Cape Town - White sheets covered several Cape Town streets, topped with iftar (fast-breaking dinner) treats catering for hundreds and in some cases thousands of people, as residents abandoned their cosy dining rooms for meals with neighbours and strangers during the holy month of Ramadaan.
“Boeberaand under the Bridge” for Cape Town’s homeless community took place on Thursday in Ebenezer Road, Green Point.
A popular Cape tradition is delighting in a bowl/glass of boeber – a warm milk and vermicelli-spiced drink to mark having reached the Ramadaan halfway mark.
Media and marketing practitioner and former Cape Argus editor, Gasant Abarder, said the initiative started last year as part of a challenge from the Soli Philander Foundation and Bryan Toerien.
The latter had arranged a five-course meal at the same spot for the city’s housing insecure on Christmas Day.
Eight 20-litre drums of boeber from the Century City Conference Centre and hotels and a pot of akhni from Gift of the Givers was sponsored, serving about 2 000 people. The food was then distributed across sites where the foundation is active in food distribution.
“The idea is to spend time with them, get to know them, and make friends. There were some deep connections made on Thursday which I’m really happy about in terms of work opportunities for some of the people we met, and we chose the 15th day of Ramadaan because it’s not really a religious day, but in Cape Town it’s a tradition of sharing, so Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu people all share in the delight known as ‘boeber’.”
The Honeybun Foundation held its annual community iftar in Park Road, Wynberg, on Saturday, with 200 to 250 people attending.
The Kenwyn Islamic Society also hosted its annual mass iftar on Saturday, to build and foster community bonds, spokesperson Abduraghman Jacobs said.
Last year’s iftar saw about 400 people come out, and this year it increased to 600. The event was made possible through community donations.
Sanzaf Western Cape regional manager, Shafiek Barendse said the organisation provides funding to 15 institutions or mosques in the Western Cape to undertake mass feedings throughout the month of Ramadaan.
In New Woodlands, Mitchells Plain, the Palestinian flag was raised in solidarity during its mass street iftar on Saturday, just outside Masjid Al Huda.
Co-ordinator Shahiem van Nelson said about 500 people attended.
“The whole idea of having an iftar like this is to create unity, because it is not only for Muslim people.”
The second “Boeka innie Bo-Kaap” is expected to take place in Wale and Rose streets, on April 14, in solidarity with Palestinians.
One organiser, Shafwaan Laubscher, said the second “boeka” coincides with Quds Day, an international day of solidarity held on the last Friday of Ramadaan.
“As Bo-Kaap and South Africans we are all too familiar with the injustice of apartheid, the illegal occupation of land and people being displaced, and these similarities ensure that we resonate with the people of Palestine,” Laubscher said.