at Kwa-Langa and not only the elderly, but the youngsters were really proud of what I had done. The media also was flocking [after] me afterwards,” says Bavuma.
As he speaks, it is clear that the young batsman has his head firmly on his shoulders despite all the media hype.
Bavuma came from a family of sportsmen; inspiration came from his uncles. As a boy he would attend their cricket matches. His sports journalist father also loves the sport.
Bavuma’s talent was already evident in his early years at one of the oldest schools in South Africa, the South African College Junior School. When the family moved to Johannesburg, because of his father’s career, Bavuma would consolidate his cricketing career even further at St David’s Marist Inanda.
Now, he is one of a new generation of sought-after black cricketers that teams are prepared to pay top dollar for.
“Naturally you’ll find that franchises are going to end up paying more for your black African players because they need to field a certain number. It’s like in any market, you have bread and you have milk. Milk might cost more than bread and there’s a reason that milk costs more, maybe there’s a bit more demand for milk you know,” says Bavuma.
“I never actually saw myself competing with a fellow African brother or a black guy, I saw myself competing for six spots with all the other guys batting. That’s helped me to keep me much more motivated and to feed my competitive edge.”
Apart from the financial benefits he gets for being a black African cricketer, Bavuma says he has never experienced any form of racism from his teammates. He says he was welcomed warmly at the Proteas camp and he feels a part of a brotherhood. Bavuma notes, though, that he did receive some chirping on the pitch from English all-rounder Ben Stokes during the test series.
“He walked up to me while I was on the crease and he basically told me that I didn’t belong in the team. I guess chirping is part of the game,” says Bavuma.
The significant impact Bavuma’s 102 not out could have on children, especially to the majority of South Africa’s population was not lost on the young man who had grown up in the township.
“When I made my debut, I came to be a bit more aware of the significance behind it. It’s not just me making my debut for South Africa but it’s being a role model and inspiration for other kids, black African kids in particular. So this milestone solidifies this achievement,” says Bavuma.
Powerful words from a small man, with a big heart, born and bred in Langa.

Langa’s Little Big Man

Cape Town’s townships were once referred to as “apartheid’s dumping ground”. Today, 22 years into democracy, the stories usually told of these spaces speak of poverty, rampant crime and socioeconomic marginalization.
But Tony Elvin, the charismatic founder of Ikhaya Le Langa, has a very different view. “When I first discovered Langa, not only was it not what I was told in terms of supposedly being a sad and fearful place,” he says, “It was the place where I found a community still intact. There’s an energy and a spirit that is in Langa, and if we can capture that, it’s like gold.”
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Seated in the café at his headquarters in a repurposed Langa primary school, Elvin uses a detailed and dog-eared map of Cape Town to introduce what his NGO is trying to achieve in Cape Town’s oldest black township.
What the map reveals is surprising and powerful: Langa does not sit on the isolated peripheries of the metropolis where common lore has long positioned it, but right at its pulsing heart.
As a black Londoner living in Langa, Elvin admits that he’s used to surprising people. Before he moved here permanently in 2010, the long-neglected Langa community’s interaction with the rest of the world had been limited to occasional groups of white tourists passing through on a quick “poverty safari”, as Tony disdainfully calls the archetypal township tour, before heading back to their cushy city hotels.
Through the ongoing development of the so-called Langa Quarter, Elvin hopes to emphatically change that trend.
“The aim is to create an aspirational cool place, not just for tourists, to create a new place in Cape Town where Capetonians can also go, not only for a history lesson, but to listen to some great jazz, see some great art, chill out and have a great time. I want the Langa Quarter to be to Cape Town what the French Quarter is to New Orleans,” says Elvin.
The Langa Quarter is the pilot model of a concept that Elvin has dubbed the “Social Enterprise Precinct”. The idea, he says, is to overlay the social enterprise principles of “people, planet and profit” onto particular neighborhoods, and to thereby create “viable, sustainable spaces where investment will flourish, and the poverty will then take care of itself.”
Elvin has considerable experience doing this in Cape Town, having first come here as a social enterprise consultant for celebrity chef Jamie Oliver in 2004. Elvin soon fell in love with the city and went on to set up his own social enterprise consultancy firm in the center of Cape Town, where he came into contact with a number of young township-based social entrepreneurs.
“I became aware that there was a lot more I wanted to do in Cape Town, and particularly in the townships,” says Elvin.
He concedes that he still “wasn’t quite sure” what he was setting out to achieve when he moved from his luxurious Hout Bay residence into the township to start Ikhaya Le Langa.
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“Even today, I sometimes describe it all as being at sea, in the middle of a storm, in a boat that I’m still building, without knowing what shape it will take, and I’m not sure what direction I’m headed in either. It’s still new, this approach.”
But Elvin can already boast a number of successes, including the Langa Quarter Homestay Hotel, where visitors are fed and accommodated in the home of a Langa resident. Since its inception a little over a year ago, this initiative has contributed more than R100,000 (roughly $6,400) to the 15 households currently involved – a considerable amount of money in an area where the majority earn less than R4,000 (roughly $250) a month.
Then there’s the annual, and increasingly well-attended, Uplifting Langa Through Reachable Art (ULTRA) street art event, which this year drew talented artists from across the Langa community and far beyond; world-renowned French street artist Jace stayed in Langa for a week as the event’s artist in residence.
Other fledgling ventures – including a media, graphics and advertising studio, an online shop for local artisans and designers, and a new restaurant – have drawn support from multinational companies, including Amazon and Ikea.
But take a walk with Elvin through the intricate crisscrossing streets of the quarter and it’s evident that he’s not resting on his laurels. He talks incessantly, throwing out countless ideas and plans for improving everything that he passes.
The effusive greetings he receives from the local residents along the way pay testament to the time he has invested in gaining their trust, and ensuring that they will be a central part of every step of this process.
“Above all, I’m focused on how the wonderful, cool transformation of Langa can positively influence the community and what is the opportunity to drive change. Langa deserves to be shown some love.”
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It’s also clear that Elvin feels more than just a philanthropic affinity for Langa.
“I love living in Langa. I’ve got friends here, I love the noise of Langa, I like the people that you walk around and see every day – it’s really very charming. After six years, Langa’s my home.”
With so much still in the pipeline, Elvin is not looking to uproot himself anytime soon.
“The Langa Quarter is far from a finished product, but we are at a stage where we can invite people in and, critically, they can stay,” he says. “So that’s a stake in the ground and we will grow from that, and more and more people will benefit from that. Essentially what we’ve done already is create hope.”

Tag: Langa

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Langa’s Little Big Man

The Londoner Capturing African Spirit And Spinning It Into Gold