#shorts
As is tradition on the second day of January, Cape Town is packed with throngs of people, young and old, marching along the streets to the blare of trumpets and the beat of drums. Dancers, drum majors, and musicians make their way from District 6, through the city centre and into the Bo Kaap, each troupe bedecked in co-ordinating multihued, sequinned, and feathered costumes. This is South Africa’s Tweede Nuwe Jaar (‘Second New Year’), an annual parade during which Cape coloured South Africans participate in a decades-old tradition that honours their ancestors’ fight against slavery. Under colonial rule, people were brought to South Africa and enslaved. Each year, they were allowed one day off – the day after New Year’s. The community would celebrate their brief freedom by dancing and singing, as well as painting their faces white to mock their slave masters, who in turn would not recognise them behind the paint. In recent years, the parade known as the Coon Carnival or Kaapse Klopse sees troupes of over a thousand members honour this part of their history.

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