So many tourists are coming to experience the 'new South Africa' that tourist arrivals reached 4 million in 1996. Cape Town is the main destination and its close shave with winning the 2004 Olympic bid has raised its profile even further. Someone told me that five years ago there were only about five backpackers hostels in Cape Town, now there are more than 50. You end up in a Zulu village where you're fed by a Zulu family - a different family each time a group goes. It took 10 months for us to negotiate with the Zulu chief in the valley.
Some money goes to a community development fund for schools and clinics.
If you don't get to a Zulu village, something to do to feel that you're really in Africa is go to a township and see how the majority of black South Africans live. From Johannesburg you can go to Soweto or from Cape Town you can go to the Cape Flats. It's not all doom and gloom. But there is also hope - hostels being renovated, new houses being built, community projects. People in Soweto are getting used to minibuses full of backpackers wandering around clicking their cameras and reducing the children to beggars of boiled sweets - possibly not the wisest way to share your wealth even if the kids are cute.