A dream come true

You feel enveloped by warm hospitality the minute you step through the door of Liziwe's Guesthouse in Gugulethu, some 15 km southeast of Cape Town's city centre. In fact, you are greeted like an old friend.
I had phoned to arrange a visit at very short notice. The owner, Liziwe Ngcokoto-Qubeka, was not available right then but my message was duly passed on by her polite teenage son and my call was soon returned by Andrew who takes care of office administration and public relations. An email with directions was received with equal speed and efficiency.

Liziwe's Guesthouse is the only double storey building on the block. In less than six years it has grown from three rooms into almost the size of a small hotel with ten double rooms, all of them en suite and stylishly decorated by Liziwe and husband Donald themselves. Expansion work started two years ago. Donald is now busy with the finishing touches. Before adding the new wing, the enterprising couple enlarged the dining room by two thirds of its original size. Donald's oldest son adorned it with a colourful mural. The new dining room seats up to 70 people and is also available for conferences and functions.

A dream is coming true for Liziwe Ngcokoto-Qubeka and Donald Qubeka. Now the proud owners of a well-established guesthouse, it is not all that long ago that they still lived in a modest abode on a corner of the very same plot in Gugulethu. But Donald was determined to build a proper house for his family. "The banks let me down", he says. "I went around like Oliver Twist, begging for old bricks." Then a wall was torn down at the paper mill where he worked. He was welcome to take all the bricks, said Donald's boss, if he carted them away himself. Donald did and during the next two years spent his spare time cleaning his 60 000 bricks. He learnt all he could about building and in 2005 his house was ready.
Actually Donald's in-laws are to blame that the new home which he built with his own hands became a guesthouse. They came to stay during the December holidays and were so taken with Liziwe's hospitality that they encouraged her to run a guesthouse. "They insisted that I can do it", she smiles, "and they promptly sent our first guests, acquaintances of theirs from King William's Town. When they finally arrived here at midnight it turned out that they were a family of eight! We had to make room for everybody very quickly. During the next days we took them to Cape Point and to Robben Island, and they really liked their holiday. They were convinced we would make a success of a guesthouse and they have also recommended us to others".
Word of mouth continues to play an important role, but how has Liziwe managed to attract foreign guests and the attention of tour operators amidst the mass of guest accommodation that is available in Cape Town? Her guesthouse was even chosen to feature in the BBC series Cooked in Africa last year.

Liziwe made a wise marketing choice already during her first year of operation, even though it was more of a coincidence in those early days. She agreed to advertise on a holiday accommodation website when it was offered to her, and her decision has proved an excellent move ever since. Her guesthouse is very well ranked and attracts a lot of business. Sometimes with amusing results because guests quite often have no idea where exactly the accommodation is that they booked through the internet. Liziwe tells us about a group of hunters from Denmark who stopped in Cape Town for just a few days. They picked her guesthouse because it is close to the airport - and because one of the pictures on the web showed the dining room mural of the Big Five. Donald went to collect the guests at the airport. "They had no clue they'd booked themselves into a township guesthouse and got rather apprehensive when I turned into Gugulethu", he recalls. "But when they had recovered they decided to forget about the usual Cape Town sights and rather look around right here, where they were. They went on township walks, tried the local barbershops, they loved the shebeens and they very much enjoyed their stay with us".
Quite a few guests are 'frozen' when they step through the door, Donald says. "After all, townships are a no-go zone. I like to see them thaw, and they all do". Liziwe and Donald have such a pleasant, totally sincere and serene way of making you utterly welcome that you can't imagine anyone not feeling at ease.
White South Africans remain a rarity, however. Let's face it: very few of us venture into the townships. Of course we can always offer the excuse that we don't know anybody there and therefore don't actually have any business going into a township. But the truth really is that we expect all sorts of bad things to happen and feel rather uneasy - because of events in the past, no doubt - but perhaps also because we are a long way from our own comfort zone and we know that we are sticking out like a sore thumb. Visitors from Europe don't seem to have such qualms. Many of them are actively looking for the township experience and many become regulars, returning again and again. They also refer their friends or they want to give something to the community which they started to get to know a little and donate educational toys or parcels of clothes.

Liziwe and Donald also give to the community. A portion of what they make with their township walks is kept for a Christmas party. Last year more than a hundred children from the neighbourhood were invited for a day of fun and games and each of them went home with a present. "By now, people know our walks and they look out for us", says Donald.

Apart from walking the neighbourhood for about 40 minutes, guests are also taken to the local shebeens, which invariably are a big hit, or the public outdoor braai, or a sangoma. Or to the usual Cape Town sights: Table Mountain, Robben Island, Cape Point. It seems that there is no service that Liziwe and Donald would refuse: be it that guests need to be picked up at the airport at night, a music group is required or a babysitter is needed. Nothing is a problem, it is all done with a smile. And you would never guess that Donald has passed 60 and even Liziwe is old enough to be a grandmother.

I ask Liziwe which part of her business she enjoys most. "Hosting", she says without thinking twice, "I really like to host people". She also loves to cook and is not fazed by a booking for a staggering 70 people. "I make lots of vegetable dishes, like carrots, roasted beans, broccoli, served with stywe pap [maize meal porridge] and lamb chops and chicken," she says. "At the thought of African food some visitors get a bit scared because they think of sheep's head, offal or Mopane worms. I prefer to say it is African food because it is food cooked by an African woman". Well, whenever I tasted Xhosa cooking it was simply delicious, tasty but easy on spices, vegetables never overcooked and the meat always tender and succulent. Liziwe provides lunch and dinner for her guests, and by appointment she also arranges an African dinner experience for groups.

Liziwe's Guesthouse has inspired others in Gugulethu to follow suit, and in true African spirit the pioneers are lending a helping hand to the competition. Is there anything Liziwe would like to do for herself, I wonder. She taught herself computer skills and would now like to enrol for a business course at university level, she says.
We stayed much longer than intended and wouldn't mind spending more time in this hospitable house. We take our leave with the warm feeling that we would be welcome again at any time. On the way back into Cape Town we realize that it is actually very easy to find Liziwe's Guesthouse.