When Gregory Geiriseb was born in 1995, his home country Namibia had just been independent for five years. He grew up in the township of Katutura, on the outskirts of the capital Windhoek. Ten of them lived in one house. "If you make an effort and are the best in your class, you can achieve anything later on," he had always told himself. Today, Geiriseb is 28 years old and works as a tour guide. He has left Katutura behind and now lives in another part of town. And yet he keeps returning: almost every day he takes tourists to the poorer areas of Windhoek. "We want to show that Namibia is more than wild animals and beautiful landscapes," he says.

Township tourism is not a new phenomenon. South Africa, Brazil, Jamaica, Egypt, Kenya, India, Indonesia: In many countries you can book guided tours through the poorer neighbourhoods of the metropolises. In 2015, researchers from the University of Potsdam estimated that more than one million tourists worldwide - mainly from the Global North - take part in guided tours through slums, townships or favelas every year. The first guided tours took place in South Africa as early as the 1980s, at that time partly for propaganda purposes of the apartheid regime. Forty years later, the segment is booming, also in Namibia. A Saturday morning in Windhoek. It is June, African winter. In front of the Christ Church in the centre of Windhoek there is nothing going on at this time. This is where the township tours begin, offered by Geiriseb's employer Chameleon Safaris and about half a dozen other tour companies.

Not even a quarter of an hour into the tour, we find ourselves on the grounds of one of the first German concentration camps. Geiriseb points to a statue with an image of horror carved into its base: women and men with bony bodies on the verge of starvation. "The victims of the German genocide in Namibia," Geiriseb says. From 1884 to 1915, the German Empire was the colonial power in what is now Namibia. Lieutenant General Lothar von Trotha ordered the total annihilation of the Herero population in October 1904 and the Nama in April 1905. According to estimates, up to 100,000 people died in resistance against the German colonial power, in concentration camps or died of thirst in the Omaheke Desert. When Geiriseb talks about the genocide, tourists sometimes start to cry. The part that most travellers book the tour for is yet to come: a visit to the township.

Geiriseb steers the bus out of the city centre to the outskirts of the capital. "Katutura," he says, "that means something like: Place we don't want to live." The South African occupation authorities had carved out the residential area in the late fifties. According to apartheid, Windhoek was to become a "white city". The black population had to move to remote Katutura. There, too, a policy of strict segregation applied: each individual group - for example Damara, Ovambo and Nama - was relegated to its own residential district. Kilometres of wasteland now lay between them and the rest of the city, of work and opportunities for advancement.

Simple little stone houses are lined up next to each other, a church service is taking place in a garden. People queue in front of a hairdressing salon made of corrugated iron sheets. Men wash cars in the streets or meet in shebeens - informal bars that usually open in the morning. Suppliers emphasise that the people who profit from tourism are those who need the money most. However, there are no fixed contracts with the locals, writes Chameleon Safaris on request. All parties involved are independent. "We support the people from the townships by bringing tourists to them and they can sell their products to them."

Geiriseb parks the bus in front of a wire mesh fence. We should leave our bags well hidden in the car, he says, so they don't get stolen. And if we want to take pictures of people, we should ask permission beforehand. The short briefing is followed by a detour to

the Oshetu Community Market. The contrast to the lifeless city centre could hardly be greater: The market is well attended, music and bass roar through the aisles of the open hall. Men are disembowelling cattle, their intestines floating around in a tub. Behind it, men are roasting "kapana" over an open fire - strongly spiced strips of beef that can be bought on every street corner in Katutura. "Have you tried it yet?" asks Pawa Hasheni, bald head, beard, friendly smile. Every day, from six in the morning to ten in the evening, he stands at his stall and sizzles. His main customers are still locals, he says. Tourists bring him only a fraction of his income. "Many people don't expect white people at the market," Hasheni says. "But I am proud of our traditions and I like to share them with them." Of course, he says, there are tourists who behave rudely and hold their cameras in front of his face without being asked. What does he do then? Hasheni shrugs. "As always, it depends on how you deal with it." His choice: composure.

Township tours are a balancing act for all involved. They can educate, raise awareness, promote intercultural exchange, say supporters. They can provide much-needed income. But there is also the danger that organisers enrich themselves from the plight of the people, exoticise or romanticise them - and thus further reinforce stereotypes. Some critics even speak of "human safari", "poorism" or "poverty porn".

"People who book township tours are often looking for a particularly authentic experience," says Markus Buderath from the Tourism Watch office at the aid organisation for development cooperation Bread for the World. "The problem with this is that you claim the power of interpretation. So you make a judgement about what is the real Africa - and what is not." Buderath recommends first questioning your own motivation: Why do you want to visit a township? What ideas do you have? Does one romanticise poverty at its worst? "I have to be aware that as a traveller I am always presented with a product," says Buderath, adding that it is all the more important who designs this product. In the best case, the guide comes from the area, like Geiriseb. The people from the townships should not become mere visual objects. Instead, they should be allowed to have a say - for example, in the narrative that is conveyed to the tourists. "If the local people are involved," says Buderath, "then such offers can be a means to more self-determination."

A few kilometres further west, the informal settlement of Havana begins. More and more people are flocking to the capital in search of work. The dream of a job usually remains unfulfilled. One makeshift corrugated iron hut follows the next. Nobody pays rent here. "It's not legal, but the government can't do much about it," says Geiriseb. "If they were to send people away, they would just put their shacks somewhere else. "By the roadside, vendors offer chips, vegetables and second-hand clothes, presented in cardboard boxes or on rickety steel stands. "We don't get off here, it would be too dangerous," says Geiriseb. The people's frustration is great, the atmosphere heated, the crime rate high. When he once tried to talk to the inhabitants, he was harshly rejected: Why does he, a Namibian from Katutura, bring tourists to Havana and show them how they live here? "It's better that they don't just see the fancy buildings in the city centre," he replied. "We want them to know where we really come from. "

There are no traffic rules in Havana. Agonisingly slowly, we fight our way through the congested streets. No one seems to pay any further attention to us. "People have got used to the tourist buses," says Geiriseb. On a hill he turns off the engine. We look down on a sea of corrugated iron huts reflected in the winter sun. Not 50 metres away from us, a man is rummaging through a pile of rubbish. "The people of Havana have the right to be angry about the tourists and their interest," says Geiriseb. "But they also have to see the other side: We are broadening people's perspective."

We make one more stop. The bus bumps along gravel roads until we suddenly find ourselves in an oasis. A dam spreads out before our eyes, jacaranda trees blossom in shades of pink and purple on the shore. Welcome to Penduka, a social project that supports disadvantaged women from the townships. One of them: Leni Roi. She shows us around the workshop where she and her colleagues sew and embroider dresses and cushion covers. In another room, they transform beer bottles into sparkling green bracelets. The women sell their products in the shop next door. "Someday I want to open my own fashion shop," says Roi. Is it intentional that the tour ends with a visit to Penduka, with pretty embroidery, opportunities for advancement and dreams for the future? "No," says Geiriseb, "it's just on the way back to the city centre."