What Langa Taught Me About Community, Systems, and What Endures

One of the experiences I most looked forward to while traveling through South Africa was spending time in its townships, knowing they would offer a deeper understanding of place beyond what is visible on the surface.

South Africa is often described through contrast. Beauty and inequality sit close together, shaped by a history that is still very present. To understand the country beyond its most affluent spaces requires moving closer to the communities where decisions made long ago continue to shape daily life. Visiting Langa, one of the country’s oldest townships, created that space. It offered a view shaped not only by hardship, but by resilience and continuity, and by the long reach of systems that still influence access and opportunity.

Langa, like many townships, it came into being through deliberate decisions that separated people from economic centers, resources, and political power. Those decisions belong to a specific period in history, but their effects are still visible in housing, mobility, access to services, and the pace of everyday life. What stayed with me most, though, was not disparity alone, but the strength of community within it.

That strength became especially clear while spending time at a local school and meeting the children there. Their curiosity and openness were evident in the way they moved through the space together. Learning, care, and connection felt closely held, supported by teachers, families, and a wider community invested in the future. Being there made clear that while systems shape conditions, they do not determine a community’s dignity, imagination, or sense of possibility.

I also moved through places like Franschhoek, including time learning about Klein Goederust, South Africa’s first Black-owned wine estate. Being in spaces shaped by land ownership, legacy, and wealth, and then returning to places like Langa, stayed with me. The same history runs through all of it, but it shows up differently depending on who has had access, and who has not. I’ll share more about that experience separately.

Traveling through other parts of the country, including Johannesburg, offered a wider view. As a major economic and political center, Johannesburg reflects progress and inequality side by side. Moving between townships and large cities made the connection between systems, geography, and lived experience hard to ignore. Decisions made far from communities continue to shape who has access, who carries the burden, and whose voices are heard.

Langa did not offer a single takeaway, but perspective. It reinforced that conversations about systems and leadership need to remain close to the communities they affect, and that honest narratives make room for both harm and endurance. That balance is where trust begins.